The Forgotten People of Afghanistan
Guest blogger: Henna Maiwand, law student, University of San Francisco
Desperate hands grabbing at military aircraft. Families piling inside planes. Bodies falling from the sky. Mothers passing their babies over barbed wire to strangers in uniform. These were the images that defined August 2021, when the Afghans who risked their lives to serve the United States scrambled to escape as the Taliban reclaimed power. The world watched in horror, then slowly moved on. For Afghans, this terror continues to haunt their lives every day.
America’s 20-year war in Afghanistan is the longest modern conflict in the nation's history. This war was met with strong support from many Afghans themselves. Afghan interpreters walked alongside troops in battle and stayed at military bases. Translators risked not only their lives, but the lives of their families, to help American intelligence. Men and women who bravely supported the U.S. military were given broken empty promises of protection and refuge.
When the U.S. decided to suddenly remove forces in Afghanistan and created days of chaos, approximately 124,000 Afghans were evacuated.[1] It is estimated that about 200,000 Afghans who worked with American forces were left behind.[2] This botched operation created a moral catastrophe. These people were left behind to face Taliban retribution.
The Taliban began to systematically hunt down those who helped American forces using databases captured from the collapsed government.[3] They conducted door-to-door visits using “priority lists” compiled through advance mapping.[4] The UN documented 218 extrajudicial killings, 14 enforced disappearances, and over 144 cases of torture of former officials between August 15, 2021 and June 30, 2023, although the true number may never be known as these are only the “credible reporting’s.”[5] Human Rights Watch says that in only four provinces, more than 100 former security force members were killed or forcibly disappeared, in just the first three months of Taliban power.[6] The NY Times estimated that approximately 500 former government officials and military personnel were either killed or disappeared within the first six months.[7] The number of deaths or forcible disappearances today may never be accurately known. However, one thing remains true: any Afghan who supported the American forces in any capacity is a target to the Taliban.
Approximately 77,000 of those Afghans who were airlifted from Kabul were given temporary permission to enter the U.S. through “humanitarian parole,” for two years without any pathway to permanent residency or citizenship.[8] Recipients were required to find alternative legal pathways, such as asylum. However, two years after arrival, only 18% of Afghan evacuees had been granted asylum.[9] For the Afghans who were stuck behind in Afghanistan, entering through the humanitarian parole program was nearly impossible. Between July 2021 and August 2022, nearly 50,000 humanitarian parole requests were filed from Afghans trying to escape, but only 8,540 cases were processed by August 2022, and only 132 were approved (a 0.26% approval rate).[10] Congressional critics wrote that the USCIS applied “unreasonably high standards” and that given the situation in Afghanistan, the history of the conflict, and the risk that many Afghans face due to their support for the US over the past two decades, applying these standards are “inhumane, cruel, and contradictory to the U.S. commitments and interests.”[11]
The Ukrainian parole program revealed the disparate treatment of Afghans and proved that the U.S. could help if they truly desired to. Regardless of the economic struggles they faced, Afghans paid $575 per person in filing fees, 44% of fee waiver requests were denied, and they faced 95% denial rates. However, the Ukrainian program launched in April 2022 initially admitted over 176,000 Ukrainians with no filing fees (under a sponsorship program called Uniting for Ukraine) and streamlined online applications.[12] In total, Ukrainian parole saw significantly more approvals, with over 651,000 granted, compared to the 133,000 Afghans paroled.[13] It is not the resources that is an issue for helping Afghans, but it is the will of the U.S. government.
The more established pathway is the Special Immigrant Visa program (SIV), yet it has seen constant issues since its creation in 2009. It was designed to provide permanent residency to Afghans who worked for the U.S. government. However, it is another failed promise to the Afghan people. From 2009 through 2021, the Department of State received nearly 60,000 documentarily complete Afghan SIV applications, but approved and issued only 22,085 (a 37% approval rate).[14] Congress mandated that the process take no more than nine months for applicants, however the average wait time was more than two years to simply reach the interview stage.[15] Even more concerning, survey responses between August 2021 and July 2022 dropped by 62.8%, with the leading theories being that applicants lost faith in the system, lost means to communicate with the outside world, or are no longer alive.[16] These applicants are people in direct and targeted danger of death by the Taliban.
