They helped us order air attacks against the Taliban. Now Trump’s movements have left those Afghas in Limbo

Tirana, Albania (AP) – helped the United States military attacks against Taliban combatants and the Islamic State and worked as drivers and translators during the longest war in the United States. They were prepared to start new lives in the United States.

So President Donald Trump executive orders issued that end the programs used to Help Afghans Reach a safe place in the United States. Now, those same Afghans, which underwent a background verification of years, are in a limbo state.

“I was surprised. I am still shock because I have already waited four years for this process, to get out of this hell and get to a safe place and live in peace and have a new beginning, “said Roshangar, one of the Afghan whose life was overturned by Trump’s action.

He spoke in an interview by Afghanistan where he, his wife and son living in hiding, fearing the punishment or even the execution of the Taliban for their association of more than a decade with the US forces.

Roshangar served as a legal advisor to the Afghan Air Force, helping US officials to review and eventually approve air attack packages that were used against the Taliban and the Islamic State group from 2007 to the fall of Kabul, the Afghan capital, In 2021.

“This was an unexpected movement of Mr. Trump and everything went wrong and against us and left us in danger under the Taliban regime,” he said.

The experience of his family is only one aspect of the consequences of Trump’s orders, many of which were implemented without broad consultation with experts in the affected areas.

“It is an absolute stain in our national honor that we have drawn the carpet of low people who have been waiting patiently the relocation and those here in the United States that have recently arrived,” said Shawn Vandiver, a veteran of the Navy and head of # Afghanevac, a coalition that supports Afghan resettlement efforts. “This is an imminently solucionable problem and our national security demands that we solve it.”

During the evacuation of the United States of Kabul in August 2021, US military planes moved tens of thousands of Afghans from the main airport. But many more Afghan did not reach the airplanes. Since then, the United States has had several ways to help Afghas emigrate to the United States depending on what their role in helping the mission led by the United States in Afghanistan was. Those roads have been arrested at this point.

It is the last of a series of setbacks for the group of American allies who, despite the strong support of Republican and Democratic legislators along with veteran groups, continue to face obstacles in the relocation and reconstruction of their lives after the abrupt Withdrawal from the United States from Afghanistan.

Many are now stranded in Albania, Pakistan and Qatar, where they expected the transfer to the other United States hide from the Taliban in Afghanistan.

The Afghan who eventually arrive in the United States have to undergo an extensive process that generally involves a derivation of someone with whom they worked, background verifications, a medical evaluation and an interview with US officials.

Rashengar had his interview last August and was ready to finish the final part of the process, a medical exam, this month when Trump announced that he was stopping all the resettlement of refugees.

One of the Americans he worked with, Lieutenant Colonel Steve Lertscher, referred to the refugee program in October 2021.

Lertscher describes Rashengar as a victim of the Biden Administration who does not prioritize applicants like him who had a higher risk of compensation from the Taliban.

But he believes that rashing could be exempt from the executive order, which states that the State Department could consider individual applicants in case of “case -by -case.”

“Eventually, I hope you can become a refugee and come to the United States,” Lertscher said.

Many conflict veterans I have tried for years To help the Afghan with whom they worked, Find refuge in the United States, many were prepared for setbacks, but they expected a special consideration for Afghans.

Hashmatullah Alam had a scheduled flight to take him to him, his wife and six children to the United States when Trump’s order entered into force, only one day after the Republican President assumed the position. The 40 -year -old and his family had arrived in Albania in December to be prosecuted and granted special immigrants visas before leaving to the United States.

It is among the least 15,000 Afghans that were already authorized to travel before the pause went into force, according to Afghanevac.

Alam, who has the hope that the pause will be raised, told the AP that she risk her family’s life to help the US mission in Afghanistan during the war, which led him to the Taliban surveillance list. He had expected that after three years he was reimbursed by that sacrifice with a new beginning in the United States, where his children can grow and receive an education.

“We also help our families return home,” Alam said. “They live in Afghanistan, our mothers, our fathers and brothers.”

In Pakistan, Khalid, who worked together with the United States Air Force, had been waiting on the phone to confirm their flight to the United States when the Afghan students he teaches notified him about Trump’s order.

“Let me tell you that my students cried after hearing that Trump suspended the refugee program for us,” he said.

After arriving in Islamabad in March 2023, Khalid, who also asked to be identified only by name of the first name, completed the security authorization, medical tests and interviews during the next year. But while he was waiting to be approved to travel, he ran out of money to keep his wife and children and began teaching children from other Afghan families who had come to Pakistan as part of the Visa program.

He was reluctant to discuss how he helped the effort of the United States in Afghanistan, but said that his contribution was “so important that if I return, the Taliban will kill me.”

“We appeal to President Donald Trump to reverse his decision because we have lost what we had in Afghanistan, and should know that we are waiting here for a brilliant future in the United States,” he said. “It should evacuate us from here and take us to the United States, they promised us that they would take us to the United States, and please honor that promise.”

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Amiri reported from Washington and Munir from Islamabad, Pakistan.