Afghans in California reeling amid Trump administration journey ban, finish of deportation protections

Afghans who relocated to California have been reeling over the previous few months and weeks because the Trump administration has moved to finish deportation protections amid growing efforts to additional limit Afghan nationals from coming to the U.S.

This week, regardless of efforts by a corporation suing to take care of the protections, the Trump administration ended Temporary Protected Status for Afghans, which the U.S. granted in May 2022 after it withdrew army forces from Afghanistan. The standing allowed Afghans to return to the U.S. and procure work authorization, however it didn’t present a pathway to citizenship.

“People are desperate,” stated Shawn VanDiver, the founder and president of AfghanEvac, a nonprofit that helps the secure relocation of Afghan allies. “They’ve followed all the rules. They’ve done everything the U.S. asked them to do, and at every corner, the Trump administration has been blocking them.”

The Trump administration in January suspended Afghan refugee packages and canceled scheduled flights for Afghans cleared by the federal government. In May, the State Department despatched layoff notices to workers on the Coordinator for Afghan Relocation Efforts, generally known as CARE, the company tasked with working to make sure Afghans bought settled into the U.S. with authorities help. And in June, Trump instituted a journey ban, suspending journey for Afghan nationals to the U.S. and leaving households who had been hoping to reunify caught in limbo.

Afghans have more and more gotten caught up within the Trump administration’s efforts to ramp up deportations. In San Diego, an Afghan nationwide who labored as a translator for the U.S. army and had been granted humanitarian parole was detained after attending an asylum listening to at immigration court docket.

The Department of Homeland Security introduced in May that it might terminate Temporary Protected Status for Afghans. Secretary Kristi Noem stated circumstances in Afghanistan “do not meet the requirements for a TPS designation.”

In a press release, the division stated: “The Secretary determined that, overall, there are notable improvements in the security and economic situation such that requiring the return of Afghan nationals to Afghanistan does not pose a threat to their personal safety due to ongoing-armed conflict or extraordinary and temporary conditions.”

Many organizations that assist relocate Afghans criticized the transfer, saying circumstances in Afghanistan, now underneath the Taliban, aren’t secure for many who fled, particularly for many who assisted the U.S. army through the warfare. Casa, a nationwide advocacy group, filed a lawsuit towards DHS, difficult the tip of TPS for Afghans, in addition to for Cameroonians, as illegal.

President Trump boards Air Force One certain for Scotland on July 25, 2025, at Joint Base Andrews, Md.

(Andrew Harnik / Getty Images)

On Monday, the 4th Circuit Court of Appeals denied a movement by Casa to postpone the company’s actions. The case remains ongoing in U.S. District Court in Maryland.

In an announcement, DHS Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin stated people who arrived on TPS can nonetheless apply for asylum and different protections. She stated the tip of TPS “furthers the national interest and the statutory provision that TPS is in fact designed to be temporary.”

TPS has been a vital stopgap for Afghans who made it to the U.S. however whose functions for asylum, or for the Special Immigrant Visas granted to Afghans who’ve labored with the U.S. authorities, are nonetheless pending, caught in main backlogs.

Halema Wali, a co-director at Afghans for a Better Tomorrow, a nonprofit that advocates for Afghan refugees within the New York City metropolitan space and has supported households coming into the U.S. from Tijuana, stated that almost the entire group’s 800 members are on TPS.

“They are petrified,” Wali stated. “They are not sure how to approach this, and quite honestly, we are scrambling to figure out how we make them safe when the only thing protecting them from deportation is gone.”

Global Refuge, a corporation that has resettled 1000’s of Afghans, stated that as many as 11,700 Afghans within the U.S. are actually susceptible to deportation, and those that should not have different means to achieve authorized standing or pending functions may lose work authorization.

“Ending TPS does not align with the reality of circumstances on the ground in Afghanistan,” Krish O’Mara Vignarajah, chief government of Global Refuge, said in a statement. “Conditions remain dire, especially for allies who supported the U.S. mission, as well as women, girls, religious minorities, and ethnic groups targeted by the Taliban. The anxiety among our Afghan clients is real and growing.”

