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Afghans who fled Taliban rule urge Trump to lift refugee program suspension

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Afghans who fled Taliban rule urge Trump to lift refugee program suspension
News

News

Afghans who fled Taliban rule urge Trump to lift refugee program suspension

2025-01-23 01:10 Last Updated At:01:21

ISLAMABAD (AP) — Afghans who fled after the Taliban seized power appealed Wednesday to U.S. President Donald Trump to exempt them from an order suspending the relocation of refugees to the United States, some saying they risked their lives to support U.S. troops.

An estimated 15,000 Afghans are waiting in Pakistan to be approved for resettlement in the U.S. via an American government program. It was set up to help Afghans at risk under the Taliban because of their work with the U.S. government, media, aid agencies and rights groups, after U.S. troops pulled out of Afghanistan in 2021, when the Taliban took power.

But in his first days in office, Trump's administration announced the U.S. Refugee Admissions Program would be suspended from Jan. 27 for at least three months. During that period, the White House said the secretary of homeland security in consultation with the secretary of state will submit a report to the president on whether the resumption of the program is in the U.S. interest.

Refugees who had been approved to travel to the United States before Jan. 27 have had their travel plans canceled by the Trump administration. Among those affected are the more than 1,600 Afghans cleared to resettle in the U.S. That number includes those who worked alongside American soldiers during the war as well as family members of active-duty U.S. military personnel.

There was no immediate comment from Pakistan, where authorities have urged the international community to decide the fate of 1.45 million Afghan refugees, saying they cannot stay indefinitely.

“Many of us risked our lives to support the U.S. mission as interpreters, contractors, human rights defenders, and allies,” an advocacy group called Afghan USRAP Refugees — named after the U.S. refugee program — said in an open letter to Trump, members of Congress and human rights defenders.

“The Taliban regard us as traitors, and returning to Afghanistan would expose us to arrest, torture, or death,” the group said. “In Pakistan, the situation is increasingly untenable. Arbitrary arrests, deportations, and insecurity compound our distress.”

Hadisa Bibi, a former student in Kabul who fled to neighboring Pakistan last month, said she read in newspapers that Trump suspended the refugee program.

“Prior to restrictions on women’s education in Afghanistan, I was a university student,” she said. “Given the risks I face as a women’s rights advocate, I was hoping for a swift resettlement to the United States. This would not only allow me to continue my higher education but also offer a safer and brighter future.”

She said she witnessed several Afghans arrested by Pakistani police, which left her in fear, "confined to my room like a prisoner.”

Mahnoosh Monir said she was a medical student in Afghanistan when her education was “cruelly suspended by the Taliban." Before fleeing to Pakistan, she worked as a teacher at a language center but it also was shut by the Taliban.

“Afghanistan is no longer a place for any girl or woman to survive," she said, adding she was disappointed by Trump's move.

“I didn’t expect this suspension to happen. A long span of waiting makes us think of very disappointing probabilities like being sent back to Afghanistan or waiting for a long time in Pakistan as a refugee at risk, which are like nightmares to all case holders," she said.

The Taliban have deprived 1.4 million Afghan girls of schooling through bans, according to the United Nations. Afghanistan is the only country in the world that bans female secondary and higher education.

Both Bibi and Monir applied for relocation and are still waiting. Over time, the visa process for Afghans who demonstrate they are at risk of persecution has become protracted.

Another Afghan woman, Farzana Umeed, and a man, Sarfraz Ahmed, said in an interview on the outskirts of Islamabad they were traumatized by the suspension of the program.

“I virtually wept last night when we heard this news,” Umeed said. She said it was difficult for her to live in Pakistan, and she could not travel to America either. “Returning to my home country also means taking a huge risk. What should I do? she asked, and urged Trump to reverse his decision.

Those in exile in Pakistan include Afghan journalists who were forced to escape Taliban rule to save their lives, and now face “extreme anxiety under the recurring threat of arbitrary arrest, police harassment and deportation to Afghanistan,” Reporters Without Borders said Wednesday.

