Seddiqa Mohammad Hussein has been waiting to see her brother and sister for over three years. She fled Afghanistan a week before the United States evacuated the country. Her siblings fled Kabul amid the chaos as the Taliban took over.
Their date for arrival in Boston is set for Feb. 12. They’ve spent years in Italy while waiting to be resettled to the United States — a lengthy process that includes extensive background and medical checks.
But that is now at risk after the Trump administration paused the refugee program, starting next week, and reportedly began canceling flights for at least 1,600 Afghan refugees cleared to resettle here.
Advocates say the number of people impacted will be far more than that. According to State Department data, nearly 30,000 refugees were resettled in the United States in the last three months under the decadeslong program, which offers a safe haven to people fleeing persecution in their home countries such as Syria, Burma, Guatemala and Venezuela. Of those thousands in the last three months, 525 came to Massachusetts, including 89 from Afghanistan.
“It’s been a long time, I’ve been waiting for them to come. It’s very sad,” said 30-year-old Hussein, who lives in Lowell.
Her brother, Khodadad, 21, and sister Taiba, 19, studied English in Afghanistan. The family is of Hazara ancestry, an ethnicity targeted by the Taliban. Hussein said she doesn’t have any other family in the United States and it’s been “very challenging” for her.
Local resettlement agencies are already getting questions from families here who worry that their loved ones won’t be able to come.
A local nonprofit, the International Institute of New England, is supposed to resettle Hussein’s family. They had been expecting 44 refugees to arrive in Massachusetts this February, 10 of which are Afghan. One is a family of seven people living in Pakistan.
The group reached out to U.S. Committee for Refugees and Immigrants and were told to “assume everything is cancelled,” said Anca Moraru, the institute’s chief program officer.
Moraru pointed out there are financial and logistical complications, too, including apartments that her group has already rented ahead of time for the refugees.
“I hope they [the Trump administration] will reconsider and they will look into the refugee program — and they will realize the refugee program is safe, the clients are vetted,” Moraru said. “People are fleeing persecution or war. They are coming to join family.”
Massachusetts Afghan Alliance has worked with families evacuated from the country since 2021, helping with housing and volunteer support, including airport pickups of refugees.
“It is heartbreaking,” said Farishta Shams, the alliance’s co-founder. “I have a close friend and the family was supposed to come, but the flight’s just been cancelled.”
Beyond the refugee resettlement program, there are also Afghans who had been waiting to hear about their humanitarian parole applications. That program was cancelled by Trump Monday.
Zarlasht Haidary, a member of the former National Afghan Women’s Basketball team, evacuated Afghanistan in 2021 . She still has family in the country in hiding, including a sister and a niece, who cannot go to school under the government’s ban on education of women above sixth grade. The family is waiting to hear about their humanitarian parole application.
“There are less ways where we can help her,” Haidary said. “I’m very stressed about my sister and her family’s safety.”
She is hoping the Trump administration changes its immediate policy on parole and for refugee resettlement.
“I’m still hoping that they will consider their executive orders and do something for the safety of refugees — they’re still living in limbo,” she said.
It is unclear how many Afghans, including those who’ve left the country, will be impacted. In Pakistan, there are thousands waiting to come to, or get clearance to come to the United States. Others remain in other countries and in processing centers.
“The problem right is that they roll out this executive order without giving anybody heads up anywhere,” said Shawn VanDiver, a veteran who is president and founder of AfghanEvac. His group, based out of San Diego, is the main nonprofit to advocate for, evacuate, and resettle Afghans in the United States since the last American forces left in August 2021.
“If the Trump administration pauses all refugee resettlement without an exception for Afghan allies, they will be abandoning thousands of individuals who stood shoulder-to-shoulder with American service members and who now, due to their loyal service and commitment to our shared values, remain at great risk in Afghanistan,” he said.
VanDiver wanted to be clear that flights haven’t been cancelled yet. Those cancellations would happen under an implementation plan issued by the State Department.
VanDiver said that more than 15,000 people in the country have been cleared past security vetting but are not “all the way” ready to travel yet, since organizing transit is so hard. There are another 25,000 Afghans in Pakistan who are trying to come to the United States, he said, and many more in other countries.
