Exclusive: Trump to pull nearly 1,660 Afghan refugees from flights, say US official, advocate

WASHINGTON, Jan 20 (Reuters) - Nearly 1,660 Afghans cleared by the U.S. government to resettle in the U.S., including family members of active-duty U.S. military personnel, are having their flights canceled under President Donald Trump's order suspending U.S. refugee programs, a U.S. official and a leading refugee resettlement advocate said on Monday.

The group includes unaccompanied minors awaiting reunification with their families in the U.S. as well as Afghans at risk of Taliban retribution because they fought for the former U.S.-backed Afghan government, said Shawn VanDiver, head of the #AfghanEvac coalition of U.S. veterans and advocacy groups and the U.S. official, who spoke on condition of anonymity.

The U.S. decision also leaves in limbo thousands of other Afghans who have been approved for resettlement as refugees in the U.S. but have not yet been assigned flights from Afghanistan or from neighboring Pakistan, they said.

Trump made an immigration crackdown a major promise of his victorious 2024 election campaign, leaving the fate of U.S. refugee programs up in the air.

The White House and the State Department, which oversees U.S. refugee programs, did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

"Afghans and advocates are panicking," said VanDiver. "I've had to recharge my phone four times already today because so many are calling me.

"We warned them that this was going to happen, but they did it anyway. We hope they will reconsider," he said of contacts with Trump's transition team.

VanDiver's organization is the main coalition that has been working with the U.S. government to evacuate and resettle Afghans in the U.S. since the Taliban seized Kabul as the last U.S. forces left Afghanistan in August 2021 after two decades of war.

Nearly 200,000 Afghans have been brought to the U.S. by former President Joe Biden's administration since the chaotic U.S. troop withdrawal from Kabul.

One of the dozens of executive orders Trump is expected to sign after being sworn in for a second term on Monday suspended U.S. refugee programs for at least four months.

The new White House website said that Trump "is suspending refugee resettlement, after communities were forced to house large and unsustainable populations of migrants, straining community safety and resources."

"We know this means that unaccompanied children, (Afghan) partner forces who trained, fought and died or were injured alongside our troops, and families of active-duty U.S. service members are going to be stuck," said VanDiver.

VanDiver and the U.S. official said that the Afghans approved to resettle as refugees in the U.S. were being removed from the manifests of flights they were due to take from Kabul between now and April.

Minority Democrats on the House Foreign Relations Committee blasted the move, saying in a post on X that "this is what abandonment looks like. Leaving vetted, verified Afghan Allies at the mercy of the Taliban is shameful."

They include nearly 200 family members of Afghan-American active-duty U.S. service personnel born in the U.S. or of Afghans who came to the U.S., joined the military and became naturalized citizens, they said.

Those being removed from flights also include an unknown number of Afghans who fought for the former U.S.-backed Kabul government and some 200 unaccompanied children of Afghan refugees or Afghan parents whose children were brought alone to the United States during the U.S. withdrawal, said VanDiver and the U.S. official.

An unknown number of Afghans who qualified for refugee status because they worked for U.S. contractors or U.S.-affiliated organizations also are in the group, they said.