On this file photograph from 2024, Taliban navy helicopters fly to rejoice 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 through Getty Pictures
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Ahmad Sahel Arman/AFP through 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 almost 20 years.
Despite the fact that the president’s journey ban applies to Afghanistan, it does embrace an exception.
Afghans who served with the U.S. through the conflict can nonetheless pursue what’s generally known as a Particular Immigrant Visa. Because the chaotic navy withdrawal of U.S. troops in August of 2021, round 200,000 Afghans have resettled within the U.S., many underneath that visa program.
As well as, greater than 200,000 Afghans stay exterior the U.S. whereas awaiting varied phases of the appliance 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 making an attempt resettlement.
The president’s proclamation additionally carves out exceptions for people already within the U.S. in search of asylum. Whereas it doesn’t handle refugee resettlement, the U.S. has paused virtually all refugee packages underneath one other government order.
Many Afghans in search of SIVs and refugee standing say they worry for his or her security underneath Taliban rule within the nation.
Trump cited the necessity to handle the specter of terrorism because the catalyst for the journey ban, with the White Home truth 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 short-term protected standing within the U.S. expired in Might, with closing 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 acknowledged: “Afghanistan has had an improved safety state of affairs, and its stabilizing economic system now not forestall [Afghans] from returning to their dwelling nation.”
The discharge additional defined that Noem “decided that allowing Afghan nationals to stay briefly in america is opposite to the nationwide curiosity of america.”
The pinnacle of AfghanEvac, Navy veteran Shawn VanDiver, known 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 mentioned in an announcement.
