Expectations that President Donald Trump will soon bar Afghans and Pakistanis from entering the United States has set off panic among Afghans who were promised visas for their work with the U.S. military, according to three refugee advocates.
The Trump administration is preparing a new travel ban that will prohibit citizens of multiple countries from traveling to the United States based on concerns related to security and vetting, according to the advocates, who said they were informed directly by government officials. Afghanistan and Pakistan will likely be part of that blacklist, and the travel ban could be announced as soon as next week, they said.
Reuters first reported on the proposed travel ban.
In his first term in office, Trump imposed similar travel bans that blacklisted Iran, Libya, North Korea, Somalia, Sudan, Syria, Venezuela and Yemen.
A State Department spokesperson said Friday that the agency is undertaking a full review of all visa programs but did not offer any details on the countries under consideration.
“The visa adjudication process must ensure that U.S.-bound foreign travelers do not pose a threat to the national security and public safety of the United States,” the spokesperson added.
Refugee advocate groups have appealed to the administration to make an exception for tens of thousands of Afghans who have received or who are due to receive special immigrant visas (SIVs) for their work for the U.S. military or American embassy during the 20-year U.S. war in Afghanistan.
But with no guarantee that the White House will carve out an exception for the Afghans who worked as interpreters or in other jobs, nonprofit organizations are racing to help the Afghans fly to the United States before a ban takes effect.
Thousands of Afghans who are in Pakistan, Qatar and Albania and who have SIV paperwork are scrambling to get final approvals and arrange flights to the U.S. with the help of refugee aid organizations, advocates said.
“The news of a possible travel ban imposed on Afghans has created utter panic within the SIV community,” according to Kim Staffieri, co-founder and executive director of the Association of Wartime Allies, a nonprofit that helps Afghans resettle in the United States.
The frenetic atmosphere is reminiscent of the chaos that marked the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan in 2021 under the Biden administration, when Taliban militants quickly routed Afghan government troops and seized control of the capital, Staffieri and other advocates said.
“In many ways, their despair and expressions of hopelessness are worse now than what we heard in August of 2021 during the chaotic NEO (noncombatant evacuation operations),” Staffieri said.
“They, as well as civil society advocates, are stunned that we are going through this all over again,” she said, adding: “Our promises to our wartime allies once again stand in question.”
A nonprofit that helps Afghans who worked for the U.S. government, AfghanEvac, issued an urgent alert Wednesday advising all Afghan citizens holding valid U.S. visas to “travel as soon as possible” to the United States, citing “credible indications” of an imminent travel ban on Afghan nationals.
Shawn VanDiver, the head of AfghanEvac, said he hoped the president and his aides would carve out an exception for Afghan partners, especially given how much the Trump campaign criticized the Biden White House for its handling of the U.S. pullout of Afghanistan in 2021.
“The Trump folks had a lot to say about the Biden administration leaving people (Afghans) behind, and they were,” VanDiver said. “And now they’re not lifting a finger to help our wartime allies, at least what we can see.”
Last month, NBC News reported that the Trump administration told the office overseeing the resettlement of Afghans to the United States to draw up plans to possibly shut down by April. The move could strand more than 250,000 Afghans and their families who face persecution from the Taliban for their ties to America.
In an executive order issued on Inauguration Day, Trump ordered the State Department to start identifying countries “for which vetting and screening information is so deficient as to warrant a partial or full suspension on the admission of nationals from those countries.”
The president gave the State Department, along with other federal agencies, 60 days to submit a report on the requested list of countries.
