In the summer of 2025, a woman called Marwa stood at her apartment window and observed the street below in a Sacramento suburb. Some of her kids were in the area. Others continued to live apart from her, trapped by the shifting immigration laws of a government that had quickly destroyed the legal framework upon which tens of thousands of Afghan refugees had based their lives in the United States.
The United States was the reason she came here. The government was now assuring her that the situation in Afghanistan was stable enough for her to return, a position that was hard to justify with a straight face for anyone who had been seeing what was happening to women and former U.S. allies under Taliban authority.
| Category | Detail |
|---|---|
| Program: Temporary Protected Status (TPS) | Biden administration designated TPS for Afghans in 2022; extended in 2023; Trump DHS terminated TPS for Afghanistan effective July 12, 2025 — affecting approximately 14,600 Afghans |
| Refugee Program Suspension | Trump executive order on January 20, 2025 paused all refugee admissions; canceled foreign aid funding resettlement agencies; left already-approved refugee cases frozen mid-transit |
| Enduring Welcome Program | The State Department officially notified Congress on May 29, 2025 that it would eliminate the Enduring Welcome program — described as the first U.S. commitment to wartime allies with a formal legal pathway |
| Population Affected | Over 70,000 Afghans admitted under Operation Allies Welcome parole program; ~14,600 under TPS; thousands of Special Immigrant Visa applicants still in process — many now in legal limbo |
| Administration’s Stated Justification | DHS Secretary Kristi Noem: “Afghanistan has had an improved security situation, and its stabilizing economy no longer prevents [Afghans] from returning” — a characterisation advocates dispute given Taliban rule, food insecurity, and systematic repression of women |
| Advocates’ Counter-Argument | Many TPS and SIV holders worked directly for the U.S. government in Afghanistan; their return risks Taliban retaliation; veterans groups and Republicans also opposed the rollbacks |
| Legal Challenges | Courts ordered refugee processing to resume in some cases; the International Refugee Assistance Project filed lawsuits; legal battles ongoing as of April 2026 |
| Further Reference | Comprehensive tracking of policy impacts at CalMatters and the Afghan Evac coalition |
Legal rights for Afghan refugees were gradually reduced. One of the biggest withdrawals of U.S. commitment to wartime allies in recent memory occurred gradually through executive orders, administrative choices, and covert program eliminations. The US Refugee Admissions Program was frozen by the Trump administration’s Day One executive orders, which were signed on January 20, 2025.
As a result, individuals who had already boarded connecting flights were left stranded in intermediate countries, having sold their belongings and bid farewell, waiting for entry that was no longer available. Simultaneously, foreign aid funding for resettlement organizations was reduced, shutting down the support infrastructure just when the individuals it catered to most needed it.
About 14,600 Afghans who had been lawfully residing in the United States under protections initially created by the Biden administration in 2022 were impacted by the Temporary Protected Status termination, which was announced by DHS Secretary Kristi Noem in April 2025 and went into effect on July 12th.
When a person’s home country is judged to be too dangerous for them to return to, TPS protects those who are already in the nation from deportation; it does not accept new entrants. According to Noem, Afghanistan’s economy is “stabilizing” and its security situation has “improved.”
Noting the Taliban’s systematic targeting of women, persecution of minorities, and documented retaliation against those who had worked with U.S. forces, advocacy groups, veterans organizations, and a sizable number of Republican members of Congress who had collaborated with Afghan allies during the 20-year war vigorously opposed that characterization.
In May 2025, the Enduring Welcome program—dubbed the first official U.S. legal avenue created especially to uphold commitments to wartime allies—was discontinued. That month, the State Department informed Congress of the decision. The program’s termination was especially noteworthy because it signified something more than standard refugee processing: a clear recognition that individuals who had worked for the US government during the conflict had a unique obligation claim on the US immigration system.
Due to lost documentation and connections during the confusion of the 2021 withdrawal, many of the individuals it serviced had completed the necessary substantial service to U.S. national security but were still awaiting Special Immigrant Visas. They had been given a floor by TPS. Their condition became truly precarious when that floor was taken away.
Following all of this, there’s a sense that the public’s awareness of the human cost has been fairly inconsistent. The International Refugee Assistance Project’s litigation has resulted in some of the few known victories for impacted families, and judges in a number of jurisdictions have ordered the resumption of refugee processing, at least in part.
However, there is still a significant gap between what the courts have ordered and what has actually occurred on the ground, and an administration that has, by most accounts, not been acting urgently to comply beyond the minimum required has exacerbated the bureaucratic delays that characterize the system even in normal times.
The majority of those most directly impacted remain waiting, including the translators, police officers, humanitarian workers, and public servants who worked for years to create an Afghanistan that would eventually be able to function without the presence of foreign military forces. They are silently watching the news from a nation they were persuaded was no longer violent enough to keep them safe from while living in apartments in Sacramento, Northern Virginia, and suburban New Jersey. That is difficult for some of them to accept. The veterans who served with them also feel this way.
