Trump administration ends temporary protected status for thousands of Afghans

The Department of Homeland Secretary will not renew temporary protections for thousands of Afghans in the U.S. — setting them up for potential deportation starting on May 20.

Temporary protected status, or TPS, is a government protection for people from countries experiencing conditions such as war or natural disasters, who cannot return there safely. TPS shields them from deportation and grants them work authorizations.

Over 9,000 people from Afghanistan were covered by TPS as of September 2024. The Biden administration first designated people fleeing Afghanistan as eligible for TPS in 2022 in response to turmoil in the country under Taliban rule, which began after the withdrawal of U.S. troops a year earlier. In 2023, the Biden administration extended TPS for Afghans, noting that the ongoing conflict in Afghanistan remained too dangerous for them to return to the country.

But in a Friday statement, DHS assistant secretary of public affairs Tricia McLaughlin said upon review of conditions in Afghanistan, DHS Secretary Kristi Noem made the decision to end TPS for those who had fled the country.

“The Secretary determined that Afghanistan no longer continues to meet the statutory requirements for its TPS designation and so she terminated TPS for Afghanistan,” McLaughlin said.

She added that the decision was based on a review from U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS), as well as a consultation between USCIS and the Department of State. The DHS also plans to revoke TPS for people from Cameroon, the New York Times reported on Friday.

Shawn VanDriver, a military veteran and the president of #AfghanEvac, a nonprofit that helps Afghans resettle in America, said he firmly rejected the Trump administration’s claims that the conditions in Afghanistan did not meet TPS standards.

“The conditions on the ground haven’t improved—they’ve worsened,” he said. “Afghans who were invited here, who built lives here, are now being told they don’t matter. It’s cruel, it’s chaotic, and it undermines everything America claimed to stand for when we promised not to leave our allies behind.”

Tens of thousands of Afghans became targets of the Taliban by working for the U.S. government during America’s war in Afghanistan, the longest in U.S. history. Over the years, Afghans who helped aid the U.S. war effort and their families have been primarily able to resettle in the U.S. through the Special Immigrant Visa program and the U.S. Refugee Admissions Program. But there are a number of Afghans who are still in process of obtaining their SIV status and TPS offered them a layer of stability, according to Andrew Sullivan, the executive director of No One Left Behind, which works to support SIV recipients.

“Many of these allies completed the requisite substantial and valuable service to U.S. national security, yet are still in processing for an SIV because of documents and connections lost in the chaos of the U.S. withdrawal,” Sullivan said. “This decision throws our allies into harmful uncertainty.”

Since President Trump has returned to office, TPS has been among the targets in his administration’s aggressive overhaul of immigration policy.

Last month, DHS similarly attempted to revoke TPS for Venezuelans. That move has since been challenged and was paused by a federal judge on March 31. In his order, U.S. District Judge Edward Chen in San Francisco said the Trump administration’s action would “inflict irreparable harm” on these TPS recipients. He also argued that the government failed to identify “real countervailing harm” in continuing TPS for Venezuelans.