RASC News Agency: Will Silber, a former officer in the United States Army who served in Afghanistan, has issued a stark warning, stating that Afghanistanis currently seeking asylum in the U.S. will face “certain death” if forcibly returned to their homeland by the Trump administration. In an interview with The Bulwark, Silber emphasized that these individuals were among those who cooperated with U.S. and NATO forces during their presence in Afghanistan. “Many of them provided critical support to our mission translating, guiding, and helping implement reconstruction and stabilization efforts. Their identities are known, and if they are returned, they will be directly targeted by the Taliban,” he warned.
Recent reports reveal that the Trump administration has begun notifying certain Afghanistani asylum seekers that they have only one week to voluntarily leave the United States or face removal through legal proceedings. These notifications, reportedly sent via official emails from the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, have caused alarm among refugee communities and human rights advocates alike. “Roughly 120,000 Afghanistanis were evacuated to the United States during the rushed withdrawal of American forces in 2021,” Silber noted. “Thousands more arrived afterward. Now, all of them face the looming threat of deportation. If they are sent back, they will be executed. That outcome is inevitable,” he stated firmly.
According to Silber, credible reports have already emerged of deported individuals being captured, tortured, or summarily executed by Taliban fighters. He stressed that these are not isolated cases but indicative of a broader and systematic pattern of retribution. In response to the escalating concern, the Afghanistani Republican Democratic Movement in Exile issued a statement condemning the U.S. government’s decision to revoke temporary protected status (TPS) for more than 14,000 Afghanistanis residing in the country. The organization warned that many of those at risk had previously collaborated with U.S. governmental agencies, international NGOs, media institutions, and civil society programs associations that now render them especially vulnerable under Taliban rule.
While Taliban officials continue to claim that general amnesty has been granted to former government employees and foreign collaborators, human rights organizations, including Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International, have documented numerous incidents of abduction, torture, and extrajudicial killings particularly in regions such as Nangarhar, Kandahar, Herat, and Baghlan. Silber’s remarks have intensified pressure on U.S. authorities to revisit their deportation policies and uphold moral and legal obligations toward those who risked their lives to assist American efforts in Afghanistan. “Sending these people back,” Silber concluded, “is not only a gross betrayal it is a death sentence carried out in the name of bureaucracy.”
