Trump administration cancelling flights for nearly 1,660 Afghan refugees

WASHINGTON: Nearly 1,660 Afghans cleared by the US government to resettle in the US, including family members of active duty US military personnel, are having their flights canceled under President Donald Trump’s order suspending US refugee programmes, a US official and a leading refugee resettlement advocate said on Monday.

The group includes unaccompanied minors awaiting reunification with their families in the US as well as Afghans at risk of Taliban retribution because they fought for the former US-backed Afghan government, said Shawn VanDiver, head of the #AfghanEvac coalition of US veterans and advocacy groups and the U.S. official, who spoke on condition of anonymity.

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The US decision also leaves in limbo thousands of other Afghans who have been approved for resettlement as refugees in the US but have not yet been assigned flights from Afghanistan or from neighbouring Pakistan, they said.

Trump made an immigration crackdown a major promise of his victorious 2024 election campaign, leaving the fate of US refugee programmes up in the air.

The White House and the State Department, which oversees US refugee programmes, did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

“Afghans and advocates are panicking,” said VanDiver. “I’ve had to recharge my phone four times already today because so many are calling me.

“We warned them that this was going to happen, but they did it anyway. We hope they will reconsider,” he said of contacts with Trump’s transition team.

VanDiver’s organisation is the main coalition that has been working with the US government to evacuate and resettle Afghans in the US since the Taliban seized Kabul as the last US forces left Afghanistan in August 2021 after two decades of war.

Nearly 200,000 Afghans have been brought to the US by former President Joe Biden’s administration since the chaotic US troop withdrawal from Kabul.

One of the dozens of executive orders Trump was to sign after being sworn in for a second term on Monday was to suspend US refugee programmes for at least four months, said an incoming Trump administration official, who requested anonymity.

“We know this means that unaccompanied children, (Afghan) partner forces who trained, fought and died or were injured alongside our troops, and families of active duty US service members are going to be stuck,” said VanDiver.

VanDiver and the US official said that the Afghans approved to resettle as refugees in the US were being removed from the manifests of flights they were due to take from Kabul between now and April.

They include nearly 200 family members of Afghan-American active duty US service personnel born in the US or of Afghans who came to the US, joined the military and became naturalised citizens, they said.

Those being removed from flights also include an unknown number of Afghans who fought for the former US-backed Kabul government and some 200 unaccompanied children of Afghan refugees or Afghan parents whose children were brought alone to the United States during the US withdrawal, said VanDiver and the US official.

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An unknown number of Afghans who qualified for refugee status because they worked for US contractors or US-affiliated organisations also are in the group, they said.