Thousands of Afghan nationals who are waiting in Pakistan for their onward settlement in the United States received a fatal blow to their plans, as US President Donald Trump signed a proclamation on Wednesday banning the Afghan citizens from entering the United States.
Trump banned the citizens of 12 countries – Afghanistan, Myanmar, Chad, Congo, Equatorial Guinea, Eritrea, Haiti, Iran, Libya, Somalia, Sudan and Yemen – from entering the US, saying that the move was needed to protect against "foreign terrorists" and other security threats.
Besides the entry of people from seven other countries – Burundi, Cuba, Laos, Sierra Leone, Togo, Turkmenistan and Venezuela – will be partially restricted. The directive is part of an immigration crackdown Trump had launched this year at the start of his second term.
"We will not allow people to enter our country who wish to do us harm," Trump said in a video posted on X. He added the list could be revised and new countries could be added. According to the order the proclamation is effective on June 9, 2025, while visas issued before that date will not be revoked.
Earlier in January, just days after taking the office, Trump's administration halted visa processing for Afghan refugees, including those who collaborated with the coalition forces in Afghanistan for decades but had to flee to Pakistan after the American pull-out and return of the Taliban government in 2021.
Shawn VanDiver, the founder of #AfghanEvac, the leading coalition of resettlement and veterans groups, had said in January this year that there were 10,000-15,000 Afghans in Pakistan, waiting for special immigration visas or resettlement in the US as refugees.
Trump said on Wednesday that the countries subject to the most severe restrictions were determined to harbour a "large-scale presence of terrorists," fail to cooperate on visa security, have an inability to verify travellers' identities, inadequate record-keeping of criminals and high rates of overstays in the US.
"We cannot have open migration from any country where we cannot safely and reliably vet and screen those who seek to enter" the US," he said. He cited a incident on Sunday when a man tossed a gasoline bomb into a crowd of pro-Israel demonstrators as an example of why the new curbs are needed.
A spokesperson for the Taliban-led Afghan foreign ministry did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Pakistan's foreign ministry also did not immediately reply to a request for comment on how it would handle the thousands of Afghans, who had been in the pipeline for US resettlement.
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