The order “risks abandoning thousands of Afghan wartime allies” who worked with Americans before the Taliban takeover, the head of a resettlement group said.
An executive order signed by President Trump on Monday that suspends refugee admissions to the United States puts at risk thousands of citizens of Afghanistan who helped the American mission during the war there, the president of a California-based resettlement group said.
The order would affect not only scores of Afghans who are now in hiding from the Taliban’s repressive rule, but also family members of active-duty U.S. troops, said Shawn VanDiver, the president of AfghanEvac, a coalition of more than 250 organizations helping to resettle Afghans who worked with the Americans before the U.S. withdrawal in 2021.
The order amounts to “another broken promise” by the United States, Mr. VanDiver said by email. It “risks abandoning thousands of Afghan wartime allies who stood alongside U.S. service members during two decades of conflict,” he added.
Mr. Trump’s order, titled “Realigning the United States Refugee Admissions Program,” is set to take effect next Monday. It does not specify when the suspension will end, saying that it will continue “until such time as the further entry into the United States of refugees aligns with the interests of the United States.”
Refugee programs have historically been a point of pride in the United States, reflecting its ambition to be seen as a leader on human rights. The president has usually made an annual determination about how many refugees to let into the country in any given year.
After the U.S. military’s chaotic retreat from Afghanistan as the Taliban took power, the Biden administration launched Operation Allies Welcome, allowing 76,000 evacuated Afghans to enter the United States for humanitarian reasons, according to the Washington-based Migration Policy Institute.