RASC News Agency: On Monday, May 12, the United States Department of Homeland Security (DHS) announced its decision to terminate Temporary Protected Status (TPS) for thousands of Afghanistani nationals currently residing in the country. In an official statement, Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem claimed that, following a reassessment of conditions in Afghanistan, TPS protections would no longer be extended, asserting that Afghanistani beneficiaries “no longer meet the necessary criteria” for continued relief. Secretary Noem justified the move by stating, “The security situation in Afghanistan has improved, and the country’s economy is experiencing stability.” According to the announcement, the TPS designation for Afghanistani nationals will officially end on May 20, with the termination taking legal effect as of July 12.
The TPS program, a humanitarian safeguard established to protect individuals from deportation when their countries are experiencing armed conflict, environmental catastrophe, or other “extraordinary and temporary conditions,” has been a critical lifeline for displaced Afghanistani nationals. Yet the rationale cited by the Biden administration framed as being in the “national interest” of the United States has drawn sharp rebuke from rights advocates and diaspora leaders, who say it dangerously misrepresents the grim reality under Taliban rule. The DHS statement further noted that a number of Afghanistani individuals are currently under investigation due to alleged fraudulent behavior or potential national security risks a vague and stigmatizing claim that has raised concerns about political scapegoating and selective enforcement.
The nonprofit advocacy group Afghan Evac, which supports Afghanistani evacuees and resettled refugees in the United States, reports that approximately 11,000 individuals are presently covered by TPS. The organization’s director, Shawn Van Diver, condemned the decision in strong terms, characterizing it as politically motivated and divorced from on-the-ground realities. “This decision is not based on factscit is rooted in shifting political priorities,” he said. Van Diver emphasized that Afghanistan remains firmly under the grip of the Taliban, a regime that has extinguished democratic governance, dismantled civil institutions, and institutionalized a campaign of systematic repression. “There is no functioning asylum system under the Taliban. There are no basic protections. What we are witnessing is the calculated erasure of women from public life, the persecution of ethnic minorities, and the ongoing use of torture, abduction, and extrajudicial killings as tools of governance,” he stated.
In a stark indictment of U.S. policy, Van Diver declared: “This is a betrayal of the very people who risked their lives to support the United States mission in Afghanistan, who rebuilt their lives here with hope, and who placed their trust in America’s promises of protection.” The decision has triggered deep concern among human rights organizations, who warn that deporting Afghanistani nationals back to a Taliban-controlled Afghanistan would place them at direct risk of torture, disappearance, or death. Despite claims of stabilization, Afghanistan remains a shattered state where violence is state-sponsored and justice is non-existent. Under Taliban rule, women have been barred from education and employment, press freedoms have been strangled, and dissent has been criminalized. The regime’s draconian ideology has turned Afghanistan into a surveillance state where fear and silence reign. To describe such conditions as “improved” is not only misleading it constitutes a dangerous sanitization of a regime known for gender apartheid and ideological extremism.
As Washington moves to withdraw legal protection for some of the most vulnerable refugees from its longest war, questions are mounting about the moral cost of such a decision. Human rights defenders and Afghanistani community leaders are urgently calling on the U.S. administration to reverse course before irreversible harm is done. “This is not just a bureaucratic decision it is a matter of life and death,” Van Diver warned. “America cannot abandon those it once pledged to protect.”
