Afghans who relocated to California have been reeling over the previous few months and weeks because the Trump administration has moved to finish deportation protections amid rising efforts to additional prohibit Afghan nationals from coming to the U.S.
This week, regardless of efforts by a company suing to keep up the protections, the Trump administration ended Non permanent Protected Standing for Afghans, which the U.S. granted in Could 2022 after it withdrew navy forces from Afghanistan. The standing allowed Afghans to come back to the U.S. and acquire work authorization, however it didn’t present a pathway to citizenship.
“Persons are determined,” mentioned Shawn VanDiver, the founder and president of AfghanEvac, a nonprofit that helps the secure relocation of Afghan allies. “They’ve adopted all the principles. They’ve carried out every part the U.S. requested them to do, and at each nook, the Trump administration has been blocking them.”
The Trump administration in January suspended Afghan refugee packages and canceled scheduled flights for Afghans cleared by the federal government. In Could, the State Division despatched layoff notices to workers on the Coordinator for Afghan Relocation Efforts, often known as CARE, the company tasked with working to make sure Afghans acquired settled into the U.S. with authorities assist. And in June, Trump instituted a journey ban, suspending journey for Afghan nationals to the U.S. and leaving households who had been hoping to reunify caught in limbo.
Afghans have more and more gotten caught up within the Trump administration’s efforts to ramp up deportations. In San Diego, an Afghan nationwide who labored as a translator for the U.S. navy and had been granted humanitarian parole was detained after attending an asylum listening to at immigration courtroom.
The Division of Homeland Safety introduced in Could that it will terminate Non permanent Protected Standing for Afghans. Secretary Kristi Noem mentioned situations in Afghanistan “don’t meet the necessities for a TPS designation.”
In a press launch, the division mentioned: “The Secretary decided that, total, there are notable enhancements within the safety and financial state of affairs such that requiring the return of Afghan nationals to Afghanistan doesn’t pose a risk to their private security as a consequence of ongoing-armed battle or extraordinary and short-term situations.”
Many organizations that assist relocate Afghans criticized the transfer, saying situations in Afghanistan, now underneath the Taliban, should not secure for individuals who fled, particularly for individuals who assisted the U.S. navy in the course of the conflict. Casa, a nationwide advocacy group, filed a lawsuit in opposition to DHS, difficult the top of TPS for Afghans, in addition to for Cameroonians, as illegal.
President Trump boards Air Drive One certain for Scotland on July 25, 2025, at Joint Base Andrews, Md.
(Andrew Harnik / Getty Photographs)
On Monday, the 4th Circuit Courtroom of Appeals denied a movement by Casa to postpone the company’s actions. The case stays ongoing in U.S. District Courtroom in Maryland.
In an announcement, DHS Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin mentioned people who arrived on TPS can nonetheless apply for asylum and different protections. She mentioned the top of TPS “furthers the nationwide curiosity and the statutory provision that TPS is in reality designed to be short-term.”
TPS has been an important stopgap for Afghans who made it to the U.S. however whose functions for asylum, or for the Particular Immigrant Visas granted to Afghans who’ve labored with the U.S. authorities, are nonetheless pending, caught in main backlogs.
Halema Wali, a co-director at Afghans for a Higher Tomorrow, a nonprofit that advocates for Afghan refugees within the New York Metropolis metropolitan space and has supported households getting into the U.S. from Tijuana, mentioned that just about the entire group’s 800 members are on TPS.
“They’re petrified,” Wali mentioned. “They don’t seem to be certain the best way to strategy this, and fairly actually, we’re scrambling to determine how we make them secure when the one factor defending them from deportation is gone.”
International Refuge, a company that has resettled 1000’s of Afghans, mentioned that as many as 11,700 Afghans within the U.S. are actually susceptible to deportation, and those that wouldn’t have different means to achieve authorized standing or pending functions may lose work authorization.
“Ending TPS doesn’t align with the fact of circumstances on the bottom in Afghanistan,” Krish O’Mara Vignarajah, chief government of International Refuge, mentioned in an announcement. “Situations stay dire, particularly for allies who supported the U.S. mission, in addition to girls, ladies, spiritual minorities, and ethnic teams focused by the Taliban. The anxiousness amongst our Afghan purchasers is actual and rising.”
