Afghans in Arizona fear being sent back

He was a U.S.-trained fighter pilot in the Afghan Air Force and fought along side the U.S. military during the post-9/11 War on Terror, he said.

Now the 35-year-old former fighter pilot says he is afraid he could be sent back to Afghanistan, where he is certain he would be targeted for death by associates of the people he fought and killed. Taliban militants seized control of the country in 2021, prompting a massive evacuation of Afghan people who assisted the U.S. military during the war.

"One hundred percent," Durani said during an interview at his Phoenix home. "They're arresting all of those military guys and killing them."

On Dec. 5, the Trump administration abruptly canceled Durani's interview for a green card, as legal permanent residency visas are known. The interview was scheduled for Dec. 17.

Durani is one of many Afghans evacuees in Arizona and across the country whose lives have been upended by a new Trump administration directive that pauses the processing of immigration applications for immigrants, refugees and asylum-seekers from Afghanistan and 18 other countries deemed high-risk.

The directive has affected immigrants in Arizona from many of those countries, including some who have had their citizenship oath ceremonies canceled at the last minute, according to immigration lawyers and the leaders of nonprofit groups.

The Trump administration issued the directive on Dec. 2 in response to the shooting of two National Guard troops in Washington, D.C., by a suspect who was identified by authorities as a 29-year-old Afghan national, Rahmanullah Lakanwal.

The Nov. 26 attack resulted in the death of Army Specialist Sarah Beckstrom and critical injury to Staff Sgt. Andrew Wolfe.

Lakanwal, the suspect in the attack, worked with U.S. military forces and entered the country via the Operation Allies Welcome program, USA Today reported. The program was created by the Biden administration to allow Afghan nationals who assisted U.S. armed forces to come to the United States.

Under the Trump administration's directive, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, the agency that processes immigration benefits, said it will reexamine green cards issued to nationals from countries of concern, USA Today reported.

In addition, the Department of Homeland Security said it would review all asylum cases approved by the Biden administration in the immediate aftermath of the shooting. Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem said Nov. 30 that the department will pause the processing of new asylum applications while it deals with a backlog, according to USA Today.

"We don't want those people. We have enough problems," Trump told reporters in November. "Many of them are no good, and they shouldn't be in our country."

Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem announced Nov. 30 that the processing of immigration benefits for all Afghan nationals had been stopped "indefinitely pending further review of vetting and security protocols."

She accused the Biden administration of allowing "the monster" accused of carrying out the attack into the country, along with "countless others," calling the Biden administration's welcoming of Afghans nationals allowed into the United States an "act of national self-sabotage."

The next day on Dec. 1 Noem said in a post on X that she was recommending a full travel ban "on every damn country that's been flooding our nation with killers, leeches, and entitlement junkies."

"Our forefathers built this nation on blood, sweat, and the unyielding love of freedom — not for foreign invaders to slaughter our heroes, suck dry our hard-earned tax dollars, or snatch the benefits owed to AMERICANS," Noem said in the post.

Nearly 3,900 Afghans relocated to Arizona since 2021

About 88,500 Afghan nationals were allowed into the United States as part of Operation Allies Welcome, according to the U.S. Department of Homeland Security. An additional 30,550 Afghan nationals arrived as refugees since 2021, according to the Migration Policy Institute.

Nearly 3,900 Afghan nationals have arrived in Arizona since 2021, according to Arizona Refugee Resettlement Program data.

Durani, the former fighter pilot, said he believes Afghan nationals who fled the Taliban after assisting the U.S. military are being unjustly tainted for the horrific acts of one person.

"For one person, a bad egg, it's like punishing the whole community," Durani said. "All the Afghans are not bad. I was shocked."

Durani, who makes a living delivering packages for Amazon Flex, said he volunteered to join the Afghan military in 2012 to "try to bring peace to his country."

In 2013, after completing his officer training, he joined the Afghan Air Force and came to the United States for training, first at Lackland Air Force Base near San Antonio, then at Columbus Air Force Base in Mississippi. He completed his actual fighter pilot training at Moody Air Force Base in Georgia, he said.

Durani returned to Afghanistan, where he said he flew A-29 Super Tucana turbo-prop fighter planes.

From 2018 to 2021, Durani said he flew 800 to 900 combat missions against Taliban, al-Qaida and Islamic State fighters as part of the U.S. War on Terror.

"I dropped so many bombs over there" which is why he can't return, Durani said, standing in the living room of his Phoenix apartment while his young two children romped around.

"Why did you drop the bombs," Durani's 6-year-old son, Khoshal, interrupted.

"Because it was my job," Durani told the boy.

"And how many people did you kill?" Khoshal asked.

"I don't know. I didn't count them," Durani responded.

Durani and his two children were airlifted out of Afghanistan during the chaotic mass evacuation in August, 2021 after the Taliban rapidly seized control of the country. He said he was separated from his wife in the crush of Afghan people attempting to flee the country at the airport in Kabul. She remains in Afghanistan in hiding, Durani said.

Durani said he considered returning to Afghanistan after arriving in Phoenix and struggled to care for his daughter, who was three months old when they fled, and his son, who was 2.

But then he read on social media that the corpses of 140 ex-Afghan military personnel, including commandos and special forces, had been found executed at the bottom of a lake after it was drained to search for a drowning victim.

After that Durani told himself, "If you go back, that is going to happen to you."

Durani said he applied for asylum and was approved after coming to the United States. He also has a valid work permit. He applied for a green card, in hopes of eventually becoming a U.S. citizen.

