Written by Jonathan Landay
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Flights have been canceled for about 1,660 Afghans the U.S. government agreed to resettle in the United States, including family members of active-duty U.S. military personnel, under President Donald Trump's order suspending U.S. refugee programs, a U.S. official and a State Department official said. External. a leading advocate for refugee resettlement said Monday.
Sean Van Diver, president of the #AfghanEvac coalition of American war veterans and advocacy groups, said the group includes unaccompanied minors waiting to be reunited with their families in the United States, as well as Afghans who are at risk of Taliban retaliation because they fought for the previous US-backed Afghan government. United. The American official spoke on condition of anonymity.
They added that the US decision also leaves thousands of other Afghans who have been approved for resettlement as refugees in the United States in limbo, but have not yet been allocated flights from Afghanistan or from neighboring Pakistan.
Trump has made the immigration crackdown a key promise of his victorious 2024 campaign, leaving the fate of US refugee programs up in the air.
The White House and State Department, which oversees US refugee programs, did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
“Afghans and human rights defenders are terrified,” Vandiver said. “I've had to recharge my phone four times already today because so many people are calling me.
“We warned them this was going to happen, but they did it anyway,” he said of communications with the Trump transition team. “We hope they will reconsider.”
VanDiver is the main coalition working with the US government to evacuate and resettle Afghans in the United States since the Taliban takeover of Kabul when the last US troops left Afghanistan in August 2021 after two decades of war.
Former President Joe Biden's administration has brought nearly 200,000 Afghans to the United States since the chaotic withdrawal of US forces from Kabul.
Among the dozens of executive orders that Trump is expected to sign after being sworn in for a second term on Monday is the suspension of US refugee programs for at least four months.
The new White House website said that Trump “is suspending refugee resettlement after communities were forced to shelter large and unsustainable numbers of migrants, straining community safety and resources.”
“We know this means that unaccompanied children, (Afghan) partner forces who trained, fought, died or were injured alongside our forces, and families of active-duty U.S. service members, will remain stuck,” Vandiver said.
Van Diver and the US official said Afghans who agreed to resettle as refugees in the United States have been removed from the lists of flights they were scheduled to take from Kabul between now and April.
Minority Democrats on the House Foreign Relations Committee criticized the move, saying in an X post that “this is what abandonment looks like. Leaving vetted Afghan allies at the mercy of the Taliban is shameful.”
They said they included nearly 200 family members of active-duty Afghan-American service members born in the United States or Afghans who came to the United States, joined the military and became naturalized citizens.
Van Diver said those to be evacuated from the flights also include an unknown number of Afghans who fought for the former U.S.-backed Kabul government and about 200 unaccompanied children who are Afghan refugees or Afghan parents whose children were brought alone to the United States during the war. American withdrawal. American official.
They added that an unknown number of Afghans who qualified for refugee status because they worked for American contractors or US-affiliated organizations were also in the group.