In April 2025, the Trump administration announced it would not renew Temporary Protected Status for approximately 11,000 Afghans in the U.S. because Afghanistan now had “notable improvements" and “stabilizing economy.”[17] TPS had provided critical protection from deportation for Afghans who arrived, many of whom were still processing their SIV applications. The Trump administration’s evaluation of Afghanistan could not be further from the truth. The UN reports that nearly 23.7 million people (half of Afghanistan’s population) required humanitarian assistance in 2024; there is a 48% poverty rate; 14.8 million face acute food insecurity; 2.9 million are at emergency levels of hunger; women cannot work, be educated beyond the sixth grade, or even speak in public.[18]
The atrocities of the Taliban control continue to worsen each day, especially for women and children, yet the Trump administration’s twisted narrative is that these conditions are “improvements” and safe enough to forcibly deport Afghans. The Trump administration has repeatedly targeted Afghan refugees, stopping flights with Afghan allies from arriving, freezing resettlement services, putting Afghanistan on the travel ban list, and ending protection for Afghan refugees.[19]
Both the Biden and Trump administration have unconscionably broken the promises that the U.S. has given to the Afghan people for the previous two decades. Afghans who helped American forces and are currently in Afghanistan have no pathway to come to the U.S. for safety, as they were promised, and must live in fear for the rest of their lives. Afghans already in the U.S. live in fear every day of being deported back to a country where the Taliban maintains kill lists with their names.
These are people who risked their lives and the lives of their families for the mission of the American government. History will always remember this as a deliberate failure, not as an inevitable tragedy. The Afghans haven’t forgotten what was promised to them, yet they are dying because the U.S. has decided to move on. Every Afghan who is murdered by the Taliban because of their commitment to American forces is a death that could have been prevented, and the blood is on the hands of a nation that will never repair their betrayals.
[1] https://www.thenewhumanitarian.org/news-feature/2023/08/10/two-years-what-has-happened-afghan-evacuees
[2] PBS NewsHour, "Afghans who helped Americans fear Taliban retribution after U.S. suspends refugee program," March 13, 2025.
[3] https://www.state.gov/reports/2022-country-reports-on-human-rights-practices/afghanistan/
[4] https://abcnews.go.com/International/taliban-fighters-hunting-blacklist-afghan-officials-us-trained/story?id=79569951
[5] https://news.un.org/en/story/2023/08/1139962
[6] https://www.hrw.org/report/2021/11/30/no-forgiveness-people-you/executions-and-enforced-disappearances-afghanistan
[7] https://www.state.gov/wp-content/uploads/2023/03/415610_AFGHANISTAN-2022-HUMAN-RIGHTS-REPORT.pdf
[8] https://www.cbsnews.com/news/afghan-parole-humanitarian-entry-process-to-end-in-october-focus-on-permanent-resettlement-programs/
[9] https://www.thenewhumanitarian.org/news-feature/2023/08/10/two-years-what-has-happened-afghan-evacuees
[10] https://www.foreign.senate.gov/press/dem/release/chairman-menendez-colleagues-sound-alarm-following-reports-of-high-denial-rates-for-at-risk-afghans-seeking-humanitarian-parole-into-us-
[11] Id
[12] https://www.cbsnews.com/news/immigration-parole-biden-administration-1-million-migrants/
[13] https://nfap.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/10/TPS-And-Humanitarian-Parole-Numbers.NFAP-Policy-Brief.2024.pdf
[14] https://www.stateoig.gov/report/aud-mero-22-38
[15] https://iava.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/09/AWA-Aug-2022-Withdrawal-Survey-Results.pdf
[16] Id
[17] https://thediplomat.com/2025/05/trump-administration-ends-temporary-protections-for-afghan-immigrants/
[18] https://www.hrw.org/world-report/2025/country-chapters/afghanistan
[19] https://www.cbsnews.com/news/afghan-interpreter-who-rescued-u-s-officer-life-during-war-says-america-broke-its-promise-to-allies/
