According to Emirati officials, the United Arab Emirates has begun deporting Afghan nationals who were temporarily protected after the US pullout from Afghanistan.
According to news outlets, the UAE has formally communicated its decision to the US government. On July 10, the repatriation procedure got underway.
After Kabul fell in 2021, the US government requested that these Afghans be moved to the United Arab Emirates.
Iran had previously sent thousands of Afghans back to their homeland.
On Sunday, President Donald Trump declared that he would assist Afghans who had been imprisoned in the United Arab Emirates for years after they had fled their country after the Taliban took control and the United States withdrew.
After taking office in January, Trump, a Republican who had pledged a comprehensive crackdown on immigration, halted refugee resettlement. The Trump administration ended thousands of Afghans’ temporary deportation protections in the United States in April.
In an article about the Afghans detained in limbo there, Trump stated, “I will try to save them, starting right now,” in a post on Truth Social.
The news website “Just the News” said that UAE officials were getting ready to turn over some Afghan refugees to the Taliban, according to Trump. The report has not been verified by Reuters.
A request for comment was not immediately answered by the State Department.
In 2021, as the Taliban overthrew the U.S.-backed government in Kabul, the United States’ close security ally, the United Arab Emirates, consented to temporarily host thousands of Afghans who had been evacuated from the city during the latter phases of the U.S.-led pullout.
Since the tumultuous U.S. troop pullout from Kabul, the administration of former President Joe Biden has transported nearly 200,000 Afghans to the United States.
Following a U.S. request, Canada agreed in 2022 to resettle roughly 1,000 Afghans currently detained in the United Arab Emirates. How many people are still in the Gulf nation is unknown.
Afghan refugees have been compelled to return to Afghanistan by some nations. In the last seven months, the United Nations reported this week that about 2 million Afghans had been repatriated from Iran and Pakistan.
Amid a restriction on refugee admissions, Germany returned 81 Afghan men to Afghanistan on Friday. Other European nations are advocating for the bloc’s asylum regulations to be more stringent.
Democrats in the US have pushed Trump to grant Afghans temporary protected status again, citing the potential harm to women and children under the Taliban-led government that has been in power since 2021.
Tens of thousands of Afghans who worked for the U.S. government during the 20-year war, family members of Afghan-American U.S. military personnel, children who have been cleared to reconnect with their parents, and relatives of Afghans who have previously been accepted are among the refugees.
Trump should act on his post, said Shawn VanDiver, president of the #AfghanEvac advocacy group.
“President Trump has the power to act morally. He should direct the Department of State and the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) to expedite processing, pursue cooperation with third countries, and make sure we never again abandon our wartime allies,” he added in a statement.
