Afghan immigrants and advocates across the United States are pushing back firmly against the Trump administration’s most recent crackdown on legal immigration, saying the American government is punishing hundreds of thousands of people for the alleged actions of one man.
Since the shooting of two national guard soldiers in Washington DC late last month, with the authorities charging an Afghan man as the suspect, the Trump administration has taken harsh action, especially against Afghans in the US, generating a mix of fear, outrage and defiance in the diaspora.
The government has completely frozen asylum decisions at US Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS), paused visa and immigration applications filed by Afghans and, more widely, halted all legal immigration cases for nationals of 19 countries listed on its travel ban, including citizenship ceremonies.
“The attacker hasn’t been put on trial, but the whole Afghan community has been labeled as guilty,” said Yahya Haqiqi, president of the Afghan Support Network in the US, an organization founded shortly after the fall of Kabul to Taliban control in 2021 that has helped thousands of Afghan refugees settle in Oregon.