Afghan refugees feel “betrayed” by Trump’s order blocking their transfer to the US

“It’s like America doesn’t really understand what I did for this country, it’s a betrayal,” Abdullah tells the BBC.

He fled Afghanistan with his parents amid the US withdrawal in August 2021 and is now a US Army paratrooper. She worries she won’t be able to help her sister and her husband escape as well, due to President Donald Trump’s executive order suspending a resettlement program.

The order cancels all flights and applications for Afghan refugees, without any exemptions for families of active duty service members.

Trump maintains that the decision addresses “record levels of migration” that threaten “the availability of resources for Americans.”

But Abdullah and several other Afghan refugees told the BBC that they feel the United States has “turned its back” on them, despite years of working alongside American officials, troops and nonprofits in Afghanistan. We do not use their real names as they are concerned that doing so could jeopardize their cases or put their families at risk.

As soon as Abdullah heard about the order, he called his sister. “She was crying, she lost all hope,” he said. He believes her work has made her a target of the Taliban government that took power in 2021.

“The anxiety is just unimaginable. She thinks we will never be able to see each other again,” he says.

During the war, Abdullah says he was an interpreter for American forces. When she left Afghanistan, her sister and her husband couldn’t get their passports in time to board the flight.

Suhail Shaheen, spokesman for the Taliban government, told the BBC that there is an amnesty for anyone who has worked with international forces and that all Afghans can “live in the country without any fear.” He claims that these refugees are “economic migrants.”

But a 2023 UN report cast doubt on the Taliban government’s assurances. It found that hundreds of former government officials and members of the armed forces were allegedly killed despite a general amnesty.

Abdullah’s sister and her husband had completed the medical examinations and interviews necessary for resettlement in the United States. The BBC has seen a document from the US Department of Defense supporting their request.

Now Abdullah says Trump’s insistence that immigration is too high does not justify his separation from his family. He describes sleepless nights and says anxiety is affecting his work in his combat unit, serving the United States.

Babak, a former legal advisor to the Afghan Air Force, is still hiding in Afghanistan.

“Not only are they breaking the promise they made to us, but they are breaking us,” he says.

The BBC has seen letters from the United Nations confirming his role, as well as a letter supporting his asylum claim from a US Air Force lieutenant colonel. The endorsement adds that he provided advice on attacks against militants linked to both the Taliban and the Islamic State group.

Babak cannot understand the president’s decision, given that he worked alongside American troops. “We risked our lives for these missions. Now we are in grave danger,” he says.

He has been moving his wife and young son from place to place, desperately trying to stay hidden. He claims that his brother was tortured to find out his whereabouts. The BBC cannot verify this part of his story, given the nature of his claims.

Babak is appealing to Trump and his national security adviser, Mike Waltz, to change their minds.

“Mike Waltz, you served in Afghanistan. Please encourage the president,” he tells us.

Before saying goodbye, he adds: “The only ray of light we cling to has been extinguished.”

Ahmad managed to fly to the United States amid the chaos of the withdrawal, but is now separated from his family. He felt he had no choice but to leave his father, mother, and teenage siblings behind.

If he and his father had not worked with the United States, he says, his family would not be targeted by the Taliban government. “I can’t sleep knowing that I am one of the reasons they are in this situation,” he adds.

Before the Taliban takeover, Ahmad worked for a nonprofit called the Open Government Partnership (OGP), co-founded by the United States 13 years ago and based in Washington. He says the work he is most proud of is establishing a special court to address abuses against women.

But he claims his work at OGP and his advocacy for women made him a target and that he was shot by Taliban fighters in 2021, before the Taliban took control of the country.

The BBC has seen a letter from a Pennsylvania hospital assessing “evidence of gunshot injuries and bullet fragments” which they say is “consistent with your account of what happened to you in Kabul”.

To make matters worse, he says his family is also in danger because his father was a colonel in the Afghan army and helped the CIA. The BBC has seen a certificate, provided by the Afghan National Security Forces, thanking his father for his service.

Ahmad says the Taliban government has harassed his parents, brothers and sisters, so they fled to Pakistan. The BBC has seen photographs showing Ahmad’s father and brother being treated in hospital for injuries he claims were inflicted by members of the Taliban government.

His family had completed several steps of the resettlement program. He says he even provided proof that he has enough funds to support his family once they arrive in the United States, without any help from the government.

Now Ahmad says the situation is critical. His family is in Pakistan on visas that will expire in a few months. He contacted the IOM and was told to “be patient.”

The director of #AfghanEvac, a nonprofit group that helps eligible Afghan refugees resettle, said he estimated between 10,000 and 15,000 people were in the final stages of their applications.

Mina, who is pregnant, has been waiting for a flight from Islamabad for six months. She worries that her terror will threaten her unborn child. “If I lose the baby, I will kill myself,” she told the BBC.

She says she used to protest for women’s rights, even after the Taliban government took control of Afghanistan. She claims she was arrested in 2023 and detained overnight.

“Even then I didn’t want to leave Afghanistan. I hid after my release, but they called me and told me that next time they would kill me,” he says.

Mina is worried that the Pakistani government will send her back to Afghanistan. This is partly because Pakistan will not grant asylum to Afghan refugees indefinitely.

The country has welcomed hundreds of thousands of refugees from its neighbor, after decades of instability in the region. According to the UN refugee agency, the country is home to three million Afghan citizens, of whom around 1.4 million are documented.

As cross-border tensions with the Taliban government have risen, concern has grown over the fate of Afghans in Pakistan, with reports of alleged intimidation and detentions. The UN special rapporteur has said he is concerned and that Afghans in the region deserve better treatment.

Pakistan’s government says it is expelling foreign nationals who are in the country illegally back to Afghanistan, and confirmed search raids were carried out in January.

According to the IOM, more than 795,000 Afghans have been expelled from Pakistan since last September.

The Afghan refugees we have spoken to feel trapped between a homeland where their lives are in danger and a host country whose patience is wearing thin.

They had pinned their hopes on the United States, but what seemed like a safe harbor has been abruptly blocked by the new president until further notice.