Afghan refugees feel ‘betrayed’ by Trump’s order to keep them out of the US.

Abdullah told the BBC: “It seems America doesn’t really understand what I have done for this country, it is treason.

In the year He fled Afghanistan with his parents when America pulled out in August 2021 and is now a member of the US Army. President Donald Trump’s executive order suspending the resettlement program also concerned his sister and her husband’s failure to help them escape.

The order cancels all flights and applications for Afghan refugees, with no exemptions for families of active-duty service members.

Trump has argued that the decision is about “immigration levels that threaten Americans’ access to resources.”

But Abdullah and many other Afghan refugees told the BBC they felt the US had “turned its back” on them despite years of working with US officials, soldiers and non-profit organizations in Afghanistan. We are not using their real names because they are concerned that doing so could jeopardize their case or their families.

As soon as Abdullah heard the order, he called his sister. “She was crying, completely desperate.” He believes his work has targeted the Taliban government that will take over in 2021.

“The worry, it’s unimaginable. She thinks we’ll never see each other again,” he says.

During the war, Abdullah was an interpreter for American forces, he said. When he left Afghanistan, his sister and her husband couldn’t get passports in time to board the flight.

Taliban government spokesman Suhail Shaheen told the BBC that anyone working with international forces would be given amnesty and that all Afghans could “live in the country without fear”. He says these refugees are “economic refugees”.

But in the year A 2023 UN report casts doubt on the assurances from the Taliban government. Despite the general amnesty, hundreds of former government officials and members of the armed forces were allegedly killed.

Abdullah’s sister and her husband have completed the medical tests and interviews required for settlement in the US. The BBC has seen a document from the US Department of Defense supporting their application.

Now, Abdullah says that Trump’s claim that immigration is too high is not the reason for his separation from his family. He describes sleepless nights, and the stress is affecting his work in a combat unit serving America.

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

“They’re not just breaking their promises to us — they’re breaking us,” he says.

The BBC has seen letters from the United Nations confirming his role, as well as a letter from a lieutenant colonel in the US Air Force confirming his asylum claim. The affidavit added that it had advised on strikes targeting militants linked to the Taliban and the Islamic State group.

Babak could not understand the president’s decision, because he was working with the US military. “We risked our lives because of those missions. Now we are in grave danger,” he says.

He is desperately trying to stay hidden, moving his wife and young son from place to place. He says he suffered because his brother is there. The BBC cannot confirm this part of the story given the nature of the claim.

Babak appealed to Trump and National Security Adviser Mike Waltz to change their minds.

“Mike Waltz served in Afghanistan, please encourage the president,” he tells us.

Before saying goodbye, he added, “The one ray of light we had is gone.”

Ahmed managed to fly to America in the chaos of the exodus, but now he is separated from his family. He felt he had no choice but to leave his father, mother and teenage siblings behind.

He said that if he and his father had not worked with the US, the family would not have been targeted by the Taliban government. “I can’t sleep knowing I’m one of the reasons I’m in this situation,” he added.

Before taking over the Taliban, Ahmed worked 13 years ago for the Open Government Partnership (OGP), a non-profit organization based in the US and headquartered in Washington. He said his proudest work was establishing a special court to address violence against women.

But he said his work in the OGP and his advocacy for women made him a target and he was shot by Taliban fighters before the Taliban took over the country in 2021.

The BBC has seen a letter from a hospital in Pennsylvania assessing “evidence of gunshot and shrapnel injuries” which “along with his account of what happened to him in Kabul It is suitable”.

To make matters worse, he said his family was in danger because his father was a colonel in the Afghan army and was helping the CIA. The BBC has seen a certificate from the Afghan National Security Forces, thanking his father for his service.

Ahmed said the Taliban government persecuted his parents, siblings and fled to Pakistan. The BBC has seen photos of Ahmed’s father and brother being treated in hospital after they were allegedly injured by Taliban fighters.

The family has completed several stages of the resettlement program. He said he provided evidence that he had enough money to support his family after coming to the United States without government assistance.

Now Ahmed says the situation is serious. His family is in Pakistan on a visa that expires in a few months. He contacted the IOM and was told to “be patient”.

The head of #AfghanEvac, a non-profit group that helps eligible Afghan refugees resettle, estimates that 10,000-15,000 people will be at the end of the application process.

Mina, who is pregnant, has been waiting for a flight out of Islamabad for six months. She worries that her terror threatens her unborn child. “If I lose the child, I will kill myself,” she told the BBC.

She says that she has been protesting for women’s rights even after the Taliban government took over Afghanistan. She says that she was arrested in 2023 and imprisoned overnight.

“Even then I didn’t want to leave Afghanistan, I was in hiding after I was released, but they called me and said the next time they would kill me,” she said.

Meena worries that the Pakistani government will send her to Afghanistan. This is because Pakistan does not grant indefinite asylum to Afghan refugees.

The country has taken in hundreds of thousands of refugees from neighboring countries, thanks to decades of unrest in the region. According to the United Nations refugee agency, the country hosts three million Afghan nationals, of whom 1.4 million are documented.

As the cross-border conflict with the Taliban government continues, threats to the fate of Afghan citizens in Pakistan have been increasing, with reports of intimidation and detention. The UN Special Rapporteur is concerned and says Afghans in the area should be treated better.

The Pakistani government has confirmed that it is deporting illegal foreigners back to Afghanistan and that it was searched in January.

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

The Afghan refugees we spoke to are impatient, caught between their home country and their host country, where their lives are at stake.

They were pinning their hopes on America – but what seemed like a safe harbor was suddenly closed by the new president until further notice.