Afghan refugees feel “ betrayed ” by the Trump Blocking Moving Order to us

“It is as if the United States did not really understand what I did for this country, it’s a betrayal,” Abdullah told the BBC.

He fled Afghanistan with his parents in the midst of the US withdrawal in August 2021 and is now a paratrotoping for the US military. He fears that he cannot help his sister and her husband to escape too, due to the executive order of President Donald Trump suspending a resettlement program.

The order cancels all flights and applications for Afghan refugees, without any exemption for families of active soldiers.

Trump maintains that the decision deals with “record migration levels” which threaten “the availability of resources for Americans”.

But Abdullah and several other Afghan refugees told the BBC that they thought that the United States had “turned their backs” on them, despite years of work alongside American officials, troops and non-profit organizations in Afghanistan. We do not use their real names, because they fear doing so could compromise their cases or put their family in danger.

As soon as Abdullah heard of the order, he called his sister. “She was crying, she lost hope,” he said. He thinks that her work made her a target of the Taliban government which took power in 2021.

“Anxiety is simply unimaginable. She thinks we can never see each other again,” he said.

During the war, Abdullah said he was an interpreter for American forces. When he left Afghanistan, her sister and her husband could not get passports in time to get on the flight.

Suhail Shaheen, spokesperson for the Taliban government, told the BBC that there was an amnesty for anyone working with international forces and that all Afghans can “live in the country without any fear”. He claims that these refugees are “economic migrants”.

But a UN report in 2023 questioned the insurance of the Taliban government. He found that hundreds of former government representatives and members of the armed forces were killed despite general amnesty.

Abdullah’s sister and her husband finished medical exams and interviews necessary for resettlement in the United States. The BBC has seen a document from the US Department of Defense approving their request.

Now Abdullah says that Trump’s insistence that immigration is too high does not justify his separation from his family. He describes white nights and says anxiety affects his work in his combat unit, serving the United States.

Babak, a former legal advisor to the Afghan Air Force, is still hiding in Afghanistan.

“They haven’t only broken their promise to us – they break us,” he said.

The BBC has seen letters from the United Nations confirming its role, as well as a letter approving its asylum application by an LT Colonel in the US Air Force. Approval adds that he has provided strikes on strikes targeting activists linked to the Taliban and the Islamic State group.

Babak cannot understand the president’s decision, since he worked alongside American troops. “We have risked our lives because of these missions. Now we are in serious danger,” he said.

He moved his wife and young son from one location to another, trying desperately to stay hidden. He claims that his brother was tortured for his place. The BBC cannot verify this part of its history, given the nature of its claims.

Babak calls on Trump and his national security advisor Mike Waltz to change his mind.

“Mike Waltz, you served in Afghanistan. Please encourage the president,” he said.

Before saying goodbye, he adds: “The only ray of light we held was turned off.”

Ahmad managed to fly to the United States in the middle of the withdrawal chaos but is now separated from his family. He felt that he had no choice but to leave behind his teenage brothers and sisters.

If he and his father had not worked with the United States, he says, his family would not be targets from the Taliban government. “I cannot sleep knowing that I am one of the reasons why they are in this situation,” he adds.

Before taking control of the Taliban, Ahmad worked for a non-profit organization called Open Government Partnership (OGP), co-founded by the United States 13 years ago and its headquarters in Washington. He says that the work he is most proud of is to establish a special court to approach abuses against women.

But he claims that his work at OGP and his plea for women made him a target and he was shot by Taliban fighters in 2021 before the Taliban took control of the country.

The BBC has seen a letter from a Pennsylvania hospital evaluating “evidence of injury from fragments of bullets and bullets” which, according to them, are “in accordance with its story of what happened to him in Kabul”.

By aggravating things, he says that his family is also in danger because his father was a colonel with the Afghan army and helped the CIA. The BBC has seen a certificate, provided by the Afghan national security forces, thanking its father for its service.

Ahmad says that the Taliban government harassed its parents, brothers and sisters, so they fled in Pakistan. The BBC has seen photos showing that Ahmad’s father and brother are treated in a hospital for injuries which, according to him, have been inflicted by people from the Taliban government.

His family had carried out several stages of the resettlement program. He said he even provided evidence that he had enough funds to support his family once they arrived in the United States, without any government assistance.

Now Ahmad says the situation is critical. His family is in Pakistan on visas that will expire in a few months. He contacted the IOM and was invited to “be patient”.

The chief of #AFGHANEVAC, a non -profit group helping eligible Afghan networks, said that it estimated that 10,000 to 15,000 people were in the late stadiums of their requests.

Mina, who is pregnant, has been waiting for a flight from Islamabad for six months. She worries her terror will threaten her unborn child. “If I lose the baby, I’m going to kill myself,” she told the BBC.

She says she would protest for women’s rights, even after the Taliban government has taken control of Afghanistan. She claims to have been arrested in 2023 and held overnight.

“Even then, I didn’t want to leave Afghanistan. I hid for my release, but they called me and I said the next time they would kill me,” she said.

Mina worries, the Pakistani government will send her back to Afghanistan. This is partly because Pakistan will not indefinitely grant Afghan refugees.

The country has taken hundreds of thousands of refugees from its neighbor, on decades of instability in the region. According to the United Nations Agency for Refugees, the country welcomes three million Afghan nationals, of which around 1.4 million are documented.

While cross -border tensions with the Taliban government broke out, there have been growing concerns about the fate of Afghans in Pakistan, with intimidation and alleged detention reports. The United Nations Special Rapporteur said he was worried and that Afghans in the region are worth better treatment.

The government of Pakistan claims that it expels foreign nationals who are illegally found in the country in Afghanistan and that confirmed research raids were conducted in January.

According to the IOM, more than 795,000 Afghans have been expelled from Pakistan since last September.

The Afghan refugees to whom we spoke felt taken between a homeland where their lives are in danger, and a host country whose patience is exhausted.

They had pinned their hopes in the United States – but what seemed that a security port was suddenly blocked by the new president until further notice.