Local leaders report a growing wave of anxiety among Afghan families in Spokane after the Department of Homeland Security announced plans to strip protections for those with Temporary Protected Status.
Kazim Abdullahi, a resident of Spokane, said he knows more than 20 families in the county who will be affected — all of whom are too afraid to speak out.
“They don’t want to raise their voice, because they know that if they do that, they will get deported, and they don’t want to put their life at risk,” Abdullahi said.
Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem has decided to end Temporary Protected Status, also known as TPS, for Afghans in the United States after determining that Afghanistan no longer meets the requirements for its TPS designation. This came after review from U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, according to a statement from Tricia McLaughlin, assistant secretary of public affairs at the Department of Homeland Security. TPS holders from Afghanistan are set for potential deportations starting May 20.
TPS is a temporary immigration status granted by the federal government to nationals of certain countries that face unsafe conditions in their own countries, according to the Citizenship and Immigration Services website. It provides eligibility for employment authorization, prohibits detainment on the basis of their immigration status and is not subject to removal while they retain TPS, it states.
Julia Gelatt, an immigration expert at the nonpartisan Migration Policy Institute, said the end of TPS is likely to largely affect Afghans who entered the country through the U.S.-Mexico border, either by entering lawfully for an appointment scheduled using an app created by the Biden administration or by crossing illegally and later requesting asylum.
It also could affect Afghans who entered the country with the help of the U.S. government through Operation Allies Welcome, which conveyed up to four years of a legal status called humanitarian parole. TPS has functioned as a safety net, allowing Afghan immigrants to live and work in the United States legally after another status expires, so its termination could leave those with humanitarian parole out of options when that protection ends.
Gelatt pointed out that unlike when the Trump administration ended TPS for Venezuelans and Haitians, the Department of Homeland Security had not posted official notice of its intent to end TPS for Afghans on the Federal Register as of April 24.
But according to Homeland Security, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, part of the department, will publish a notice in the Federal Register announcing that decision. The department said that Noem was required to review the TPS designation for Afghanistan at least 60 days before its May 20 end date.
McLaughlin said in her statement that Noem decided to end TPS for Afghanistan “because the country’s improved security situation and its stabilizing economy no longer prevent them from returning to their home country.”
She also said TPS is intended to be temporary and said terminating it “furthers the national interest” of the United States. She added that “DHS records indicate that there are Afghan nationals who are TPS recipients who have been the subject of administrative investigations for fraud, public safety, and national security.”
Mark Finney, executive director for Thrive International, questions why Afghans would be targeted particularly when it’s clear their country is not safe to return to.
“This country says that we are ‘by the people of the people, for the people,’ right? And what we’re seeing is that your average, hard -working, everyday American citizen is dealing with just tons and tons of stress and confusion because the government is not representing the work that we do,” Finney said.
‘We are in a divided state of America’
When Abdullahi heard that the Department of Homeland Security decided to end TPS protections from Afghans, he tried to put together a rally last week, hoping that community members would be willing to speak out.
Instead, Abdullahi — who is originally from Afghanistan and now a U.S. citizen — was met with fear from the local Afghan community, including some who are citizens.
The rally ultimately fell through.
“We have people in my country, the Taliban, that if you raise your voice over there, if you say anything against them, they will kidnap you. They will arrest you,” Abdullahi said. “It’s starting to be the exact same thing in the United States. If you raise your voice, you’re gonna get arrested and they’re going to deport you.”
According to data from the DSHS Office of Refugee and Immigrant Assistance, nearly 15,000 Afghans have resettled in Washington between 2020 and 2025. Kimmy Curry, community engagement manager for the International Rescue Committee, said from fiscal years 2022 to 2025, between 800 and 1,000 have arrived to Spokane through IRC and World Relief.
Sarah Peterson, refugee coordinator for the government agency, and Curry said they don’t have specific data on how many Afghans have TPS, although NPR reported that over 9,000 people from Afghanistan were covered by TPS in the United States as of September 2024.
Curry said revoking TPS for citizens of countries enduring humanitarian crises would send those individuals back into harm.
Christi Armstrong, executive director for World Relief, echoed Curry.
“It’s just heartbreaking to us at World Relief, especially because they were invited by our government to come here, and so for us now to turn our backs on them, to me, is just reprehensible,” Armstrong said.
Abdul Wahid, a case manager for World Relief, said he believes the decision to end TPS for Afghans may have been influenced by a surge of YouTube videos posted over the past year, many of which claim that Afghanistan is now “safe.”
And with titles like “My First Trip To Afghanistan Under Taliban Rule: A Surprising Welcome For A British Traveler!” and “Kabul Afghanistan 2025 | A Vibrant City Tour in 4K Ultra HDR,” Wahid said these videos are feeding people a narrative that isn’t true.
“I’m 37 years old and I was a witness of at least four different types of governments in Afghanistan. What I learned from these changes and revolutions is that reality is different from the news and what YouTubers see,” Wahid said. “The reality is different. There are still people from the previous government – officers, officials, employees – that are being tortured by the Taliban every day in different parts of the country.”
He confirms he also knows several people in Spokane who would be affected and are fearful of being deported to Afghanistan.
According to the Associated Press, in 2021, 691 foreign tourists visited in Afghanistan. In 2022, that figure rose to 2,300. In 2023, there were 7,000.
They also reported that Mohammad Saeed, the head of the Taliban government’s Tourism Directorate in Kabul, said he dreamed of the country becoming a tourist hot spot.
But Wahid said these stories are covering up what’s actually happening in Afghanistan and what could happen if Afghans are sent back to face the Taliban.
“They cannot go back,” Wahid said. “If they go back, they will be punished and they will be killed.”
Ryan Crocker, a Spokane Valley native who served as U.S. ambassador to Afghanistan until 2012, also said it is “ludicrous” for the government to say Afghanistan is safe.
“The notion that Afghanistan is a safe place for anyone is absurd,” he said. “There are conditions of virtual famine there. For any female in Afghanistan, it is a life of oppression or worse. And for anyone with any connection to the United States – and obviously being here under TPS is such a connection – they would be in real jeopardy.”
Crocker is a member of the Afghanistan War Commission, an independent group of experts created by Congress to examine U.S. government decisions throughout the war, but he emphasized that he was expressing his personal views and not those of the commission.
“We fought a war with the Taliban and they are still an adversary, and we can expect them to take it out on any Afghan who is connected to the United States,” Crocker said. “So, I absolutely do not understand the rationale for the statement by the Department of Homeland Security that they no longer face a threat in Afghanistan. I mean, that defies all logic.”
Crocker said he is also concerned about the signal the termination of TPS sends to third-country governments, like Qatar, that have accepted Afghans at the request of the United States. They may take this as a signal that they should do the same.
Former Defense Secretary Leon Panetta, who also served as the CIA director, said he believes the United States owes the Afghans “not just a debt of gratitude, but also give them a chance to be able to find life and be able to come to this country as immigrants.”
“The Afghans fought right alongside U.S. soldiers. The Afghans were there when I was CIA director,” Panetta said at a news conference before he was honored Thursday in Spokane with the Washington State University Thomas S. Foley Award for Distinguished Public Service.
“I don’t think we can just turn our backs on them. I think we owe them the opportunity to try to save their lives because they did everything they could to save our lives,” he said.
Abdullahi noted that he understands TPS is a temporary status, but given the ongoing dangers in Afghanistan, he wishes the administration would find a better solution than sending families back to a place they fear.
“There is no humanity anymore. There is no right or wrong,” Abdullahi said. “We’re not in the United States of America anymore. We are in a divided state of America.”
