As a political firestorm erupts over the deadly shooting of a National Guard member, Afghans across the United States are issuing an urgent, fearful plea to the Trump administration, warning that a sweeping crackdown on their community is putting thousands of lives at risk and betraying those who once stood “shoulder to shoulder” with America.
In the wake of President Trump’s immediate freeze on Afghan immigration and his threat to halt migration from all “third-world countries,” members of the Afghan diaspora told the BBC they are living in a state of terror, caught between the threat of Taliban reprisals back home and potential deportation from their new sanctuary.
“We have a fear every single day that what if the policy changes and they deport us from here?” said Crystal Bayat, an Afghan human rights activist with permanent residency, voicing the anxiety gripping her community. “It is very dangerous to punish entire immigrant communities for the actions of one man.”
The community’s desperate message comes as the administration conducts a widespread review of green cards and asylum claims, a move that has cast a shadow of uncertainty over tens of thousands of Afghans who were resettled after the U.S. withdrawal. Many now fear that the “twenty years of Afghan-US partnership,” as stated by the Afghan Community Coalition, is being erased by a single “deeply tragic” act they universally condemn.
Why It Matters
This is the heartbreaking collateral damage of a politics of collective punishment. The Trump administration, in its righteous fury over a heinous attack, is preparing to abandon the very people America spent two decades and trillions of dollars supposedly protecting.
The plea from the Afghan community isn’t just about immigration policy; it’s a moral cry for America to honor its debts. These are the translators, the aid workers, the guards who protected U.S. personnel at immense personal risk. To now treat them as a monolithic security threat because of one alleged attacker is not just a policy failure—it’s a profound betrayal of America’s word.
The administration’s crackdown, while politically potent, is strategically blind. It risks creating exactly the kind of isolated, desperate, and resentful communities that extremists prey upon. In its quest to appear tough, the White House is sacrificing its most loyal allies in a forgotten war, proving that for some, gratitude is the shortest-lived emotion in politics.