Refugee's citizenship ceremony canceled

Julianna Larsen has heard from a dozen Afghan evacuees who had their green card interviews with U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services cancelled at the last minute. The Afghan evacuees arrived in 2021 as part of the Biden administration's Operation Allies Welcome program and their green card interviews were scheduled for Dec. 17 and Dec. 18, said Larsen, the founder and president of the Arizona Refugee Center, a nonprofit in Mesa that assists refugees.

"They're devastated. They've been waiting for four years to gain that permanent residency and because of the tragic shooting, they they're all lumped in," Larsen said at her office.

A refugee woman from the Democratic Republic of Congo who comes to the center for English classes also told her she was scheduled to be sworn in on Dec. 5 as a naturalized U.S. citizen, Larsen said.

But when the refugee showed up for the citizenship ceremony at the U.S. District Courthouse in Phoenix, Larsen said, she was told her ceremony had been cancelled and turned away.

The woman already completed the years-long process to become a naturalized U.S. citizen, including being approved for legal permanent residency and passing the citizenship test, Larsen said.

"She was so sad," Larsen said.

The Democratic Republic of Congo, a country in Central Africa, is one of the 19 countries affected by the pause in immigration benefits to people from those countries. The full list of countries are: Afghanistan, Myanmar, Chad, Republic of the Congo, Equatorial Guinea, Eritrea, Haiti, Iran, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Yemen, Burundi, Cuba, Laos, Sierra Leone, Togo, Turkmenistan and Venezuela.

A significant number of immigrants from many of the 19 countries also have had their citizenship oath ceremonies abruptly canceled across the country, according to news reports.

Dozens of International Rescue Committee clients from Afghanistan, Burundi, Colombia, the Democratic Republic of Congo, El Salvador, Eritrea, Iran, Myanmar, Sudan, Ukraine, and Venezuela have had their citizenship oath ceremonies, green card and citizenship interviews abruptly cancelled without explanation.

Some had waited decades in refugee camps before arriving in the U.S., said Hans Van de Weerd, senior vice president for resettlement, asylum and integration at the International Rescue Committee.

"They followed immigration processes and had begun to rebuild their lives," Van de Weerd said in a written statement. "They found work, settled kids in schools, and became part of local communities and faith groups. Now, clients are calling us expressing grave uncertainty that their future here is over and that they and their children could be deported, in some cases, to face persecution or even death."

Migrants from 'countries of concern' scrutinized

Yasser Sanchez, a Mesa immigration lawyer, said a green card has been held up at the last minute for a client from Venezuela because of the Trump administration's pause on immigration applications.

The woman is married to a U.S. citizen and completed her green card interview on Nov. 24.

The woman from Venezuela is a professional, came legally, is married to a U.S. citizen, passed all of her vetting, and "would normally qualify for (a green card) under any circumstances since World World War II," Sanchez said. "All the supervisor had to do was hit approve and so because of this, they are now stuck."

A U.S. Department of Homeland Security spokesperson said the Trump administration is reviewing all immigration benefits granted by the Biden administration to immigrants from "countries of concern" out of caution.

“The Trump Administration is making every effort to ensure individuals becoming citizens are the best of the best," the statement said. "Citizenship is a privilege, not a right. We will take no chances when the future of our nation is at stake."

U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services has paused all adjudications for immigrants from "high-risk countries" while the agency works to ensure that immigrants from these countries are "vetted and screened to the maximum degree possible," an unnamed USCIS spokesperson said in a written email statement.

"The pause will allow for a comprehensive examination of all pending benefit requests for aliens from the designated high-risk countries. The safety of the American people always comes first,” the statement said.

What will happen to those who go back to Afghanistan?

The Trump administration's actions after the attack on the two National Guard soldiers in November are unprecedented, said Julia Gelatt, associate director of U.S policy program at the nonpartisan Migration Policy Institute.

"There have been times when certain types of immigration applications have been paused," Gelatt said. "But this pause across all kinds of applications for people from the 19 countries, plus the revisiting of all refugees who came over the past four years, plus the pause of asylum decisions for everyone from all over the world amounts to an unprecedented pause in the functioning of our immigration system."

In addition to pausing the processing of immigration benefits of nationals from the 19 countries, the U.S. State Department has paused issuing visas for people from Afghanistan, Gelatt said. The Trump administration is also re-examining special immigrant visas and asylum status granted to Afghan nationals during the Biden administration, Gelatt said.

The spouses and children of Afghan nationals had been exempt from a travel ban issued by the Trump administration in June.

"Now Afghanistan has a total and complete travel ban. No one is able to get any kind of visa to come to the United States," Gelatt said.

She noted that while the attack against the two National Guard soldiers allegedly by a suspect who came from Afghanistan in 2021 has prompted a "very strong immigration policy response," the Trump administration had been looking for ways to tighten the immigration system before the shooting.

"Many immigrants have a years- or decades-long journey to be able to come to the United States and get firm legal status in the United States," Gelatt said. "And I imagine it's devastating to be close to the end of that process and then have a door shut in your face because of the actions of one quite mentally ill person."

At the Arizona Refugee Center, Mohamed Shafir Ayoubi, 50, and his 17-year-old daughter, Ramzia Ayoubi, a student at Central High School in Phoenix, waited to ask Larsen questions about a traffic ticket.

Shafir Ayoubi said he and his family were allowed to come to the United States in 2021 from Afghanistan because he spent 18 years assisting NATO armed forces in Afghanistan as a civilian contractor.

When asked what would happen to him if he returned to Afghanistan, Shafir Ayoubi leaned his head back and slashed his hand across his neck.