Families of U.S. service members trying to leave Afghanistan and escape the Taliban are trapped in the country due to an executive order issued on President Donald Trump’s first day in office.
Hundreds of family members of U.S. troops are impacted by the executive order issued Monday that suspended all U.S. refugee programs, according to Shawn VanDiver, founder of #AfghanEvac, an organization that helps evacuate Afghans and their families who worked alongside American military personnel over the last two decades.
“Veterans across this country and service members across this country had hoped that Afghans would be exempted from these broad immigration actions,” VanDiver said. “They’ve been vetted through and through and through, and mostly they’ve been vetted because we gave them guns and they saved our lives.”
A previous exemption from the Biden Administration granted a pathway for families of U.S. service members in Afghanistan to get to the U.S. who would otherwise not be eligible for the State Department’s Special Immigrant Visas. The SIV program began in 2009 and has granted nearly 50,500 visas to eligible Afghans who were employed by or on behalf of the U.S. government during military operations in the country.
The refugee program suspension is impacting the families of U.S. service members, Afghan partner forces who served alongside the American military, journalists, aid and non-governmental organization workers, lawyers, human rights defenders, or “literally anybody who had something to do with the U.S. mission that isn’t eligible for the SIV program,” VanDiver said.
“People are absolutely terrified. They’re scared that they’re never gonna come here,” he said. “There’s no implementation plan from the State Department yet and that’s because the incoming Trump administration didn’t give anybody a heads up on any of these executive orders.”
The State Department referred inquiries sent by Task & Purpose to the White House. The White House did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
The suspension goes into effect Jan. 27, according to the order which called the U.S. Refugee Admissions Program “detrimental to the interests of the United States.”
For a current 82nd Airborne Division soldier whose sister and her husband are stuck in Afghanistan, he told Task & Purpose that it’s frustrating to see a lack of nuance in the policy which is now impacting U.S. service members like himself who worked with Green Berets in 2019 and is now serving on active duty. The soldier requested his name be kept confidential in order to speak freely about his situation.
“I don’t serve like a specific group or organization and this — just looking at us indiscriminately and just betraying us — is not the way to appreciate our help and service,” the soldier told Task & Purpose.
The 82nd soldier is working with his chain of command and asking for their help to advocate for a policy exemption at the senior levels of the Pentagon and White House. But as an active duty soldier in a combat unit that needs to be ready to deploy at a moment’s notice, he said he’s limited on what he can actually do for his sister.
“If anything happens to her, right now I cannot even leave the base,” he said, adding that he’s grappling with the reality of deploying without knowing his sister’s status. “What if I die? Like, [she] cannot even attend my funeral. It just really upsets me and I cannot even focus on my job and my duties.”
The 82nd soldier said that his sister and her husband were only months away from getting their flight to the U.S.
“They were at the very final stage of their case that they were almost done,” he said. “They did their medical interviews. They were fully vetted, waiting [for] a flight.”
The soldier was born and raised in Afghanistan and arrived in the U.S. days after the withdrawal in August 2021. After a year of working for American refugee services, he joined the Army, went through infantry and airborne school and now serves with the division based out of Fort Liberty, North Carolina. His father worked contract jobs like bringing supplies to U.S. military units and his older brother, who worked as a translator for U.S. forces during the wars, currently serves in the Army Reserve.
The 82nd soldier is just one of thousands of Afghans who have settled in the U.S. as far back as the 1970s when refugees fled after the Soviet Union invasion. Then there’s Afghans who immigrated to the U.S. to serve in the military before even becoming American citizens, VanDiver said.
“They still have family there and their family is at risk due to their association with the United States military,” he said, “and the Taliban aren’t exactly known for their compassion and kindness.”
Reports out of the country have detailed Taliban-led persecution of Afghans who helped the American military during more than two decades of war. Those who were left behind during the chaos of the withdrawal or didn’t have the right State Department paperwork to leave on a U.S.- military chartered flight, like the soldier’s sister, fear being kidnapped, killed or imprisoned by the Taliban.
VanDiver said his organization worked with the Biden Administration to get the policy exception that helped thousands of family members with U.S. military associations escape. Now, VanDiver is hoping that Trump’s criticism over the withdrawal from Afghanistan and Republican claims of the Biden administration’s “decision to abandon” U.S. allies will drive them to reexamine the blanket suspension.
“We’re hopeful that he will see it in his heart to inject some nuance here for our service members,” VanDiver said. “We set up the infrastructure to get these folks out. It’s a promise kept too late. But now it’s gonna be a promise kept not at all.”
Trump’s executive order suspends refugee applications until a decision is made by Department of Homeland Security and Secretary of State officials in the next 90 days. The order directs the two agencies to determine “whether resumption of entry of refugees” into the U.S. “would be in the interests of the United States.”
Till a decision is reached or an exemption is granted, the 82nd soldier said he’s trying to do what he can for his sister despite losing hope.
“If something happened to me, I just want my sister to be taken care of no matter if I’m dead or alive. I just want her to come to the U.S. I don’t really care about my life,” the soldier said. “I signed up to defend this country and I will sacrifice myself, my life, any day.”
The latest on Task & Purpose
- Storied Marine infantry battalion to be transformed into Littoral Combat Team
- Soldiers are turning to social media when the chain of command falls short. The Army sees it as a nuisance.
- Marine recruit uniforms were photoshopped on at boot camp
- Army doctor pleads guilty on first day of trial in largest military abuse case
- Air Force ‘standards update’ includes more inspections and review of ‘waivers and exceptions’