On this file picture from 2024, Taliban army helicopters fly to have fun the third anniversary of Taliban’s takeover of Afghanistan, on the Bagram Air Base, in Bagram, Parwan province on August 14, 2024. President Trump banned the arrival of Afghan nationals to the U.S. with exceptions for many who have particular immigrant visas.
Ahmad Sahel Arman/AFP by way of Getty Pictures
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Ahmad Sahel Arman/AFP by way of Getty Pictures
President Trump enacted a journey ban on residents from a dozen international locations Wednesday, together with Afghanistan, the place U.S. troops had been stationed for practically twenty years.
Although the president’s journey ban applies to Afghanistan, it does embody an exception.
Afghans who served with the U.S. in the course of the warfare can nonetheless pursue what’s often called a Particular Immigrant Visa. Because the chaotic army withdrawal of U.S. troops in August of 2021, round 200,000 Afghans have resettled within the U.S., many beneath that visa program.
As well as, greater than 200,000 Afghans stay exterior the U.S. whereas awaiting varied levels of the applying course of, together with many who labored with the People.
These figures are from U.S. officers and personal teams aiding Afghans who need to transfer to the U.S., together with AfghanEvac, an advocacy group which maintains statistics on the variety of Afghan nationals trying resettlement.
The president’s proclamation additionally carves out exceptions for people already within the U.S. searching for asylum. Whereas it doesn’t deal with refugee resettlement, the U.S. has paused virtually all refugee applications beneath one other government order.
Many Afghans searching for SIVs and refugee standing say they worry for his or her security beneath Taliban rule within the nation.
Trump cited the necessity to deal with the specter of terrorism because the catalyst for the journey ban, with the White Home reality sheet noting particularly about Afghanistan: “The Taliban, a Specifically Designated International Terrorist (SDGT) group, controls Afghanistan. Afghanistan lacks a reliable or cooperative central authority for issuing passports or civil paperwork and it doesn’t have acceptable screening and vetting measures.”
The administration additionally cited visa overstay statistics in its reasoning for Afghanistan’s inclusion.
A separate program giving Afghan nationals momentary protected standing within the U.S. expired in Could, with remaining termination scheduled for July 14. In a information launch on the time the top of that standing was introduced, Secretary of Homeland Safety Kristi Noem said: “Afghanistan has had an improved safety state of affairs, and its stabilizing financial system now not forestall [Afghans] from returning to their dwelling nation.”
The discharge additional defined that Noem “decided that allowing Afghan nationals to stay quickly in the US is opposite to the nationwide curiosity of the US.”
The top of AfghanEvac, Navy veteran Shawn VanDiver, referred to as the journey ban a “betrayal.”
“This ban does nothing to guard People. It punishes Afghan allies, members of the family, college students, professionals, and humanitarian parolees—lots of whom had been already promised a pathway to security,” he stated in a press release.
