This story was originally published by ProPublica.
ProPublica is a Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative newsroom. Sign up for The Big Story newsletter to receive stories like this one in your inbox.
This article is co-published with The Texas Tribune, a nonprofit, nonpartisan local newsroom that informs and engages with Texans. Sign up for The Brief Weekly to get up to speed on their essential coverage of Texas issues.
The Afghan brothers worked closely with the American military for years, fighting the Taliban alongside U.S. troops, including the Special Forces, and facing gunfire and near misses from roadside bombs while watching their friends die.
They escaped Afghanistan in 2021 when the Taliban seized control of the country. One brother is now an elite U.S. Army paratrooper at Fort Liberty in North Carolina. The other serves in the Army Reserve in Houston. Their eldest sister and her husband, however, were stranded in Afghanistan, forced into hiding as they waited for the U.S. government to green-light their refugee applications. Finally, after three years, they received those approvals in December and, according to the family, were slated to reunite with their brothers this month.
But weeks before the couple was due to arrive, President Donald Trump issued an executive order indefinitely suspending the admission of refugees. The order was the first in a series of sweeping actions that blocked the arrival of more than 10,000 refugees who already had flights booked for the U.S. and that froze funding for national and international resettlement organizations.
A top former government official who worked on refugee issues told ProPublica and The Texas Tribune that another 100,000 refugees who had already been vetted by the Department of Homeland Security have also been blocked from entering the country. The official, who declined to be identified for fear of retribution, said the Trump administration is “moving so swiftly that there might not be much of a refugee program left to recover.”
Taken together, Trump’s actions are effectively dismantling the U.S. refugee system and eroding the country’s historic commitment to legal immigration, according to refugee resettlement and U.S. military experts, who say the most egregious examples include denying entrance to thousands of Afghans who worked with the U.S. military and their relatives.
The refugees “have been going through the process, which is very slow and very detailed and offers extreme scrutiny on each and every individual, and now, all of a sudden, that too is no longer acceptable,” said Erol Kekic, senior vice president with Church World Service, one of 10 national programs that work with the U.S. government to resettle refugees.
“We’re basically abandoning humanity at this moment in time, and America has been known for being that shining star and guiding countries in the world when it comes to doing the right thing for people in need,” Kekic said. “Now we’re not.”
The orders halting aid to international groups also indirectly affected a separate visa program for Afghan translators who worked with the U.S. military, closing off yet another avenue by which thousands hoped to enter the country. Together, the Trump administration’s actions have likely shuttered pathways to the U.S. for about 200,000 Afghans and their relatives whose refugee and military visa applications are currently being reviewed, including tens of thousands who have been vetted, the former U.S. government official said.
Abandoning Afghan allies whose work with the U.S. has them facing threats of retribution and death imperils the country’s standing abroad and makes the military’s job exceedingly difficult, said Ryan Crocker, a former U.S. ambassador to Afghanistan and onetime dean of Texas A&M University’s George Bush School of Government and Public Service.
If the Trump administration does not quickly exempt Afghans from the refugee-related orders, “good luck signing up the next bunch of recruits to help us in our endeavors in the future,” said Crocker, who is now a fellow with the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, a nonpartisan international think tank in Washington, D.C.
“The entire world sees what we do and don’t do to support those who supported us,” Crocker said.
Spokespeople for the White House, the U.S. State Department, Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem did not respond to requests for comment about the escalated actions by Trump, who slashed refugee admissions to a record low of 15,000 in the final year of his first term.
Refugees and a coalition of resettlement groups filed the first refugee-related lawsuit against the administration last week, seeking to reverse the executive orders. It argues that the recent actions violate Congress’ authority to make immigration laws and that the administration did not follow federal regulations in implementing them. Another resettlement group, the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, also sued the Trump administration over its refugee actions this week, arguing that they were unlawful.
The executive orders promise a review in 90 days and say that the State Department and DHS could grant exemptions “on a case-by-case basis,” but refugee groups said that neither agency has explained who is eligible or how to request such a waiver.
The Afghan brothers, who asked to be identified by an abbreviation of their last name, Mojo, are hoping the answers come quickly. They are among at least 200 Afghan Americans currently serving in the U.S. military whose family members applied for refugee status, only to be suddenly denied entrance.
“We feel betrayed,” the brother in Houston said. “We serve this country because it protected us, but now it is abandoning my sister, who is in danger because of our work with America.”
“A Community Issue”
The U.S. Refugee Admissions Program, which Congress created in 1980 following the Vietnam War, allows legal immigration for people fleeing their countries if they meet the narrow definition of being persecuted.
To qualify, refugees must prove that they have been targeted for political, racial or religious reasons or because they are part of a threatened social or ethnic group.
