Afghans in the US have lost protected status. What happens now?
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It's time for you to leave the United States. That is the first sentence Z read when she opened an email from the Department of Homeland Security. It said...

she had to leave the country in seven days. 11.30, I saw that email. I couldn't sleep. Like, I was scared. What should I do? Should I call to who? We're only using Z's first initial to protect her identity because she fears reprisal in Afghanistan and does not want to jeopardize her immigration case. Z worked for years as an emergency room nurse in Afghanistan, a job she loved,

until the Taliban came to power and reintroduced a strict form of Islam where women have few rights. One day, Taliban soldiers pulled her off a bus on her way to work and began to scream at her. Just go. Just go. Why you don't have a long dress? Why you don't have a hijab?

Z was scared. She didn't have a male chaperone. She had divorced her husband when he became a drug addict, and she was raising their two children on her own.

The harassment continued. Z took a higher-paying job in a different city and left her children with her parents. She rented an apartment by herself, also forbidden for women under Taliban rule. One night, men came to her home at 1 a.m., banging on the door. Taliban's when they come, just like that, toot, toot.

Open, open the door, open the door. I was just wake up. I was scared. I was in the shock. Z woke up terrified and asked her downstairs neighbor to pretend to be her husband. But the Taliban were not fooled. They searched all this. When I saw me, why you are living alone? They know about me.

She was able to avoid capture, but her parents told her she might not be as lucky the next time the Taliban came. Z had also worked at a foreign-funded hospital, another factor that made her a target. When I talked with my parents, they said, yeah, you have to go.

Zee left Afghanistan through Iran, where she got a visa to travel to Brazil. From there, it was a grueling three-month journey, often on foot, to Mexico. Then last year, she had an interview with U.S. border agents and came into the country legally on a humanitarian parole. But now, Zee is scared. The

The Trump administration has revoked the temporary protected status designation for people like Xi and imposed a new travel ban on Afghanistan. Options are dwindling for Afghans here on humanitarian parole. Consider this. Many Afghans who helped the U.S. after 9-11 found refuge here from the Taliban. What happens now that they have lost protected status? From NPR, I'm Mary Louise Kelly.

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It's Consider This from NPR. When Z arrived at the U.S. border, she was allowed to enter and stay in the U.S. while her asylum application was processed. That is because Afghans were granted Temporary Protected Status, TPS. That means they can live in the U.S. and get a work permit because of unrest and persecution in their home country.

Zee is now settled in the U.S. She's a nurse assistant at an American hospital. She sends money back to Afghanistan to support her kids. NPR's Monika Evstatieva picks up Zee's story from here. In early May, Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem announced the termination of TPS for Afghanistan effective July 14. Noem said an improved security situation, in addition to a stabilizing economy, means Afghans can return home.

Zee says going back to Afghanistan is not an option. We cannot go for working, for teachers, like doctors, nothing. When they go outside, maybe they kill. Every person that leaves the country through fear is accomplishing the administration's current goal.

Brian Green is a longtime immigration lawyer based in the Denver suburbs. Everyone that leaves voluntarily is cheap for the government, and it makes the Trump administration's goal of removing a million people. He says the emails he received telling her she had to leave in seven days is not a legal document. It's propaganda. So if someone has an I-589 asylum application pending, they can stay in the United States while that court case is going forward.

When asked about the decision to end Afghans' TPS protection, Assistant Secretary of Homeland Security Tricia McLaughlin said in an emailed statement to NPR, "Although TPS was terminated as required by law, any Afghan who fears persecution is able to request asylum." DHS estimates there are approximately 12,000 Afghans on TPS in the United States.

Many of them are part of a group that helped the U.S. after 9-11 and are now being hunted by the Taliban. Green says Afghans are now at an even higher risk if they have to go back.

It's worse for someone who's Afghan, who's been in the United States, who probably has an education, and for Afghan women that have work experience. I wouldn't want to be in their shoes, and that's what America is supposed to do, is protect people that helped us. A is one such person, who helped the U.S. during the war. We're using his first initial because he fears retribution in Afghanistan and doesn't want to jeopardize his status here.

He also received the DHS email telling him he had to leave the United States. A left when the Taliban came to power. He worked as an engineer in Kabul on construction contracts for the U.S. government and knew he would be a target.

He also worried for his kids, who could be kidnapped and sexually abused by the Taliban. The Taliban take the girls and boys for their own pleasure. And as a father, I have no say. And for no reason, they just come and take your kids by force.

A, a father of six, says he wants his four daughters to be able to get an education and live peacefully, which is not possible in Afghanistan. Most of my children are daughters. And for girls in Afghanistan, it's not safe at all. They will not have a future over there, and I don't want to destroy my girls' future going back over there.

A is also in the middle of an application for asylum and has legal status, but he's still worried about the rhetoric from the Trump administration.

and new executive actions have now further restricted Afghans from coming to the United States. Very simply, we cannot have open migration from any country where we cannot safely and reliably vet and screen those who seek to enter the United States. In June, President Trump banned travelers from 12 countries that, quote, posed a very high risk to the United States and included Afghanistan on that list.

The administration cited the country for the lack of a competent authority for issuing passports and appropriate screening and vetting measures. But Green, the immigration lawyer, says security screening is not done on the Afghan side anyway. Everyone that applies for a visa gets a background check, a name check with the FBI. So that work all happens while someone is waiting outside the United States.

They don't get the visa until they pass all that screening. And if someone doesn't pass the background inspection there, they put them in what's called secondary inspection. They don't let you in until you pass at least two screenings, if not more. So I think it's hypocritical to say that

It's safe enough to end TPS, but it's dangerous enough that we don't want any students or any foreign workers that are screened and approvable. The end of the TPS program, along with a new travel ban, serve not only as an effort to deport Afghans already in the U.S., but to restrict any from coming in the future. Abdul Faraji is an investigative journalist from Afghanistan.

He agrees all these measures make little sense and overlook a worsening situation on the ground. He says the country no longer has a free media and life inside has become oppressive. Afghanistan right now, it's kind of a jail for all those people that are living there. For women, they don't have their rights. They're not allowed to go to just the park. They're not allowed to go outside without a man to just buy something.

For men, they're not allowed to shave their beards without Taliban permission. That's not even a jail. That's like more than a jail. You're just alive and somewhere to be alive. DHS revoked TPS partly based on a claim that Afghanistan's economy is stabilizing.

Faraji says the opposite is true. When we are talking about food in Afghanistan, it's just having a bread with a sweet tea. Those people living with nothing. Sanctions, limited investment and the inability of women to work have left Afghan men struggling to provide basic food for their families.

DHS touted a, quote, improved security situation. But Faraji says there are over a dozen terrorist organizations now operating freely in Afghanistan. Al-Qaeda is there. ISIS is there. Please, people of the United States, don't forget 9-11.

It was not just for Afghanistan. This fight was for freedom. This fight was for democracy. Faraj says terminating TPS not only ignores the reality on the ground, but also the growing threat of terrorism.

The consequences, he fears, could extend far beyond Afghanistan. NPR's Monika Evstatieva reporting. This episode was produced by Noah Caldwell and Megan Lim. We got engineering help from Ted Meebane. It was edited by Barry Hardiman, Sarah Handel, and William Troop. Our executive producer is Samma Yenigan. It's Consider This from NPR. I'm Mary Louise Kelly.

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