Afghan refugees deserve better than a one-way ticket back to the cruelty they left behind
Earlier this month, the United Nations published its latest update on human rights in Afghanistan. Here are a few of the findings: On Feb. 23, 18 people were flogged for 'crimes' ranging from homosexuality to extramarital affairs. They then received sentences of between one and five years in prison. On March 3, 'Propagation of Virtue and Prevention of Vice' agents made a surprise visit to a hospital and ordered staff not to attend women who weren't accompanied by a male relative. Between Jan. 17 and Feb. 3, 50 men from the Ismaili community were abducted and interrogated on religious subjects. Those who refused to convert to Sunni Islam were beaten and threatened with death.
This is Afghanistan under Taliban rule, and it is where the Trump administration plans to send Afghans who are now living safely in the United States.
The Department of Homeland Security recently published a news release stating that the Temporary Protected Status (TPS) for Afghans in the U.S. will expire on May 20 and be terminated on July 12. The order means that over 9,000 Afghans will be vulnerable to deportation. According to DHS Secretary Kristi Noem: 'Afghanistan has had an improved security situation, and its stabilizing economy no longer prevent[s] them from returning to their home country.'
The per-capita gross domestic product in Afghanistan's 'stabilizing' economy is around $415 — nearly 200 times lower than in the United States.
The Afghan economy has only 'stabilized' after a period of immense economic pain due to the suspension of foreign aid and sanctions on the financial sector following the Taliban's return to power. Billions of dollars in Afghan central bank assets remain frozen, and the United States doesn't recognize the Taliban as the legitimate government.
'We've reviewed the conditions in Afghanistan with our interagency partners,' Noem says, 'and they do not meet the requirements for a TPS designation.' There's no group more deserving of TPS than the Afghans who are now on the fast track to deportation. The idea that 'conditions in Afghanistan' have improved so dramatically that the United States has to send Afghans back to one of the most impoverished and tyrannical countries on Earth — where they will instantly have targets on their backs for fleeing to America — is worse than absurd. It will put thousands of people who sought refuge in the United States in grave danger and condemn them to lives of fear and oppression.
Reprisal killings are a permanent feature of Taliban-controlled Afghanistan. Former Afghan National Security Forces (ANSF) and government officials were repeatedly targeted between Jan. 1 and March 31. The United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan documented 23 instances of arbitrary arrest and detention, as well as torture, abuse and killings of former ANSF members. The CEO of AfghanEvac (which helps the U.S.' Afghan allies and other refugees relocate), Shawn VanDiver, observes that the returning Afghans won't be safe: 'By nature of them having been in the United States of America for the last three and a half years, they're now in danger.'
The entirety of the Trump administration's approach to Afghan refugees has been a national disgrace.
On the day Trump took office, he signed an executive order that suspended the U.S. Refugee Admissions Program, an order that prevented Afghans from moving to America — including those who were in the final stages of the arduous approval process. He also rescinded funding for Special Immigrant Visas, which Afghan employees of the United States received. In February, Military Times reported on 'U.S. service members whose families are stuck in Afghanistan,' and who have 'shared stories of individuals being hunted — and in some cases murdered — prior to evacuating.'
One of these soldiers, an Afghan who immigrated to the U.S. and joined the Army, said the Trump administration's order prevented his sister from escaping Afghanistan. Many of the soldier's other family members have relocated to the United States, and two of his brothers also worked with the U.S. military during the war — which puts his sister in even greater peril.
There are many similar stories — an Afghan interpreter who worked with the United States is concerned for his family's safety. A former captain in the Afghan National Army who worked with the U.S. military says his mother, five brothers and three sisters all fear for their lives in Afghanistan. The Taliban shot his brother.
As the Trump administration eliminates TPS for Afghans, it has enacted a policy to take in white South Africans who say they confront racial persecution. As Afghans who face the possibility of torture and murder confront imminent deportation, the images of refugees from South Africa arriving in the United States make for a striking contrast. Deputy Secretary of State Christopher Landau went to Dulles Airport and told the new arrivals: 'I want you all to know that you are really welcome here.' They were flown in on a plane chartered by the State Department.
This is the height of cynicism. It isn't just the conspicuous exception for a group that happens to be white, and whose situation is an obsession of Trump's biggest financial backer — Elon Musk, who is originally from South Africa and has claimed that a 'genocide' is being perpetrated against Afrikaners. It's the vast discrepancy in how the Afrikaners have been treated compared to all other groups of immigrants — while the Trump administration is sending Afghans back to a country where they could be killed, the administration doesn't even ask its preferred immigrants to fly commercial.
The administration is daring critics to attack the U.S. flag-waving South African families who by all indications came to America for the same reason as so many others — to seek a better life. Those families should be embraced just like any other group of new Americans. But this doesn't change the fact that the Afrikaners are being used as political props. Sen. Mike Lee, R-Utah, posted a video of the new arrivals waving flags and said: 'Take note: They're flying *our* flag.'
What's his point? Every U.S. naturalization ceremony — for new citizens from around the world — is a sea of American flags. Meanwhile, Afghans who served in or with the U.S. military are desperately struggling to get their families to safety in the United States.
Americans owe a special debt to our Afghan partners, who served honorably in and alongside our armed forces and trusted the United States to stand by them instead of abandoning their country to the Taliban. The Trump administration's decision to betray the Afghans who thought they were safe on American soil is an act of supreme cruelty and callousness. Our Afghan friends don't deserve a one-way ticket back to the theocracy they left behind — they deserve to be Americans.
This article was originally published on MSNBC.com
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