The vetting, which requires multiple security screenings and medical examinations, takes an average of about two years, according to experts.
Those who had made it through the process and are now unable to come because of Trump’s recent actions include the children of a former U.S. military translator living in Massachusetts with his wife. The Afghan couple waited three years to reunite with their children, who were separated from their parents at the Kabul airport on the day of the Taliban takeover and have been living in Qatar during the yearslong vetting process.
The kids, ages six to 17, were about to board their flights in Doha last month when the executive orders suddenly blocked their travel, leaving them in Qatar, where they had been supported by international refugee agencies that were funded, in part, by the U.S. government.
It’s uncertain how much longer they can stay in Qatar, said their father, Gul, who asked that his last name not be published to protect his family.
“When my wife heard this news, she fell on the ground and lost consciousness,” Gul said. “We have waited years for them to come and in a few hours, everything changed.”
A former Texas National Guard member was beside himself when he talked about how his plans to be reunited with his wife later this month had been upended. She is a member of the Hazara minority group, which has historically been the target of widespread attacks and abuses including from the Islamic State’s affiliate in Afghanistan, according to a 2022 report by Human Rights Watch, an international advocacy group.
His work for the U.S. military, he said, put her in even more danger.
“I don’t know what we’re going to do,” he sobbed into the phone.
The actions have also blocked the arrival of persecuted Christians, whom Trump had previously vowed to protect. That includes an Afghan family whose conversion led to violent attacks from conservative Muslims, according to refugee organizations.
Word of their persecution spurred a church in the conservative East Texas community of Tyler to sponsor the family’s refugee resettlement applications. Justin Reese, a 42-year-old software developer in Tyler who volunteers to help resettle refugees, said telling the family that it could no longer come was heartbreaking.
“You went from this level of commitment and certainty to none at all, literally in the space of a couple of minutes,” he said.
Aside from halting arrivals, Trump’s orders have blocked funding to U.S. nonprofit resettlement organizations, which caused them to lay off or furlough hundreds of employees and hindered their ability to help refugees already in the country.
In Houston, for example, the YMCA is currently restricted from offering about 400 new refugees basic services such as housing and health screening to help set them up for self-sufficiency, said Jeff Watkins, the organization’s chief international initiatives officer.
The nonprofit is temporarily relying on private funds and other programs to ensure that refugees’ housing and food needs are met and that they are not stranded, but Watkins said that is not sustainable for the long term.
“This becomes a community issue if those needs aren’t addressed,” Watkins said.
“Live Up to Our Word”
The Afghan brothers in Houston and North Carolina said that their sister and her husband were forced to flee their home three years ago after the Taliban published photos of the brothers working with American troops and interrogated neighbors about their whereabouts.
The couple, who are both physicians, could no longer work. They moved every few months, relying on wire transfers sent by the brothers as they waited for the U.S. government to approve their refugee applications.
Now they are forced to continue hiding, but this time the path toward safety feels more nebulous.
Each day with no action increases the danger for stranded Afghans like them, said Shawn VanDiver, a U.S. Navy veteran who leads AfghanEvac, an organization that he began to help those left behind after the withdrawal.
“The Taliban is routinely harassing and torturing folks associated with us,” he said.
For years, Republicans criticized Biden for his handling of the withdrawal. “Now is the time for them to stand with our Afghan allies and fix this,” VanDiver said.
A Taliban spokesperson disputed in a text that it targeted those who worked with the U.S. military. The United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan, however, in 2023 documented more than 200 killings of former officials and members of the armed forces after the takeover, but international human rights officials have said the true number is likely far higher.
U.S. Rep. Michael McCaul of Texas, one of Biden’s critics on Afghanistan, said in a recent interview with CBS News that the U.S. needed to “live up to our word” to protect Afghan allies.
“Otherwise, down the road, in another conflict, no one’s going to trust us,” he said.
But McCaul avoided criticizing Trump in a statement to ProPublica and the Tribune, saying that he believed the president would listen to veterans who have called for an exemption for Afghan allies.
The Houston brother said that he hopes that Trump will ultimately do the right thing for the families of servicemen like him and his brother, who have sacrificed so much for America.
His brother in North Carolina has written to his congressman to request an exemption for Afghans who “have been doing everything legally, following the law.”
“We don’t want to be worried about our loved ones being left behind in Afghanistan, and that will help boost our morale and our confidence in serving the American people with integrity,” he said.
That service, according to the North Carolina brother, will soon include a deployment to the Texas border with Mexico, where his unit would be ordered to aid the curtailing of illegal immigration.
Anjeanette Damon and Jeremy Kohler contributed reporting.
