Trump Doesn't Know Any Better Than To Treat Our Afghan Allies Dishonorably— He's That Kind Of Guy

He's Going To Deport Them Back To The Taliban

I was in Afghanistan for extended periods twice. The first time was in 1969, so before the wars the decimated the country since then. People live close to the ground and the poverty is overwhelming, although I did meet well-off people as well. I was struck by the overwhelming and profound code of hospitality that is so deeply ingrained and an important aspect of Afghan culture, 

Melmastia is a core principle, dictating that hospitality must be offered to any guest, regardless of their ethnicity, religion, nationality or social status. Guests must be welcomed warmly, provided with food, shelter, and comfort. I realized quickly that this hospitality is offered without any expectation of favor or reward in return. It’s considered a sacred duty and a matter of honor, Hostss will go to great lengths sharing their meager resources, to ensure their guest is well taken care of.  I lived with Afghan families and experienced this intensely for the better part of a year.

I never experienced Nanawatai— asylum or sanctuary— but I learned about it and how Afghans feel they must grant sanctuary to anyone who asks for it and once someone is accepted into a home or under someone's protection, the host is obligated to protect that person at all costs, even risking their own life and property. The proper practice of Melmastia and Nanawatai is fundamental to an individual's and family's honor within the community. Generosity and the protection of guests are key markers of honorable behavior. No one was ever more welcoming to me than the people I stayed with in Afghanistan. 5 decades later it’s still something I think about.

I was horrified yesterday to learn that the 9,000 or so Afs living in the U.S. under Temporary Protected Status (TPS) are about to become the newest Trump victims, losing the TPS status that allows them to work and live here. Trump has every intention of deporting them to Afghanistan, which is extremely dangerous for them and unfathomable for me. These refugees are mostly living in Houston, San Diego, Alexandria, VA and Sacramento. I would expect them to maintain strong ties to their heritage through food, language (Dari or Pashto), and traditions, while adapting to American life. Parents prioritize education for their children, who often attend public schools and integrate faster.

Yesterday Hamed Aleaziz broke the news about Trump ending TPS for them and a couple thousand Cameroonians “putting them on track for deportation in May and June according to the  Department of Homeland Security… Many of the Afghans affected by the decision had been allowed into the United States after the disastrous U.S. withdrawal from their country in 2021. Now, the Trump administration is sending them back to a country under Taliban rule.

Krish O’Mara Vignarajah, head of Global Refuge, a refugee resettlement organization, said sending immigrants back to Afghanistan was “unconscionable.”

“For Afghan women and girls, ending these humanitarian protections means ending access to opportunity, freedom, and safety,” Ms. Vignarajah said. “Forcing them back to Taliban rule, where they face systemic oppression and gender-based violence, would be an utterly unconscionable stain on our nation’s reputation.”

The Biden administration first protected migrants from Afghanistan in 2022, following the collapse of the government there and the takeover by the Taliban. In 2023, they extended those protections, saying that there was a “serious threat posed by ongoing armed conflict; lack of access to food, clean water and health care; and destroyed infrastructure, internal displacement and economic instability.”

…Julia Gelatt, an immigration expert at the Migration Policy Institute, said the move would have far-reaching effects in the Afghan community.

“Revoking T.P.S. for Afghans would be a stark reversal in the country’s treatment of Afghan allies who fought and worked alongside the U.S. government. Most Afghans in the U.S. have strong asylum cases based on their U.S. affiliation. This is even more true for Afghan women,” she said. “Revoking their T.P.S. will push thousands of Afghans into our backlogged asylum system— if they can find a lawyer with capacity to support their application.”

We like to think of ourselves as a civilized nation, but under Trump, we institutionalized cruelty. We tore up asylum laws, shut down refugee programs, forced people back into danger  and treated the vulnerable not as fellow humans in need of help, but as threats to be neutralized. It’s not just policy— it’s a deliberate attempt to eradicate empathy from our public life.

And that’s what makes this moment so stark and so sad. Next year we'll have a choice, again. Between flawed leadership that still responds, however imperfectly, to pressure and protest— and a regime built on vengeance, dehumanization and raw authoritarian will… between a system we can still fight within and one that would criminalize dissent and crush solidarity. Afs taught me about honor. Trump taught America about shame.