About 14,000 Afghans who came to the United States to escape the Taliban—including religious minorities who experienced persecution in their homeland—face forced repatriation in less than two weeks.
U.S. Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem announced April 11 the termination of Temporary Protected Status for Afghan nationals who relocated to the United States, effective May 20.
Homeland Security instructed the Afghans—some of whom assisted U.S. military or western nongovernmental organizations in Afghanistan—to leave the United States.
After the U.S. military withdrawal from Afghanistan in August 2021, more than 1 million Afghans sought refuge in 98 countries.
Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin said conditions in Afghanistan no longer merit U.S. protection.
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“Secretary Noem made the decision to terminate TPS for individuals from Afghanistan because the country’s improved security situation and its stabilizing economy no longer prevent them from returning to their home country,” McLaughlin stated.
‘Situation in Afghanistan remains dire’
Less than a month earlier, when the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom convened a virtual hearing on “Religious Freedom Conditions in Taliban-Controlled Afghanistan,” panelists came to a starkly different conclusion.
Human rights and religious freedom in Afghanistan have deteriorated since the Taliban regained control in 2021, and recent executive orders by President Donald Trump could make matters worse, expert panelists testified at the hearing.
On April 28, the commission issued a statement expressing alarm about Pakistan’s “rapid and ongoing repatriation of Afghan refugees,” which has affected 80,000 people. At the same time, the commission expressed concern about Homeland Security’s announcement regarding the termination of TPS for Afghans in the United States.
“The situation in Afghanistan remains dire for those who do not share the Taliban’s strict interpretation of Islam, including Christians, Shi’a Hazara, Ahmadiyya Muslims, and Sikhs,” said Stephen Schneck, chair of the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom.
“We are deeply concerned that religious minority communities will be in grave danger, especially women and girls, as Taliban officials seek retaliation against Afghans returned by the Pakistani government’s forced and accelerated repatriation efforts.”
Need to ‘protect vulnerable populations’
Legal protections for refugees and asylum seekers need to be strengthened to protect vulnerable groups, including individuals who are persecuted for their faith, said Wissam al-Saliby, president of 21Wilberforce, a human rights organization focused on international religious freedom.
“It is important that the legal and institutional frameworks that protect refugees and asylum seekers are strengthened in the United States, in Europe, in Pakistan where they are repatriating a lot of Afghan refugees, in my home country of Lebanon, and everywhere else in the world,” al-Saliby said.
“These systems that were put in place after the Second World War have very specific definitions for persecution and they are important to protect vulnerable populations including Christians and those who have converted to the Christian faith and would have faced persecution in their home country.
“I experienced this first-hand when, a decade ago, I was assisting asylum seekers who converted to the Christian faith in Lebanon and came from other Arab countries. In addition to protecting their lives, the legal and institutional frameworks gave hope to them and their children.”
In a May 1 news release about the plight of Afghan refugees, 21Wilberforce stated: “Returning religious minorities to a country where they are likely to face systematic repression and possibly extrajudicial punishment runs counter to both international human rights norms and U.S. commitments to religious freedom.”
The statement from 21Wilberforce continued: “Protections for religious minorities under U.S. immigration and asylum law are grounded in the recognition that persecution for one’s faith is a fundamental violation of human rights.
“The United States has legal obligations under international and domestic law to process asylum claims and protect individuals fleeing persecution, including those targeted for their religious beliefs.”
This article originally appeared at The Baptist Standard and has been reprinted with permission.
Ken Camp, based in the Dallas-Ft. Worth Metroplex, is the managing editor of The Baptist Standard.
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14 Responses
This is another moment where America is betraying it’s former ally. In the future people may think twice before helping.
Go to any credible library and one will discover there’s no need to think twice. 🤔
Their blood will be on our hands and God is a just God.
I am sitting here bawling my eyes out over this. These people will all be killed. The Taliban runs the country. We are living in madness. Not a single group in this country domestic or not is safe in this country.
I generally support Trump’s policies, but I’ve known about this for a while and it’s mean spirited and cruel. That is, at least in situations that we can find absolutely zero evidence that those whom we want to kick out mean the US harm. A significant chunk of very pro Trump veterans groups agree.
This is just cruel. He is deporting black and brown people while welcoming and helping white South Africans. Sounds like racism to me.
Absolutely is racism. Racism and abject cruelty. That is the MAGA way.
I had the opportunity to visit some of these refugees when they were first in the US at a military base in the Midwest awaiting final placements. This group of immigrants were NOT criminals. They were were allies (and their families) who worked alongside the US military in Afghanistan. Men who carried out American military objectives and understood themselves to be our friends. They fled to America on US provided air flights because the Taliban had begun killing them as soon as that regime came back into power. And now we are sending them back? To their certain deaths.
It behooves all of us who call ourselves Christians to ask the hard question- in what way does betraying friends and sending innocent people to their deaths align with pro-life/pro-family beliefs and practices?
The cruelty is the point.
It is sad that they are sending refugees back to the Taliban. The women and girls are especially vulnerable. This decision is not right. Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin needs to do her research.
It’s sad and cruel that we’re sending refugees back to ANYWHERE, and seems that trump and co. are determined to send them all back. Well, except the white South Africans that he’s just created more room for….
No amount of research would help. They just don’t care what happens to them.
Consider this: Today the first group of white South African “refugees” arrive in a chartered plane paid for by the US taxpayer. While Haitians, Venezuelan, Cubans, and our Afghan brothers and sisters, are summarily ordered to leave the country. In case of the latter, many face certain death for no other reason than their faith in Jesus.
Here’s a verse you will never hear from the Trump-is-Cyrus choral of evangelical christianity:
“And I will come near to you to judgment; and I will be a swift witness against the sorcerers, and against the adulterers, and against false swearers, and against those that oppress the hireling in his wages, the widow, and the fatherless, and that TURN ASIDE THE STRANGER FROM HIS RIGHT, and fear not me, saith the LORD of hosts” Mal. 3:5.
We will see the judgment of God on this administration for this wickedness.
This is disgusting and evil, and we will be judged for it.