Vignarajah referred to as on Congress to determine a pathway to citizenship for Afghans.

Demonstrators protest towards a sweeping new journey ban introduced by President Trump at Los Angeles International Airport on June 9, 2025.

(Patrick T. Fallon / AFP by way of Getty Images)

California has turn into house to many Afghan refugees — as many as 58,600 name the state house, greater than some other state, according to the Migration Policy Institute. The Greater Sacramento space hosts some 20,000 Afghan refugees, one of many largest communities within the U.S.

The metropolis of Fremont, which has a neighborhood generally known as “Little Kabul” for its array of Afghan retailers and eating places, raised nearly half a million dollars for its Afghan Refugee Help Fund, launched in 2021, to assist newly arrived Afghans.

Harris Mojadedi, an Afghan American advocate within the Fremont space, stated there may be deep uncertainty amid shifting immigration insurance policies. Afghans locally have began receiving self-deportation notices from DHS, and plenty of are struggling to determine what comes subsequent.

He is aware of of 1 Afghan couple, the place one partner has TPS and the opposite is a U.S. citizen, who’re dwelling every day as whether it is their final collectively. Many Afghans are scared to talk out, he stated, for worry of presidency retribution. People have turn into afraid of dropping their kids off at college or calling the police if they’re victims of crime, he stated.

“Just like we’re seeing with other communities, there’s a lot of fear in the [Afghan] community,” Mojadedi stated, referencing the immigration raids which have largely affected the Latino neighborhood.

Shala Gafary, an legal professional who leads a staff targeted on authorized help for Afghans at asylum advocacy nonprofit Human Rights First, stated they’re nonetheless seeing the aftermath of the U.S.’ chaotic withdrawal from Afghanistan, the place 1000’s of Afghans have been separated. She has helped households file functions to be relocated to the U.S. and reunite with their households underneath a program facilitated by the Biden administration.

But as quickly as Trump entered workplace, he issued an order suspending U.S. refugee packages and canceled flights scheduled to convey some 1,660 Afghans cleared by the U.S. authorities to resettle within the U.S., together with members of the family of active-duty U.S. army personnel.

Gafary and different immigration attorneys are fielding calls each day from households asking what they’ll do. And she doesn’t have a solution for them. She has needed to instruct different attorneys — who ask what they need to say to their shoppers — that each one they’ll do is inform Afghan households the reality, that there aren’t any choices obtainable.

“Since January, it’s been nothing but bad news for the Afghan population,” Gafary stated.

Back in Afghanistan, 1000’s dwelling underneath Taliban rule fear for his or her futures. Their choices for making a life elsewhere have shrunk exponentially, as neighboring nations Pakistan and Iran have begun deporting Afghan refugees en masse, and Trump positioned Afghanistan on the U.S. journey ban listing earlier this 12 months.

For Afghan Americans in California who had eagerly anticipated the arrival of family who sought asylum within the U.S., Trump’s immigration crackdown has been crushing.

One Southern California resident, a 26-year-old Afghan American girl, advised The Times that seven of her members of the family, together with her grandmother and several other cousins, are actually in limbo after having their visas accepted however no affirmation that the U.S. will enable them in. They have been scheduled to reach in March from Afghanistan however weren’t allowed in.

The girl, who requested anonymity as a result of she fears repercussions from the Trump administration for her members of the family nonetheless hoping to hunt asylum within the U.S., stated her household nonetheless hopes coverage will shift and they are going to be let in as a result of they haven’t any different choice.

She stated younger ladies in her household haven’t been in a position to go to highschool, and one other cousin who had been working for a global help group is just not allowed to work anymore.

“Everyone is holding their breath to see what happens next,” she stated. “The best thing we can do is just hope for the best, do what we can and check in on each other and keep our heads held up high.”