We still remember the day Kabul fell. So many Afghans who worked shoulder to shoulder with Americans in military, diplomatic, and development missions immediately knew the risks they faced under the Taliban regime, who saw them not as civilians but as traitors and infidels. These Afghan partners of the United States knew that staying behind meant grave danger and even death.
Thousands ran to the airport without a plan — just fear. Amazingly, what they found there, amid the chaos, was that groups from across Afghanistan, the United States, and the world were working together to evacuate at-risk Afghans in a matter of days. Our organization, Georgetown University’s Institute for Women, Peace, and Security, was among those helping evacuate women who faced threats to their lives because of their work to advance women’s rights.
At great personal peril, Afghans left their belongings, their homes, and their loved ones behind. Leaving was the difference between life and death. That is the reason thousands were granted temporary protected status (TPS) in the United States in the first place. More than 8,200 Afghans were covered by the protection last year. TPS is a humanitarian immigration status granted by the U.S. government to people coming from the most at-risk countries, where conditions such as war or other extraordinary crises make it unsafe or impossible to return. Afghans were granted TPS because the United States recognized how dire and dangerous the situation had become in Afghanistan under Taliban control and the incredible risks faced by those with affiliations with Americans and democratic values. These Afghans stood with America and American values, and America ultimately stood by them in their moment of peril.
Until now.
In April, news emerged that the Trump administration planned to end the TPS designation for Afghanistan. On May 12, the Department of Homeland Security issued the formal announcement that the program would expire on May 20 and that TPS status for Afghans living in the United States would be terminated as on July 14. That could lead to the deportation of Afghans currently living in the country. Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem’s justification for this action: “Afghanistan has had an improved security situation, and its stabilizing economy no longer prevents them from returning to their home country.”
The facts do not support this statement.
We received this news just days after convening more than 20 Afghan women refugees who fled the country after the Taliban takeover and now reside in the United States. Every single one of them spoke of the horrors facing their sisters, friends, loved ones, and communities who remain in Afghanistan. Every one of them spoke about the brutality of the Taliban, the insecurity, the lack of the most basic needs like food and health services, and the lack of economic opportunity. These women leaders in the United States know what all Afghans know: the situation in the country is less secure and less stable than ever.
‘Improved Security’ vs. Reality
Let’s look at the facts.
Noem cites an “improved security situation” in Afghanistan. But the U.S. State Department describes travel to Afghanistan at the highest risk: “do not travel, due to armed conflict, civil unrest, crime, terrorism, and kidnapping. Travel to all areas of Afghanistan is unsafe.” Terrorist groups continue to pose threats in Afghanistan, specifically the Islamic State-Khorasan Province (ISIS-K). Al-Qaeda also continues to have a presence in Afghanistan.
Killings and disappearances happen far too often in Afghanistan. A 2023 report by the Oslo, Norway-based Human Rights Research League documented more than 400 revenge killings of individuals with links to the United States or the former Afghan government, across all 34 provinces. The victims were government workers, civil society members, human rights defenders — people just like those who fled to the United States in Operation Allies Refuge and Operation Allies Welcome, which the Department of Homeland Security touted at the time. A 2023 report by the United Nations Mission in Afghanistan confirmed that more than 200 former Afghan government officials and security personnel had been extrajudicially killed. These documented cases likely represent just a small fraction of the killings taking place today in Afghanistan. Additionally, censorship has become tighter, and threats against any perceived dissent have remained swift and harsh.
The situation for Afghan women and girls under the Taliban is the worst in the world. The Taliban have been engaged in a draconian assault on women’s rights, determined to erase women and girls from public life. They have issued dozens of edicts, codified under so-called “morality law,” forbidding women to show their faces in public and silencing their voices, even to recite the Quran. Education is prohibited for girls over 12 and strict punishments are inflicted on those attending secret home schools. This has impacted more than 2.2 million Afghan girls who can no longer get a full education. Women are not allowed to work in public. Maternal mortality rates remain very high, yet women have been banned from training to be midwives. Drivers cannot transport women without a male guardian. In a recent proclamation, buildings are not to have windows through which it is possible to see areas in the home used by women. These rules strive to make women invisible. One third of Afghan girls are in forced marriages. Domestic violence has increased.
Meanwhile, religious police are empowered to arrest, detain, disappear, and kill women arbitrarily. Suicide rates among women and girls are on the rise since the Taliban took power. This systematic oppression is nothing less than gender apartheid. Recent reports detail underage girls being sold by their families for food and girls and women who self-immolated rather than being forced into marriage with Taliban soldiers. The situation is so egregious that in a landmark decision on Oct. 4, 2024, the Court of Justice of the European Union ruled that Afghan women are presumed to face persecution under the Taliban regime solely based on their gender and nationality, thereby qualifying them for refugee status without the need for individual assessments.
Humanitarian Crises and Human Rights Abuses
Noem also points to Afghanistan’s “stabilizing economy” as a justification for ending TPS. However, conditions in Afghanistan are so dire that it is still considered to be one of the largest humanitarian crises in the world. Almost two-thirds of the population requires assistance to survive, and 3 million people are dangerously close to famine. About 1.84 million Afghans are left without critical medical care. The crisis has been exacerbated by severe cuts in U.S. humanitarian assistance. Moreover, Afghanistan is impacted by prolonged droughts, water scarcity, and rising temperatures, which are intensifying the humanitarian crisis: livelihoods are being destroyed, agricultural yields are smaller, food insecurity is increasing, health risks are growing, and displacement is intensifying. The economy is precarious, and poverty pervasive.
Finally, Noem asserted in the May 12 announcement that some recipients of temporary protected status have been “under investigation for fraud and threatening our public safety and national security.” The statement offered no evidence. Certainly such issues would be a reason to investigate and hold those individuals accountable, but individual cases should not be used as collective punishment against the vast majority of law-abiding Afghans in the United States by scrapping the entire TPS designation.
Contrary to what the Department of Homeland Security claims, the situation in Afghanistan has not improved. In fact, under Taliban rule, the country has become one of the world’s worst human rights abusers, creating incredible risk for all Afghans – no matter their gender — and especially anyone perceived as supporting America.
If TPS is fully terminated on July 14, thousands of Afghan allies will be left out in the cold. Some won’t qualify for other forms of legal protections, such as special immigrant visas (SIVs) or asylum status – because of the criteria for these protections. Others may be deported before they can complete the slow and challenging legal process of attaining longer-term protections.
Deporting allies isn’t only an unjustified bureaucratic decision. It is a betrayal. It should be reversed and TPS should be extended, before more Afghans suffer and die at the hands of the Taliban.
