Washington, DC – A federally funded resettlement agency assisted in assisting Ruqia Balkhi in beginning a new life when she arrived in the country in September 2023.
Balkhi, a 55-year-old engineer, was one of the thousands of Afghans who worked alongside the US military during its two-decade-long intervention in her home country.
However, under the Taliban’s leadership, it became difficult for her to remain in Afghanistan after the US-backed government fell in 2021.
She then flew to the US. During her first 90 days in the country, Balkhi received temporary housing, language lessons, basic goods, mental health support and guidance on enrolling her 15-year-old son in a local school in Virginia.
However, when her husband, Mohammed Aref Mangal, arrived under the same visa programme in January, those services had been abruptly halted. President Donald Trump had just been inaugurated, and the US had tightened restrictions on federal funding and immigration.
“It was completely opposite for my husband”, Balkhi said of the circumstances he faced.
Advocates claim that the case of her family demonstrates how Trump’s broad executive orders could have an impact on areas of support that are not even close to bipartisan support.
Veteran organizations have largely supported efforts to secure Afghan nationals’ safety in the US, especially if they collaborated with US forces or the government supported by veteran organizations.
However, the US Refugee Admissions Program (USRAP) was temporarily suspended in Trump’s first two terms, leaving some Afghan applicants who had already been approved stranded abroad.
Foreign aid was stopped by a new executive order. That, in turn, has caused interruptions to the Special Immigrant Visa (SIV) programme for Afghans who worked with the US military, like Balkhi and her husband.
Given that he had a family that was already established in the US, Balkhi claimed that her husband had more luck than most. However, she expressed grief for those who entered without the same kind of support system.
Without the assistance of the resettlement agency, she said, “I don’t believe we would have been able to survive,” she told Al Jazeera in Dari using a translator provided by the Lutheran Social Services of the National Capital Area.
Some critics see the situation as a test of how effective Trump’s hardline policies will be once their full full force is known.
According to Balkhi, “I want the new government to keep their resolute commitments to Afghan allies and immigrants.”
An early-term ‘ mistake’?
Trump’s campaign promises made it clear that he wanted to reform the US immigration system in order to stop what he called an “invasion” of the migrant population.
But his criticism of the US’s chaotic withdrawal from Afghanistan in 2021 had sparked optimism among those who supported Afghan military-related services.
“President Trump campaigned on a bunch of stuff related to Afghanistan, particularly how bad the withdrawal was”, Shawn VanDiver, the founder of #AfghanEvac, an organisation that supports Afghan resettlement.
“So I simply don’t think he would do that and then refuse to try to assist our allies.” I’m just hoping this is a mistake”.
In his latest bid for re-election, Trump repeatedly expressed sympathy for those caught up in the August 2021 troop withdrawal, during which a suicide bombing claimed the lives of 13 US service members and 170 Afghans.
Trump also criticised former US President Joe Biden for being in charge of the “Afghanistan calamity.” Trump pointedly visited the grave of three soldiers killed during the withdrawal effort the day before his inauguration, on January 19.
VanDiver said Trump’s actions from here forward will be critical. VanDiver sees a positive sign if his administration reverses its course on Afghan resettlement.
“But if they don’t change anything, well, then you can be left to conclude that maybe they did mean to do it”.
Trump’s orders have snarled a pipeline for those seeking relief under the program, which requires federal funding to operate, even though they haven’t directly stopped processing under SIV.
10 national organizations that rely on federal funding to provide “reception and placement services” were given an order to stop work right away and without any additional costs earlier this month.
The State Department’s freeze on foreign aid has also gutted services for those waiting abroad in places like Qatar and Albania, including medical care, food and legal support, VanDiver explained.
Most significantly, Trump’s orders have cut funding for relocation flights run by the International Organization for Migration (IOM). That means that the majority of SIV recipients could travel to the US.
“The shutdown of these services isn’t just an inconvenience”, VanDiver said, pointing to the delicate living situations of many Afghans seeking safety. Some of the most vulnerable evacuees could face the death penalty, they warned.