The media watchdog urged Pakistan to ensure the protection of these journalists, who say their visa is extended only for a month for a $100 fee.

According to the Afghan USRAP Refugees group, flights to the U.S. for many Afghans had been scheduled for January, February and March after they were interviewed by the International Organization for Migration and U.S. Embassy officials.

“We seek the reversal of the ban on the refugee program on humanitarian grounds,” said Ahmad Shah, a member of the group, who was hoping to leave Pakistan for the United States in March after undergoing all interviews and medical tests.

In addition to Pakistan, more than 3,200 Afghans are staying in Albania. A NATO member, Albania first agreed to house Afghans for one year before they moved for final settlement in the United States, then pledged to keep them longer if their visas were delayed.

An Afghan refugee man, who asked not to use his name and not to show his face fearing his identity could lead to his capture, speaks during an interview with The Associated Press, in Islamabad, Pakistan, Wednesday, Jan. 22, 2025. (AP Photo/Anjum Naveed)

An Afghan refugee man, who asked not to use his name and not to show his face fearing his identity could lead to his capture, speaks during an interview with The Associated Press, in Islamabad, Pakistan, Wednesday, Jan. 22, 2025. (AP Photo/Anjum Naveed)

An Afghan refugee woman, who asked not to use her name and not to show her face fearing her identity could lead to her capture, poses for photographer following her interview with The Associated Press, in Islamabad, Pakistan, Wednesday, Jan. 22, 2025. (AP Photo/Anjum Naveed)

An Afghan refugee woman, who asked not to use her name and not to show her face fearing her identity could lead to her capture, poses for photographer following her interview with The Associated Press, in Islamabad, Pakistan, Wednesday, Jan. 22, 2025. (AP Photo/Anjum Naveed)

NEW ORLEANS (AP) — Clark Hunt was not quite 5 years old when he settled into his seat in Tulane Stadium beside his parents to watch the Kansas City Chiefs, the franchise his father had founded in the brazen days of the AFL, as they played the Minnesota Vikings in Super IV.

Hunt doesn't remember the game itself. But once in a while, photos will surface that he has never seen before.

“I do have a photo of me sitting with my parents in the stands, right? I think they were benches. It sort of looked like a corner,” said Hunt, now 59, who assumed control of the Chiefs when his father, the visionary Lamar Hunt, died in December 2006.

“I guess that shows you how things have changed,” Hunt said.

Indeed, it's a safe bet that Hunt and the rest of his family had comfortable seats in a luxury suite when the Chiefs faced the Eagles on Sunday at the Superdome. Led by Patrick Mahomes and Travis Kelce, and with a celebrity fan base that includes Taylor Swift and Caitlin Clark, the Chiefs were chasing an unprecedented third consecutive Lombardi Trophy.

The fact was not lost on Hunt that they were trying to make history in the same city where they won their first Super Bowl with a 23-7 victory over the Vikings on Jan. 11, 1970. In fact, Hunt seemed to view the coincidence as something closer to kismet, a point that he underscored by pointing out that the Chiefs spent this week practicing at Tulane University.

“I hate to say I don't have any memories from that Super Bowl,” he said, "but getting to go to Tulane where we're training and being literally a stone's throw from the old stadium where we won Super Bowl IV is really special.

“I always think about my parents Super Bowl week,” Hunt added, “There's no way not to. But this one is going to be special.”

There's an argument to be made that nobody had a greater influence on the big game than Lamar Hunt.

The oil magnate was part of the “Foolish Club” that founded the AFL, back when they were being kept out of the NFL, and he was instrumental in the merger years later that ultimately brought the two professional football leagues together.

In a letter to NFL commissioner Pete Rozelle, Hunt mused about the pending title game, saying: “I have kiddingly called it the ‘Super Bowl,’ which obviously can be approved upon.” He was inspired by the must-have Christmas gift of the year that his wife, Norma, had gotten Clark Hunt and the rest of the kids: the Super Ball, made by toy company Wham-O.

