Trump administration moves to end protections for Afghan refugees in San Antonio and nationwide

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The Trump administration is formally ending protected status for Afghans living in the country without permanent residency.

The notice filed Monday could result in the mass deportation of more than 11,000 Afghans who fled their homeland in the wake of the United States' withdrawal. Many of them live in San Antonio.

Border & Immigration

Afghans make perilous journey to U.S. but then find themselves lost in maze of immigration bureaucracy

Paul Flahive

Nearly two years after the fall of the government in Afghanistan, people are still fleeing the Taliban to the United States. They make the arduous journey across Central and South America — walking through jungles — to reach the southern border, only to find uncertainty and frustration.

Listen • 4:51

The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) said in an update to the Federal Register, the federal government's official journal, that Temporary Protected Status (TPS) for Afghans cannot be renewed because among other things there has been a drop in violence there.

"Based on [DHS Secretary Kristi Noem's] review and consultation with the Department of State, the Secretary determined that, overall, there are notable improvements in the security and economic situation such that requiring the return of Afghan nationals to Afghanistan does not pose a threat to their personal safety due to armed conflict or extraordinary and temporary conditions," the update read.

Immigration attorney Jonathan Ryan called the claim objectively false: "If there has been any calming of violence ... it is exactly because so many of the United States' allies who risked their lives and their families lives to support our 20 year war there were not physically present there," he said.

Ryan said many of his clients were already pursuing alternatives to TPS, including seeking asylum.

The Trump administration was already being sued over its decision to end temporary protections for Afghans because it had not filed an update to the Federal Register 60 days before the last extension would lapse.

While the administration had been talking about ending TPS for weeks, it did not take the official step until this week.

The latest extension is set to end on May 20 — just eight days from the filing rather than the required 60. Critics speculated that the failure to file on time would not result in an end to TPS, but instead a federal judge ordering an extension.

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