Trump's New "Muslim Ban" Wipes Out Hope for 250,000 Afghans Seeking Refuge in US

[milestogo]

The US owes Afghans a huge debt, but instead of starting to repair decades of harm, Trump is banning them from the US.
By Arash Azizzada , Truthout
Published June 9, 2025


Afghan refugees who had been removed by force from Pakistan arrive near the Afghanistan-Pakistan Torkham border in Nangarhar province on April 10, 2025.

During Donald Trump’s first term, the Afghan American community dodged a bullet. This time, we weren’t so lucky. The new “Muslim ban 2.0,” the successor to Trump’s original Muslim ban, went into effect today, with 12 countries on its list, including Afghanistan. When President Trump began his second term in office on January 20, he issued an executive order asking for a 60-day review of vetting requirements for certain nationalities. As of 12 a.m. ET on June 9, Afghans are now barred from entering the U.S. This news comes as most of our community celebrates Eid-al-Adha and many Muslims around the world finish the annual Hajj pilgrimage to Mecca.

While some of this policy is framed as legal language in the name of “national security,” it is clear that this masking was done in an attempt to help the order pass challenges in the courts. Despite its narrow exception for Special Immigrant Visa holders, this policy is clearly a sweeping expression of racism and anti-Muslim prejudice.

Afghanistan isn’t merely a Muslim country that happens to be a target of this administration’s ire. The U.S.’s role goes back to the 1970s, when the CIA covertly supported and armed the Afghan mujahideen fighting back against the Soviet invasion, part of a Cold War era-proxy war. This was followed by USAID-funded school textbooks in Dari and Pashto produced by the University of Nebraska that taught young Afghan students violence in refugee camps across Afghanistan and Pakistan. Years later, the U.S. invaded Afghanistan in the fall of 2001 in the wake of the September 11 attacks and fought a war against elements of al-Qaeda and the Taliban. During this 20-year war, the U.S. funded endemic corruption, backed notorious human rights violators and helped build an aid-reliant government that was essentially a house of cards. The war killed almost 180,000 people and culminated in bringing back a regime in 2021 that has instilled what many now call “gender apartheid.” Afghanistan today is the only country on the planet where women and girls are barred from education past the 6th grade.

This 40-year history means that the U.S. owes Afghans and Afghan Americans a huge debt. Instead of repaying this debt and undoing the harm it has caused over four decades, Muslim ban 2.0 has been yet another deep betrayal and abandonment. First the U.S. bombed Afghans, then it abandoned Afghans. Now it has barred Afghans. The decision to ban Afghans will mean that they will be left to fend off a regime that has targeted anyone that has stood alongside the U.S. for 20 years. That is not even to talk about the continued deportations of Afghans by the Pakistani and Iranian governments or the fact that Afghanistan is enduring a humanitarian crisis in which millions of people do not have access to more than one meal a day, a situation caused and exacerbated by U.S. sanctions policy.

https://truthout.org/articles/trumps-new-muslim-ban-wipes-out-hope-for-250000-afghans-seeking-refuge-in-us/

[Klarkashton]

1. Who is left that could trust this country anymore.

I know I sure as shit don't.

[msongs]

2. is this gonna be popular in Dearborn. they voted for it nt