Lamar Hunt regularly attended the Super Bowl, though he never saw his Chiefs play in it again. They wouldn't make it back until Andy Reid arrived in town, and Mahomes and Kelce helped Kansas City beat the 49ers in February 2020 — five full decades after they triumphed over the “Purple People Eaters” and the rest of the Vikings at Tulane Stadium.

Norma Hunt continued to attend the Super Bowl until her death in June 2023. At the time, she was one of four people — and the only woman — who had attended every game, beginning with the Chiefs' loss to the Packers on Jan. 15, 1967.

The Chiefs were back Sunday for the fifth time in six years. And they were chasing a threepeat against the Eagles, the team Kansas City beat a couple of years ago in Glendale, Arizona, to win the first of its back-to-back championships.

“I would say every Chiefs fan is spoiled, and that includes me, right? Because it has been such a special five or six years," Hunt told a small group of local reporters this week. “And I think we know we're spoiled because of the journey that it took to get to this point, and the five decades we went without getting back to the Super Bowl.”

This was the 11th time that New Orleans played host to the big game, tying Miami for the most of any city. The French Quarter had been packed all week with fans wearing Chiefs red and Eagles green, creating a kaleidoscope of Christmas colors stretching from Jackson Square to Canal Street, and bubbling all the way up to the Superdome.

The home of the Saints, and the de facto replacement for Tulane Stadium, was hosting the game for the eighth time.

“I don't think any of us really could have dreamed it being like this, and having the success we've had,” Clark Hunt said. “My dad would have loved it because in his heart, he was a fan — him and my mom were fans, first and foremost. And he would love it for our fans, because that was always a focus of his.”

AP NFL: https://apnews.com/hub/nfl

FILE - San Francisco 49ers cheerleaders perform during a power outage at the Superdome in the second half of the NFL Super Bowl XLVII football game between the 49ers and the Baltimore Ravens, in New Orleans, Feb. 3, 2013. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci, File)

FILE - San Francisco 49ers cheerleaders perform during a power outage at the Superdome in the second half of the NFL Super Bowl XLVII football game between the 49ers and the Baltimore Ravens, in New Orleans, Feb. 3, 2013. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci, File)

FILE - New Orleans Saints fans listen to the Goo Goo Dolls in front of the Louisiana Superdome in New Orleans, Sept. 25, 2006, upon reopening for the New Orleans Saints' first game in New Orleans since Hurricane Katrina struck more than a year earlier. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon, File)

FILE - New Orleans Saints fans listen to the Goo Goo Dolls in front of the Louisiana Superdome in New Orleans, Sept. 25, 2006, upon reopening for the New Orleans Saints' first game in New Orleans since Hurricane Katrina struck more than a year earlier. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon, File)

Kansas City Chiefs owner Clark Hunt holds the Lamar Hunt Trophy after the Chiefs defeated the Buffalo Bills in the AFC Championship NFL football game, Sunday, Jan. 26, 2025, in Kansas City, Mo. (AP Photo/Charlie Riedel)

Kansas City Chiefs owner Clark Hunt holds the Lamar Hunt Trophy after the Chiefs defeated the Buffalo Bills in the AFC Championship NFL football game, Sunday, Jan. 26, 2025, in Kansas City, Mo. (AP Photo/Charlie Riedel)

Kansas City Chiefs owner Clark Hunt, wife Tavia Shackles Hunt, center, and daughter Gracie Hunt pose on the red carpet at the NFL Honors award show ahead of the Super Bowl 59 football game, Thursday, Feb. 6, 2025, in New Orleans. (AP Photo/Gerald Herbert)

Kansas City Chiefs owner Clark Hunt, wife Tavia Shackles Hunt, center, and daughter Gracie Hunt pose on the red carpet at the NFL Honors award show ahead of the Super Bowl 59 football game, Thursday, Feb. 6, 2025, in New Orleans. (AP Photo/Gerald Herbert)

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