Donald Trump should be ashamed of betraying our Afghan allies
Faced with the dire situation in Afghanistan, Donald Trump's first instinct when he took office in January was to make it worse. Among the first things he did was to stop about 1,000 already vetted Afghan refugees from coming to the United States under the Special Immigrant Visa program meant to save our allies from Taliban retribution.
Trump's refugee pause order caught at least another 15,000 Afghans in a bureaucratic limbo in Pakistan where that country was trying to get them to leave and the United States wouldn't take them while their paperwork was paused.
Caught up in cuts, rules
The move was the first of many. Secretary of State Marco Rubio disbanded the office set up to help our Afghan allies get to the United States. DOGE cut state department funding to fly those left destitute in refugee camps into the United States. Funds to help with resettlement costs were also cut. Others may be caught up in the rules for Trump's successor policy to the Muslim travel ban.
Now Donald Trump is taking away another safety net for Afghans in the United States, potentially subjecting them to deportation to their Medieval homeland. For those who somehow managed to get to the United States before the paperwork for their refugee or CIV status was complete, the Biden administration offered Temporary Protected Status or TPS so they could stay while the bureaucrats and lawyers worked things out.
Trump just ended that for about 8,000 Afghans who still haven't sorted their affairs, a challenge given that many fled their homeland just ahead of Taliban troops leaving identification and other important documents behind.
It is not just those who worked with the U.S. military and the U.S. supported Afghan government who deserve our help. Others backed our efforts by grasping the freedom we offered. Some became independent journalists who can no longer work freely in Afghanistan. Others worked with U.S.-funded western charities rebuilding their country, ties that taint them in the eyes of the Taliban just as surely as work with the U.S. military. Women, who jumped at the chance for high school or college education, shouldn't be abandoned in a place where any sign of sentience is punished by Sunni virtue cops.
History of mistreatment
Trump is far from alone in leaving Aghans worse off than when he came into office. Presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama pushed, cajoled and ultimately forced Pashtun, Tajic and Uzbek militias, who had managed to keep themselves free of Taliban rule under the banner of the Northern Alliance, to either disband or become part of the Afghan military. When Joe Biden ultimately withdrew U.S. troops from Afghanistan, knowing full well that the U.S.-backed government might fall in a matter of months, these fiercely independent communities used to tribal self-rule were left defenseless.
The mess that Afghanistan remains has plenty of responsibility for Republicans and Democrats alike. But Republicans who launched the invasion of Afghanistan bear a heavier burden. Once Republicans were fierce backers of protecting our allies. As much as Trump has betrayed the Afghans, he has betrayed what once were Republican principles, too.
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