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“It’s as if the United States doesn’t actually understand what it has done to this country, it’s treason,” Abdullah told the BBC.
He fled Afghanistan with his parents amid the US withdrawal in August 2021 and is now a US Army paratrooper. He worries that he can’t help his sister and her husband escape as well, due to President Donald Trump’s executive order suspending the resettlement program.
The order cancels all flights and applications for Afghan refugees, without any exemption for families from active duty.
Trump argues that the resolution addresses “record levels of immigration” that threaten “the availability of resources for Americans.”
But Abdullah and many other Afghan refugees told the BBC they feel the US has “turned its back,” despite years of working alongside US officials, troops and non-profits in Afghanistan. We do not use their real names, because they worry that by doing so, they could jeopardize their cases or put their families in danger.
As soon as Abdullah heard about the matter, he called his sister. “She was crying, she lost all hope,” he said. He believes his action made her a target for the Taliban government, which took power in 2021.
“The anxiety, it’s unimaginable. She thinks we’ll never be able to see each other again,” he says.
During the war, Abdullah says he was a translator for American forces. When he left Afghanistan, his sister and her husband couldn’t get passports in time for the flight.
“There is an amnesty for anyone working with international forces and all Afghans can live in the country without any fear,” Suhail Shaheen, the Taliban government’s official spokesman, told the BBC. He claims that these refugees are “economic migrants.”
But a UN report in 2023 casts doubt on the assertions from the Taliban government. It found hundreds of former government officials and members of the armed forces killed despite the general amnesty.
Abdullah’s sister and her husband completed the medical exams and interviews required for resettlement in the United States. The BBC saw a document from the US Department of Defense supporting its request.
Abdullah now says Trump’s insistence that immigration is too high does not justify his separation from his family. He describes sleepless nights, and says anxiety affects his work in his combat unit, serving the United States.
Babak, a former legal advisor to the Afghan Air Force, is still hiding in Afghanistan.
“They’re not just breaking their promise to us — they’re breaking us,” he says.
The BBC saw letters from the United Nations confirming his role, as well as a letter supporting his asylum claim by a US Air Force lieutenant colonel. The endorsement adds that he provided advice on strikes targeting militants linked to both the Taliban and the Islamic State group.
Babak cannot understand the President’s decision, given that he was working alongside American forces. “We risked our lives because of those missions,” he says. “Now we are in great danger.”
He has been moving his wife and young son from one location to another, desperately trying to stay hidden. He claims that his brother was tortured because of his whereabouts. The BBC cannot verify this part of his story, given the nature of his allegations.
Babak implores Trump and National Security Advisor Mike Waltz to change their minds.
“Mike Waltz, I served in Afghanistan. Please encourage the President,” he tells us.
Before saying goodbye, he adds: “The ray of light we were holding on to has been extinguished.”
Ahmed was able to fly to the United States amid the chaos of the withdrawal but is now separated from his family. He felt he had no choice but to leave his father, mother, and siblings as a teenager.
If he and his father had not worked for the United States, his family would not have been targets of the Taliban government. He adds: “I can’t sleep knowing that I’m one of the reasons they’re in this situation.”
Before the Taliban takeover, Ahmed worked at a non-profit called Open Government Partnership (OGP), which she co-founded 13 years ago and is based in Washington. He says the work he is most proud of is establishing a special court to address violations against women.
But he claims his work at OGP and his advocacy for women made him a target and was shot by Taliban militants in 2021 before the Taliban took control of the country.
The BBC has seen a letter from a hospital in Pennsylvania assessing “evidence of injury from bullet and bullet fragments” which they say is “consistent with his account of what happened to him in Kabul”.
He says his family is in danger, which is made worse by the fact that his father was a colonel with the Afghan army and helped the CIA. The BBC witnessed a testimony, given by the Afghan National Security Forces, thanking his father for his service.
Ahmed says the Taliban government harassed his parents, brothers and sisters, so they fled to Pakistan. The BBC has seen images showing Ahmed’s father and brother in hospital with injuries allegedly sustained by people from the Taliban government.
His family has completed several steps of the resettlement program. He says he provided evidence that he had enough money to support his family once they arrived in the United States, without any government assistance.
Now Ahmed says the situation is critical. His family is in Pakistan on visas that will expire within months. He contacted the International Organization for Migration and was told to “be patient.”
The head of #Afghanevac, a non-profit group that helps eligible Afghan refugees, said he estimates between 10,000 and 15,000 people are in the late stages of their applications.
Meena, who is pregnant, has been waiting for a flight out of Islamabad for six months. She fears her terror will threaten her unborn child. “If I lose the baby, I will kill myself,” she told the BBC.
She says she used to protest for women’s rights, even after the Taliban government took control of Afghanistan. She claims she was arrested in 2023 and detained overnight.
“Even then I didn’t want to leave Afghanistan,” she says. “I went into hiding after my release, but they called me and said next time, they will kill me.”
Meena is worried that the Pakistani government will send her to Afghanistan. This is partly because Pakistan will not grant Afghan refugees refugees indefinitely.
The country has taken in hundreds of thousands of refugees from its neighbour, over decades of instability in the region. According to the United Nations Refugee Agency, the country hosts three million Afghan citizens, about 1.4 million of whom are documented.
As cross-border tensions erupt with the Taliban government, there has been growing concern about the fate of Afghans in Pakistan, with reports of alleged intimidation and detention. The UN special rapporteur said he was concerned and Afghans in the region deserved better treatment.
Pakistan’s government says it expels foreign nationals who illegally return to Afghanistan and confirmed search raids were conducted in January.
According to the International Organization for Migration, more than 795,000 Afghans have been expelled from Pakistan since last September.
The Afghan refugees we spoke to feel stuck between a homeland where their lives are in danger, and an impatient host nation.
They had been pinning their hopes on the United States – but what seemed to be a safe harbor was suddenly blocked by the new president until further notice.
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2025-01-24 00:11:00
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