Exclusive-Trump to pull about 1,660 Afghan refugees from the planes, says a US official, a spokesman for Reuters.

Written by Jonathan Landay

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – About 1,660 Afghans who have been cleared by the U.S. government to immigrate to the United States, including family members of active-duty U.S. military personnel, have had their flights canceled under an executive order. President Donald Trump suspends US refugee programs, US official and US official. A top refugee resettlement spokeswoman 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 movement of US veterans and advocacy groups. and a US official, who spoke on condition of anonymity.

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

Trump made immigration a key campaign promise for his 2024 re-election bid, leaving the end of the US refugee program up in the air.

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

“Afghans and advocates are scared,” VanDiver said. “I have to charge my phone four times today because so many people 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 meeting Trump’s transition team.

The VanDiver Foundation is a coalition that has been working with the US government to evacuate and repatriate Afghans to the US since the Taliban took over Kabul when the last US troops left Afghanistan in August 2021 after decades of two of war.

About 200,000 Afghans have been brought to the United States by the administration of former President Joe Biden since the withdrawal of US troops from Kabul.

One of the many executive orders Trump is expected to sign after being sworn in for a second term on Monday halts US refugee programs for at least four months.

The new White House website said that Trump “is suspending refugee resettlement, after the nation has been forced to house a large and unstable population of immigrants, straining public safety and resources.”

“We know that this means that children who are not traveling, (Afghan) trained partner forces, who are fighting dead or wounded alongside our forces, and the families of active duty US service members will be stuck. ,” VanDiver said.

VanDiver and the US official said that Afghans who have been resettled in the US as refugees are being removed from scheduled flights from Kabul between now and April.

Minority Democrats on the House Foreign Relations Committee blasted the move, saying in a post X that “this is what abandonment looks like. Leaving vetted, certified Afghan allies at the mercy of The Taliban are a disgrace.”

They include about 200 family members of active duty Afghan-Americans who were born in the US or who came to the US, joined the military and became naturalized citizens, they said.

Those being removed from the planes include an unknown number of Afghans who fought for the former US-backed government in Kabul and another 200 children who are not accompanying Afghan refugees or Afghan parents whose children have gone they are brought alone to the United States during the US withdrawal, said VanDiver and the US official.

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