On Monday, dozens of white South African refugees arrived in the United States on a plane chartered by the Trump administration, fast-tracked through the normal refugee resettlement process that typically takes months or longer.
That same day, Ali — an Afghan man who asked Newsweek not to use his full name over fears of being targeted if he’s sent home — found out the legal status protecting him and his family from deportation will be terminated by the same administration. The 39-year-old fled his home country with his wife and their six children during the unrest that followed the chaotic U.S. withdrawal in 2021.
“When Afghanistan collapsed, everyone was trying to escape, everyone trying to save their lives,” Ali told Newsweek.
A Family’s Long Asylum Journey
After taking what they could and destroying documents and phones that could cause them problems with the Taliban authorities they feared, the family first fled to Iran, where they gained a visa for Brazil. It was one of the few countries offering a clear pathway for Afghans at the time.
After several months in Brazil, Ali said unrest broke out near where they were staying and they no longer felt safe. So, they headed north.
“Then we had chosen to come to U.S., as we heard that the U.S. is a really good country, with good people and lots of opportunities, and lots of immigrants,” he said. “So, OK let’s go to a better place, at least. We left everything behind in Afghanistan, in my country, so at least we could go to a better place.”
After making the perilous journey through the Darien Gap – a stretch of jungle hundreds of thousands of migrants have traversed seeking refuge in Mexico and the U.S. – the family eventually reached the southwest border and sought asylum in America.
Like many immigrants who arrived at the U.S.-Mexico border during the Biden administration, the family was released into the country in April 2023 while their asylum cases were pending.
In May 2022, months after the fall of Kabul, former Secretary of Homeland Security Alejandro Mayorkas had designated Afghans eligible for Temporary Protected Status (TPS), which grants those in the U.S. without legal status protections from deportation and offers work authorization so they can earn a living.
Ali said that TPS gave his whole family peace of mind, allowing them to start building a community in New York, and for his children — ages 4 through 20 — to go to school.
“I was a civil engineer back Afghanistan,” he said. “I did some retraining program in the engineering area, then I have studied some other courses… now I am just at the time of applying to find my professional job.”
Thousands of Afghans Fled to US
Ali and his family are part of a broader tapestry of refugees from Afghanistan, a country turned into a 20-year war zone after the U.S.-led invasion in late 2001.
Some 8,200 Afghans have benefited from TPS, per the National Immigration Forum’s estimates. Many had worked with U.S. troops during their two-decade presence in Afghanistan, as interpreters, fixers and in other support capacities, and therefore faced persecution from the Taliban once it took back control in the summer of 2021.
Nasirullah “John” Safi worked as one of those interpreters for the U.S. military for a decade, starting when he was 15. He was able to get to the U.S. in 2016 under the Special Immigrant Visa (SIV) program designed for those who supported American troops and now works with refugees and TPS holders in Oregon.
Safi told Newsweek that many Afghans had to seek asylum and TPS status because their SIV applications were still being processed when the abrupt troop withdrawal took place four years ago.
“Some hadn’t applied for it, but they had supported American soldiers and they never wanted to leave the country, so this was the only option for them back in 2021, because otherwise you could get killed,” Safi said.
When Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem announced that TPS would be terminated for Afghanistan on Monday, she said that Homeland Security had reviewed the current conditions in Afghanistan with the help of interagency partners, and determined the situation had improved enough to revoke the temporary protections.
The United Nations and multiple humanitarian organizations still report that the situation in Afghanistan is volatile, and that Afghans who fled could likely be targeted upon their return. Hundreds of thousands of Afghans remain scattered in other countries where they are also seeking asylum.
“The war has never been ended for these incredible men and women who supported Americans there,” Safi told Newsweek. “It continues, and if they get deported, and if you send them back to the country that’s run by a bunch of lunatics, by the Taliban, no doubt that those people would get killed.
“Not only killed, they will get kidnapped, they will be tortured in ways that no one can describe it, they will be put in prison, tortured, and at some point, they will lose their lives.”
Trump Admin Decision a ‘Textbook Betrayal’
The Trump administration claims this is exactly what is happening for white South Africans. The president has suggested Afrikaners are facing a genocide and racist persecution by their own government. South African leaders deny as much, though some Afrikaners have reported being denied jobs or targeted with violence because of their race.
Newsweek asked DHS why it had made the dual refugee decisions on Afghanistan and South Africa, when the former remains under a State Department Level 4 travel advisory, meaning people should not travel to the country because of fears of civil unrest, terrorism and other factors that usually determine eligibility for TPS.
By contrast, South Africa is at a Level 2, meaning travelers should “exercise increased caution.” DHS told Newsweek it had worked with the State Department in making its TPS decision, with Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin offering some alternatives for Afghans like Ali and Safi.
“Although TPS was terminated as required by law, any Afghan who fears persecution is able to request asylum,” she said in a statement to Newsweek. “All aliens who have had their TPS or parole terminated or are otherwise in the country unlawfully should take advantage of the CBP Home self-deportation process to receive a free one-way plane ticket and $1,000 financial assistance to help them resettled elsewhere.”
The reasoning from the Trump administration did not sit right with Safi, who had to flee his home country after being shot by, and losing family members to, the Taliban while he helped the U.S. military, just like many of the TPS holders he now works with.
“They supported Trump and this administration, and they said: ‘This is the one who loves veterans and he’ll watch people who supported our veterans or our military overseas’, and now after this news that came out a few days ago I mean, there’s no word instead of just to call it a textbook betrayal,” Safi said, accusing the U.S. of abandoning those who supported it for more than 20 years.
Fearful For Their Future
The looming loss of legal status for Afghans is leaving many families in the U.S. with an uncertain future. For Ali, he feels he has to try to reassure his children who still have vivid memories of the dire situation they left behind and now fear for their safety in the U.S.
“One of my older daughters, she said: ‘I don’t want to wear the hijab, as a Muslim, because [if] I go to school and maybe ICE stops me or something, or ask me for some documents’,” he said. “Then she forced to not wear the hijab, so such things shows that my children also have real stress and my wife also. They don’t want to see the Taliban again. They don’t want to see the weapons again.
“I have very little children, four years old, and when we arrived here, and he asked me: ‘Is there any Taliban here?’ I said: ‘Oh no. No, no, no there is no Taliban here. You will not see any more Taliban here’.”
Meanwhile, Safi said he was trying to ease worries like those shared by Ali’s children, telling Newsweek he wants to believe that the U.S. will not go through with its plan to pull his legal status . But as time goes by, he said he is faced with the possibility that the U.S. is turning its back on its allies.
“What message will this have for our allies around the world? What do we expect in future conflicts? Do you think anyone is going to support us, if they know what we did to Afghans or what we have been doing to our allies?” he said.
“What we did to them in 2021, we let the whole country get handed over to the Taliban and now we’re abandoning our allies. I don’t think it’s a good message for people around the world.”
For now, Ali awaits official communication from U.S. immigration authorities on his and his family’s status. As Newsweek reported last week, a lawsuit was filed against the administration’s move to revoke TPS status for Afghanistan and Cameroon, with updates expected in the case next week.
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