As former governor of South Dakota, Noem criticized the Biden administration programs taking in Afghan refugees during and after the fall of Kabul, doubting the adequacy of the vetting process. In recent days, Matthew Tragesser, chief of public affairs at U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, echoed that partisan language in a post on social media platform X announcing the end of TPS: “Bad actors are taking advantage of this humanitarian program.”
Many who fled Afghanistan under the auspices of Operation Allies Welcome and Operation Enduring Welcome waited for years in third countries like Pakistan, Turkey and Qatar, often at U.S. military bases, as U.S. immigration authorities adjudicated their claims. Hundreds of thousands of people who have qualified to be in the pipeline for some kind of U.S. visa, including roughly 211,000 still in Afghanistan, now presumably have no hope of reuniting with family members in the U.S.
On Jan. 20, 2025, the Trump administration’s attack on immigration to the U.S. began with a “no work” order for resettlement services like JFCS East Bay. Since then, an unknown number of Afghans in the U.S. received emails telling them to self-deport.
Afghan refugees in the U.S. have been trying to lay low since President Donald Trump’s inauguration. “They’re so afraid. They’re terrified,” said Harris Mojadedi, a child of refugees born and raised in the Bay Area.
“These are people who are really ‘enemy number one’ for the Taliban, and so to send them back, to deport them, would really be a death sentence,” Mojadedi said.
“Our federal representatives, I know, are advocating and supporting us, but the actions this government is taking are just so out of the realm of how, you know, the government typically operates,” Mojadedi said.
Congressman Eric Swalwell represents most of eastern Alameda County and its Afghan community. In a statement, he condemned the decision to end TPS and called upon the administration to reverse course. He also called attention to the administration’s recent choice to extend refugee status to white South Africans.
“I know many of my Republican colleagues feel the same, but it is time for them to grow a spine and stand up to Trump,” he wrote. “Trump is apparently more concerned with protecting white South Africans who have done nothing to protect American troops than he is with our Afghan Allies. It is unconscionable.”
Mojadedi said he understands there’s a limit to what California’s predominantly Democratic representatives can do in a G.O.P.-dominated Washington D.C., but the cause of the Afghans is not politically partisan, any more than it was for Vietnamese refugees following the Vietnam War. Vietnamese refugees were offered permanent status under three congressional acts, but Congress has yet to offer something similar for Afghans.
“We thought that President Trump was going to be a champion for the Afghans,” said Shawn VanDiver, a Navy veteran and president of the San Diego-based non-profit #AfghanEvac.