Refugee suspension
The SIV programme is not the only one hampered by Trump’s new orders, though.
Refugee resettlement has also come to an end. Afghans who were the target of the Taliban’s persecution could apply for relocation under special refugee laws under the previous US administration.
Afghans who had been referred by the US embassy were exempt from P1, while those who worked for the US military, US-affiliated organizations, or non-profits with bases in the US were eligible for P2. For those with relatives who are already US citizens, a third category also made it possible to combine families.
In response to the US refugee program’s wider suspension, all of those pathways have been closed.
The Association of Wartime Allies’ Executive Director, Kim Staffieri, argued that SIV recipients should receive the same level of urgent care as those seeking refuge through those programs.
Many people who assisted us who had similar goals that were seriously in danger, but they simply don’t qualify for the SIV due to the strict requirements, according to Staffieri.
Given the bipartisan support for Afghan refugees, she added, she anticipated that Trump’s administration would have taken them into account more.
“We expected some challenges. What we didn’t expect were these broad, sweeping strokes of pausing and suspending necessary programmes”, she told Al Jazeera.
“Either they didn’t have any knowledge or they didn’t take the time to consider the full-scale effects that would follow” they claim.
Veteran support
Afghans who supported US forces in Afghanistan during the war in the past have consistently received a lot of support.
In September 2021, for instance, a poll from NPR and the research firm Ipsos suggested that two-thirds of US respondents backed the relocations, far outpacing support for other groups seeking refuge.
In the years since, that high standard of approval has remained. According to a poll conducted in October 2023 by the With Honor advocacy group, 80% of respondents indicated they were still in favor of Afghan resettlement.
The relocation effort was spearheaded by US service members. That demographic, while diverse, typically skews conservative. About 61 percent supported Trump in the 2024 election, according to the Pew Research Center.
No One Left Behind, a SIV advocacy group’s chief of advocacy and government affairs, described the support as “a matter of national honor and national security.”
“It is certainly a veterans issue. And so it’s been a bipartisan issue”, said Sullivan.
When Sullivan was an army infantry officer, he closely collaborated with an Afghan interpreter who was also a veteran of the Afghanistan war. Sullivan only gave Ahmadi as his first name during his interview, and he has since moved to the US as part of the SIV program.
Sullivan said he was optimistic Trump would eventually create “carve-outs” for Afghans, pointing to the large number of veterans from the Afghanistan conflict in the Republican’s administration.
One of those veterans, former Congressman Mike Waltz, has since become Trump’s White House national security adviser. Prior to now, Walz urged former president Biden to “bring our Afghan allies home.”
Sullivan explained that he had spoken with Waltz on the subject frequently and that he had a good feeling after that.
“He understands on that personal, visceral level, how much these folks mean to]veterans]”, Sullivan said. “So I know he gets it”.
A “scratching halt”
Other advocates, however, are less hopeful. James Powers, a grassroots organiser from Ohio who focuses on veterans issues, pointed to immigration hardliner Stephen Miller’s role in the new administration.
Miller had served under Trump’s first administration before SIV processing had slowed.
“It only makes sense that]the programme] would come to a screeching halt as soon as he got back into power to influence the current president”, Powers said.
Advocates expressed concern that the current system’s years of development were in jeopardy.
A special office was established to coordinate and streamline SIV relocations just last year thanks to bipartisan support from both parties.
The Biden administration has also increased the processing of SIVs and other Afghan refugee categories over the past four years. Biden’s government issued 33, 341 SIVs in fiscal year 2024, about triple the number issued in 2022, the first full fiscal year following the withdrawal.
Afghan refugee admissions also increased from 1, 618 in fiscal year 2022 to 14, 708 in 2024.
All told, over 200, 000 Afghans have been relocated to the US since the withdrawal, including tens of thousands flown on evacuation flights in the immediate aftermath.
Source: Aljazeera
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