The administration of the American president Donald Trump moved on Monday to end the legal protections which temporarily projected the Afghans of the expulsion, citing an improved security situation in the country of Taliban, AFP reported.
Internal security secretary Kristi Noem said that the appointment of temporary protection status (TPS) for Afghanistan would expire on May 20 and that the termination would take effect on July 12.
“We have examined the conditions in Afghanistan with our interinstitutions partners, and they do not meet the requirements of a TPS designation,” said Noem in a statement.
“Afghanistan has had an improved security situation, and its stabilizing economy no longer prevents them from returning to their country of origin.”
Federal law allows the government to grant TP foreign citizens who cannot go back to home due to war, natural disasters or other “extraordinary” conditions.
Former Democratic President Joe Biden has extended TPS protections for nationals of several countries just a few days before Trump’s return to the White House in January.
Since his entry into office, Trump has moved to eliminate TPS protections against citizens from several countries, including Haiti and Venezuela, as part of his broader repression of immigration.
A federal judge in California achieved a temporary stay in March on the plans aimed at ending the VST for Venezuelan nationals, and the Trump administration appealed to the Supreme Court.
In his declaration, Noem said that an additional reason to end the TPS for the Afghans was due to the fact that “there are beneficiaries who have been the subject of a fraud investigation and threatening our public security and our national security”.
According to the Afghanevac non-profit organization, some 11,000 Afghans are currently covered by MPs in the United States.
“The decision to end TPS for Afghanistan is not rooted in reality – it is rooted in politics,” said Shawn Vandiver, president of Afghanevac.
“Afghanistan remains under the control of the Taliban,” said Vandiver, an American military veteran in a statement.
“There is no functional asylum system. There are still assassinations, arbitrary arrests and ongoing violations on human rights, especially against women and ethnic minorities.
“What the administration has done today is to betray people who risked their lives for America, have built lives here and believed in our promises.”
Thousands of other Afghans, many of whom worked with the American army or for the filed Afghan government, obtained special immigrant visas in the United States after the Taliban takeover of August 2021.