Vignarajah referred to as on Congress to determine a pathway to citizenship for Afghans.
Demonstrators protest in opposition to a sweeping new journey ban introduced by President Trump at Los Angeles Worldwide Airport on June 9, 2025.
(Patrick T. Fallon / AFP by way of Getty Photographs)
California has turn out to be dwelling to many Afghan refugees — as many as 58,600 name the state dwelling, greater than another state, in response to the Migration Coverage Institute. The Better Sacramento space hosts some 20,000 Afghan refugees, one of many largest communities within the U.S.
Town of Fremont, which has a neighborhood often known as “Little Kabul” for its array of Afghan retailers and eating places, raised practically half one million {dollars} for its Afghan Refugee Assist Fund, launched in 2021, to assist newly arrived Afghans.
Harris Mojadedi, an Afghan American advocate within the Fremont space, mentioned there’s deep uncertainty amid shifting immigration insurance policies. Afghans locally have began receiving self-deportation notices from DHS, and plenty of are struggling to determine what comes subsequent.
He is aware of of 1 Afghan couple, the place one partner has TPS and the opposite is a U.S. citizen, who’re dwelling every day as whether it is their final collectively. Many Afghans are scared to talk out, he mentioned, for worry of presidency retribution. Folks have turn out to be afraid of dropping their kids off at college or calling the police if they’re victims of crime, he mentioned.
“Identical to we’re seeing with different communities, there’s loads of worry within the [Afghan] neighborhood,” Mojadedi mentioned, referencing the immigration raids which have largely affected the Latino neighborhood.
Shala Gafary, an legal professional who leads a group targeted on authorized help for Afghans at asylum advocacy nonprofit Human Rights First, mentioned they’re nonetheless seeing the aftermath of the U.S.’ chaotic withdrawal from Afghanistan, the place 1000’s of Afghans had been separated. She has helped households file functions to be relocated to the U.S. and reunite with their households underneath a program facilitated by the Biden administration.
However as quickly as Trump entered workplace, he issued an order suspending U.S. refugee packages and canceled flights scheduled to carry some 1,660 Afghans cleared by the U.S. authorities to resettle within the U.S., together with members of the family of active-duty U.S. navy personnel.
Gafary and different immigration attorneys are fielding calls day-after-day from households asking what they’ll do. And she or he doesn’t have a solution for them. She has needed to instruct different attorneys — who ask what they need to say to their purchasers — that each one they’ll do is inform Afghan households the reality, that there aren’t any choices obtainable.
“Since January, it’s been nothing however dangerous information for the Afghan inhabitants,” Gafary mentioned.
Again in Afghanistan, 1000’s dwelling underneath Taliban rule fear for his or her futures. Their choices for making a life elsewhere have shrunk exponentially, as neighboring nations Pakistan and Iran have begun deporting Afghan refugees en masse, and Trump positioned Afghanistan on the U.S. journey ban record earlier this yr.
For Afghan Individuals in California who had eagerly anticipated the arrival of relations who sought asylum within the U.S., Trump’s immigration crackdown has been crushing.
One Southern California resident, a 26-year-old Afghan American lady, advised The Instances that seven of her members of the family, together with her grandmother and several other cousins, are actually in limbo after having their visas accepted however no affirmation that the U.S. will enable them in. They had been scheduled to reach in March from Afghanistan however weren’t allowed in.
The girl, who requested anonymity as a result of she fears repercussions from the Trump administration for her members of the family nonetheless hoping to hunt asylum within the U.S., mentioned her household nonetheless hopes coverage will shift and they are going to be let in as a result of they haven’t any different choice.
She mentioned younger ladies in her household haven’t been in a position to go to highschool, and one other cousin who had been working for a world help group just isn’t allowed to work anymore.
“Everyone seems to be holding their breath to see what occurs subsequent,” she mentioned. “The very best factor we are able to do is simply hope for the most effective, do what we are able to and verify in on one another and maintain our heads held up excessive.”
