The Trump administration’s escalating restrictions on humanitarian migration are leaving some of the United States’s most vulnerable diaspora communities terrified for their futures.
The United States government last week announced the cancellation for Myanmar nationals of the “temporary protected status” that allowed them to live and work in the US, saying conflict-ridden Myanmar was “safe” to return to.
Then, in the wake of the shooting of two National Guard soldiers in Washington, the US Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) froze the processing of all asylum applications, halted visas for Afghans and said even already approved residency applications from countries of “concern” would be reviewed.
One of the members of the West Virginia National Guard has died while the other remains in a critical condition. The suspect is an Afghan national who worked with the CIA during the Afghanistan war and received asylum after coming to the US.
“USCIS has halted all asylum decisions until we can ensure that every alien is vetted and screened to the maximum degree possible,” USCIS director Joseph Edlow said on X, formerly Twitter.
“The safety of the American people always comes first.”
US President Donald Trump said on social media his administration would work to permanently pause migration from all “Third World Countries” to allow the American system to fully recover.
Fears of being arrested at airport
Myanmar national Su Htet was studying at a US university in 2021 when Myanmar’s democratically elected government was overthrown in a military coup.
The Washington DC resident, who asked to use a pseudonym, was given temporary protected status (TPS) after she graduated and her student visa ran out.
“Once I graduated, I couldn’t go home, so I applied to be on TPS to give me a little more time to figure out what I could do next,” she said.
“It allowed me to fight back against the junta without the fear of being conscripted or retaliation.
“[It allowed] me to stay under the protection of the US.”
Su Htet intended to go home after finishing university but was grateful that the TPS scheme allowed her to stay in the US. (Supplied: Su Htet)
Last week, Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem said the TPS designation for Myanmar was no longer needed.
“The situation in Burma has improved enough that it is safe for Burmese citizens to return home, so we are terminating the Temporary Protected Status,” Ms Noem said in a statement, using another name for Myanmar.
Analysts say there have been no “meaningful improvements” in the situation in Myanmar that would make it safer than before for people to return.
Tens of thousands have died and millions have been displaced since the 2021 coup triggered a bloody civil war in Myanmar. (AP)
Junta spokesperson Zaw Min Tun welcomed the “positive statement”.
“Myanmar citizens in the United States can come back to the motherland,” he said.
The revocation of Myanmar’s protected status, which takes effect in January, puts holders like Su Htet into a legal limbo without work or residency rights.
As a Muslim and outspoken critic of the regime, she said she expected to be arrested on arrival back home if she were to be deported.
“Just by appearance alone, I would get profiled at the airport for further security check and just by merely googling my name, they would see that I have been actively speaking out against the junta and the coup.
“I am of age to be conscripted, so if they don’t throw me into prison immediately, they’ll probably conscript me and I know they put activists up on the front lines.
“That’s what I fear will happen.”
US ends temporary status for Myanmar nationals
She said that many of her colleagues, peers, and friends from Myanmar on TPS feared they would be forced to go back to Myanmar, and the community had been lobbying the administration to rescind the decision.
“Now with the shooting, people are really terrified,” she said.
“A lot of people who are on asylum pending status, who have green cards, are terrified.”
Every Afghan family living with ‘constant stress’
The United States had already ended Afghanistan’s TPS and blocked most of the avenues Afghans could seek to move there — apart from those who had worked with the US during the war.
But following the Washington shooting, even that avenue is now frozen.
Rights organisations have been scathing of the US government’s “collective punishment”.
“Responding to the horrific actions of one individual by cancelling all Afghan visa and asylum processing is not justice, but scapegoating,” said Bill Frelick, director of Human Rights Watch’s Refugee and Migrant Rights Division.
“Stripping refugees of protection, blocking consideration of all asylum claims, and threatening deportation to Afghanistan is not accountability for a criminal act, but rather spurning those who sought safety in the United States.
“It’s their association with US forces in Afghanistan, that exposed them to real risks of torture and persecution.”
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California-based Afghan asylum seeker Wessal Mukhtar, who worked with the US in Afghanistan before the fall of Kabul in 2021, said the new measures had thrown his family and thousands of others into a painful and indefinite limbo.
“These changes have devastated every aspect of our lives,” he told the ABC.
“But even worse is the psychological pressure they’ve put on entire families.”
He said his community was gripped by uncertainty: “What will happen next? What kind of future will we have?”
“Every Afghan family I know is living with this constant stress — from the youngest child to the oldest parent,” he said.
“Kids worry about their siblings, their schooling, everything. There’s this general sense of anxiety hanging over us.”
US halts all asylum claims following shooting of two National Guard members
Mr Mukhtar’s asylum application has been pending since he arrived in the US in 2021.
“I worked with the Americans in Afghanistan for nearly four years,” he said.
“Back home, no-one sees me as an Afghan anymore — only as an American spy. I cannot live safely there.”
Despite submitting multiple applications and completing several interviews, his case remains stuck in the system.
He said he felt the pressure most acutely at home.
“All four of my school-going children are stressed,” he said.
“My eldest son is a brilliant student in last year of college, but he’s deeply worried whether he’ll be allowed to continue his higher education.
“Every evening our family conversations end up in the same tense place — what will happen to us?”
US working to pause all migration from ‘third world countries’
Mr Mukhtar said thousands of other Afghans were facing the same paralysis.
Many have watched their work authorisation expire while they wait.
“I’ve only been issued a parole visa, which keeps getting renewed, but then it goes back into pending status. And now people are even afraid of deportation because the backlog is enormous.”
Safety has become another source of fear.
“We feel security threats too. I worry that my children or I could face racist or extremist attacks from someone, somewhere.
“We’re constantly on alert.”
Mr Mukhtar said it felt like an entire community was being punished for circumstances beyond their control.
“An entire nation, a whole displaced people, should not be punished for an isolated incident,” he said.
“We’ve already lost so much.”
