More than 9,000 Afghans living in the United States could face deportation when their Temporary Protected Status ends on July 14. President Donald Trump’s administration announced last week that it would not renew the status, a decision condemned by many Afghans in Minnesota and elsewhere, as well as national advocacy groups.
Afghans who hold Temporary Protected Status are granted permission to work and live in the United States. The termination of status adds another layer of stress for many Afghans living in Minnesota and waiting to reunite with their families.
“It’s not safe for the local people [to return],” said Naser Mohammadi who arrived in 2022. He currently works as a family assister at the Minneapolis-based Afghan Cultural Society, an advocacy and community service organization for new arrivals. “I don’t believe that Afghanistan has improved.”
Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem said in a May 12 statement that Temporary Protected Status for Afghans is no longer warranted because of their country’s “improved security situation” and “stabilizing economy.” She also said terminating TPS aligns with U.S. national interests.
Since the Taliban reclaimed power in Afghanistan in 2021, women and girls have been banned from working most jobs, attending school past the sixth grade and entering many public spaces. An estimated 23.7 million people in Afghanistan required humanitarian aid in 2024, according to the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs.
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“There are so many human rights violations that are happening against the minority groups still, with the queer community, religious minorities, Shias, Sikhs, women, [and] specific tribal groups because Afghanistan is so diverse,” said Nasreen Sajady, executive director of the Afghan Cultural Society.
Since the Trump administration ordered a pause on federal funding for refugee settlement agencies earlier this year, Sajady said she has seen an increase of families seeking services at her organization.
Earlier this month, CASA, a national immigrant advocacy organization, filed a lawsuit asking a federal judge to declare termination of TPS for Afghans and citizens of the West African country of Cameroon unlawful. Other national immigrant advocacy groups such as World Relief, the Catholic Legal Immigration Network, and the U.S. Committee for Refugees and Immigrants have condemned the termination.
Many Afghans who have TPS have already applied for a more permanent legal status such as asylum or a green card based on a Special Immigrant Visa if they worked for the U.S. government during the war. However, it’s not clear how many have done so. And some Afghans in Minnesota say that terminating TPS and pausing the nation’s refugee resettlement program is a betrayal of those who fought alongside the United States during its 20-year war against the Taliban.
Masehullah Sahil, 38, immigrated to the United States in 2014. In Afghanistan, he worked for the U.S. military as an interpreter and cultural adviser for nearly a decade.
Through the Special Immigrant Visas for Afghans program, he was granted entry into the United States and applied for a lawful permanent residence. But he still has family that he is worried about living in Afghanistan, he said. He currently works as a cultural liaison at the Minnesota Department of Employment and Economic Development.
“We stood with the U.S. shoulder by shoulder throughout the 20 years so we were thinking he [Trump] will honor the sacrifice that’s been made on behalf of the U.S. government,” Sahil said. “So it was really shock after shock in the community.”
The Afghan population in Minnesota increased after the Taliban took over and the United States evacuated thousands of Afghans in 2021, in what was one of the largest airlifts in history. Like Sahil, many Afghans who fled had worked alongside U.S. troops to combat the Taliban.
More than 1,300 evacuees resettled in Minnesota between September 2021 to 2022, according to the state Department of Human Services.
Mohammadi said many Afghans had to rebuild their lives from “zero,” like himself, when they first arrived in the United States. Since then, he said he has seen local Afghans in “good situations,” obtaining jobs and pursuing higher education. But many of them are still separated from their families back in Afghanistan, he added.
Some Afghans in Minnesota say they’re growing more anxious seeing immigration enforcement ramp up as they wait to hear back on their green card or asylum claims.
Mohammad, 30, a former U.S. contractor, fled Afghanistan when the Taliban took control, leaving behind his wife and children. He asked to be identified only by his first name for fear of Taliban retaliation.
“Honestly, I don’t know about my future and what’s going to happen, especially my family,” he said.
Mohammad said he thought it would be easy to bring his family to the U.S. when he resettled in Minnesota. But after he arrived, he realized he didn’t have his supervisor’s phone number or email to prove he had worked for the U.S. military, he said.
“The biggest challenge is my immigration status,” he said. “I’m waiting and I don’t know what’s going to happen in the future.”
He has waited two and a half years to hear back on his pending asylum application, he said. He also applied for TPS, but he said he heard on Monday that it was canceled.
“I was really surprised,” he said. “How can they say that Afghanistan is safe?”
One of his daughters is approaching sixth grade, he said, which is the last grade level the Taliban will allow girls to attend school. He also said that his wife is restricted from going to places like the grocery store alone.
He stays in touch with his family through phone calls. Often his wife and children ask him questions about reuniting in the United States. “This makes me feel like I don’t have any future, and they also think we don’t have any future.”
