Trump Seeks to Deport Afghans Who Fled the Taliban

The fear, veterans and other advocates say, is that anyone who returns to Afghanistan will almost certainly face reprisal by the Taliban, the extremist militant group that in 2021 overran the U.S.-trained Afghan military and toppled the government in Kabul…..

Advocacy groups estimate that about 10,000 Afghans in the United States have been dependent on TPS while they navigate the lengthy and complex process for obtaining permanent residency, a process made all the more difficult, they say, by the absolute chaos that defined Afghanistan’s collapse — and by the guidance they received from the U.S. government while trying to escape.

The veterans’ groups are right. Afghans deported back to Afghanistan – especially those who worked with the US during the war – will indeed face harsh persecution by the Taliban. Deporting them would be profoundly unjust, and also a betrayal of wartime allies that will make it more difficult for the US to recruit local support in any future conflict. If we don’t stand by our allies, why would anyone trust us?

I’m old enough to remember a time when Republicans saw themselves as fighters against radical Islamism. Now they seek to deport Afghan allies back to the tender mercies of the Taliban, under the ludicrous pretext that conditions in Afghanistan are improving under the Taliban’s rule.

This move is part of Trump’s broader cruel assault on legal immigration, which includes barring nearly all refugee admissions, and targeting other groups for deportation back to repressive regimes in their countries of origin. Virtually the only group the Trump Administration sees as worthy of refuge are Afrikaner white South Africans, prioritized for refugee status under a February executive order.

I don’t object to admitting the Afrikaners, and doing so might even set a useful precedent. But the idea that South African whites face worse persecution than Afghan opponents of the Taliban and other victims of oppressive regimes, is utterly ridiculous. It reflects the racial obsessions of elements of the far right, not any objective reality.

Trump’s abrogation of TPS for the Afghans is likely to be challenged in court. But the Supreme Court recently stayed a lower court decision blocking revocation of TPS for Venezuelans (despite the fact that they too face deportation to a brutally repressive government), and it seems likely, even if not certain, that the justices would do the same in a case involving the Afghans.

The lifting of TPS doesn’t immediately imperil all Afghans in the United States. Many have parole status, granted and extended during the Biden Administration. But Trump could try to pull that, as well (as he has sought to do in the case of Cubans, Haitians, Nicaraguans, and Venezuelans), and in any event parole status is only temporary, and will eventually run out.

While Trump deserves severe condemnation for  this cruel policy, Congress also deserves a hefty share of the blame. For years, veterans groups and others lobbied them to pass the Afghan Adjustment Act, which would have granted permanent residency rights to Afghans who fled the Taliban.  I repeatedly advocated this, as well. But Congress dithered, and so here we are.