President Donald Trump’s executive order this week suspending the U.S. refugee admissions program has left in limbo tens of thousands of Afghans who were hoping to start new lives in America.

Under President Joe Biden, nearly 200,000 Afghans were resettled in the United States, according to the State Department — most of them evacuated during or soon after the chaotic U.S. military withdrawal in 2021, when the Taliban seized control of the country.

Tens of thousands of men and women who had worked for the U.S. military, American diplomats or government-funded organizations were left behind.

Between 40,000 and 60,000 Afghans around the world are actively seeking resettlement in the United States, and thousands had already received U.S. government approval, estimated Shawn VanDiver, the president of AfghanEvac, a volunteer organization formed during the U.S. withdrawal that has helped Afghans flee the country. About 1,700 people were expected to be moved out of Afghanistan over the next four months, he added.

“These are folks who for one reason or another are at risk because of their association with the United States — and they’re hiding because they’re scared,” VanDiver said. They include family members of Afghans serving in the U.S. military, as well as women and minorities who fear persecution under the Taliban.

The U.S. president has broad authority to decide how many refugees are admitted to the country in a given year, and to allocate funding for resettlement. During his first term, Trump dramatically reduced refugee admissions, particularly from Muslim-majority countries. Biden swiftly raised the admissions ceiling when he took office in 2021, but it took years to build up the country’s resettlement capabilities. In the last fiscal year of Biden’s presidency, the United States took in just over 100,000 refugees from around the world.

Trump’s executive order, which suspends the refugee admissions program in its entirety, did not mention specific nationalities, and did not explicitly target Special Immigrant Visas, or SIVs — reserved for Afghans who directly supported the 20-year U.S. war effort, including as military interpreters. VanDiver said he was optimistic that families would continue to arrive under the SIV program, which brought in more than 30,000 Afghans in fiscal 2024.

The State Department declined to comment for this article. The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Afghans and their advocates are bracing for the worst. On Wednesday morning, AfghanEvac posted screenshots to X of a State Department letter sent to groups that coordinate refugee resettlement. “All previously scheduled travel of refugees to the United States is being cancelled, and no new travel bookings will be made,” it read in part.

Danilo Zak, the policy director at Church World Service, an official U.S. resettlement agency, told The Washington Post on Wednesday that “flight cancellations, including for refugee minors … began rolling in this morning.”

VanDiver said his phone hasn’t stopped ringing, as those affected try to make sense of what to do next. Many fled to neighboring Pakistan months or years ago and are running out of money. They say they can’t afford another delay.

“This is so disheartening,” said Spesali Zazai, a 52-year-old Afghan woman. She has been stuck in Peshawar, in northwestern Pakistan, for almost three years, waiting for resettlement in the United States with three of her daughters. Poland, another NATO ally, took in her fourth daughter.

“Going back is not an option,” she said. “For women, there’s nothing left to live for in Afghanistan.”

The Taliban has imposed increasing restrictions on women since it returned to power, banning them from secondary and university education and limiting their freedom of movement and expression. While the government initially portrayed its education ban as temporary, hopes among women that classes would resume have faded over the past year as authorities introduced draconian measures governing nearly every aspect of public life.

Many Afghan men who were associated with the United States and its allies may also be at risk from the Taliban, human rights observers say, despite the regime’s general amnesty for those who served in the previous Western-backed government. The United Nations documented over 200 extrajudicial killings of former officials and members of the armed forces after the Taliban takeover in 2021. The Afghan Foreign Ministry rejects those figures, saying that “no military staff of the previous administration has been arrested, detained or tortured because of his activities in the security institutions.”

A key question now will be how the Pakistani government responds to Trump’s executive order. Pakistan has forced about 800,000 Afghans to return to their country since fall 2023. So far, Afghans awaiting resettlement in the United States and other countries have largely been spared, but authorities in Islamabad have indicated repeatedly that they are running out of patience.

A Pakistani Foreign Ministry official, speaking on the condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to comment, said the government is still waiting for clarity from Washington.

The suspension of the refugee admission program takes effect Monday. While it does not have a set end date, it is expected to be reviewed after 90 days.

The order leaves room for “case-by-case” exceptions to the suspension, though it is unclear who would qualify. Refugee advocates are calling for much broader exemptions that would apply to applicants under the P-1 and P-2 programs, which include former Afghan officials and journalists.

“We have an obligation to them,” VanDiver said.

Biden vowed in August 2021 that “we will continue to support the Afghan people,” but was criticized by refugee advocates throughout his term for not doing more to hasten the resettlement of America’s Afghan allies. The criticism intensified in 2022 as the administration worked quickly to resettle Ukrainian refugees fleeing the Russian invasion, even as many Afghans were still waiting for their number to be called.

“We had hopes to be able to start over in the U.S., to build a future for our families,” said Homaira Haidari, 28, who has been in Pakistan since early 2023 waiting for relocation to the United States. She found out about Trump’s executive order on social media.

“It feels like our dreams are falling apart,” she said.

Haidari, a former journalist and midwifery student, has seen her prospects in Afghanistan wither. Female reporters have become a rare sight under the Taliban, and as of last month, women were banned from pursuing careers as nurses or midwives.

The United States has remained a major contributor of financial aid to Afghanistan, sending money through U.N. agencies and other organizations that allow the funds to bypass authorities in Kabul. But Trump suspended all foreign assistance programs on Monday for 90 days, pending review, and has threatened to permanently cut off funding unless the Taliban returns the billions of dollars in military equipment left behind by U.S. troops.

Jan Egeland, secretary general of the Norwegian Refugee Council, warned that a sustained halt to U.S. assistance would have severe ripple effects in Afghanistan, worsening the country’s economic crisis and probably forcing aid groups to lay off female workers.

“Women and girls in Afghanistan would further suffer, and lives will be lost,” he said. Shaiq Hussain contributed to this report.

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