HOUSTON — Sayedyaqoob Qattali spent years aiding U.S. forces as a security commander for the Afghan Interior Ministry in Herat province. He was caught there when Afghanistan’s government fell to the Taliban in August 2021 and was unable to get U.S. help to evacuate.

“I went to Iran, and I applied for Brazil, [to get a] humanitarian visa. That was just the option that was left. Then, after one year, I got the visa, humanitarian visa,” Qattali said.

What happened next was an odyssey. From Brazil, he and his family went to Peru, then to Ecuador, Colombia, Panama, Costa Rica, Nicaragua, Honduras, Guatemala, and finally Mexico. Most of the time, they walked.

“In all these countries, we got … the legal paper that [said] we can stay there,” Qattali said.

When they arrived in Mexico in November of 2023, Qattali and his family used the CBP One app to apply for U.S. humanitarian parole.

“Some of [the] people … they were waiting one, two, three months,” Qattali said. “And, fortunately, we received an appointment after two days.”

Qattali and his family entered the U.S. at the San Ysidro Port of Entry between Tijuana and San Diego. They came to Houston, getting relocation help from the Houston-based veterans organization Combined Arms.

Qattali speaks seven languages. He got a job as an apartment leasing agent, where his language skills enabled him to help fellow Afghans settle into the community. And he enrolled his two children in a charter school.

Everything was going well. Then, President Trump took office, and one of his first actions was to end the CBP One function for new applicants.

Initially, that wasn’t a problem for Qattali, as he and his family were already settled in the U.S. and had begun applying for asylum.

That changed last month.

“Unfortunately,” he said, “we got an email … that you have to leave. We have like seven days. After that, they’re going to charge … $900 per day.”

Qattali’s attorney told him not to worry, as he’s protected by the asylum application process, but he’s still frightened for his future.

“I have … a threatening letter,” Qattali said. “If I go back, like, 100% they’re going to kill me and my family as well.”

Khalil Yarzada, a former interpreter for U.S. and NATO forces, now heads a program with the Houston-based veterans group Combined Arms, which helps Afghans who aided U.S. forces to settle in the United States.

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“We don’t feel safe”

Even Afghans who have legal permanent residency in the U.S. worry what Trump’s policies mean for them.

Muhammad Amiri is a former pilot trainee with the Afghan air force who found himself stranded in the United Arab Emirates when the Taliban took Kabul.

Amiri managed to get to the United States on what’s known as a Special Immigrant Visa (SIV), a status for which individuals who fought and worked alongside U.S. forces in Afghanistan are eligible and which can lead to permanent legal status.

Four months ago, Amiri received his green card.

“The words cannot express just my feeling,” Amiri said. “It was out of my control. I started crying, and the tears were coming, just without any control. And just, I thanked God.”

Amiri has had several jobs since coming to the U.S. He’s currently a security supervisor at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, and he’s taking IT courses with the goal of getting a job working as a computer help desk associate. He also recently got engaged.

But Amiri’s fiancée is still in Afghanistan, and until his legal situation is settled, he doesn’t dare leave the U.S. to see her, for fear he might not be allowed to return.

Indeed, he worries even his green card won’t protect him in the current political climate in the U.S.

“It doesn’t matter just how you got here,” Amiri said. “We don’t feel safe, and we don’t feel good because now, we feel threatened, if they send us back to our country, it will be the same story. [We] feel threatened to be tortured, maybe be killed by [the] Taliban.”

Ali Zakaria, an immigration attorney based in West Houston, said people like Amiri are right to be worried.

“As unfortunate as it sounds,” Zakaria said, “my first advice to all my clients — and my family and friends — is that, if you’re not a U.S. citizen, do not talk or post on your social media anything that’s negative about the current administration. Do not voice your opinion. Do not engage in any protest, because you will be targeted by this administration for revocation of your status.”

The end of Enduring Welcome and temporary protected status

Roughly 200,000 Afghan immigrants and refugees came to the U.S. after the fall of Kabul to the Taliban in August 2021. That includes about 10,000 in Greater Houston.

Sayedyaqoob Qattali served as a security commander with the Afghan Interior Ministry in Herat province, Afghanistan, before the Afghan government fell to the Taliban in August 2021.

Sayedyaqoob Qattali

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While some of them have since received green cards or even U.S. citizenship, many have more tenuous legal status, such as humanitarian parole or temporary protected status (TPS).

TPS is a program that allows individuals from countries where their lives might be in danger — due to wars or natural disasters — to legally live and work in the United States until it is safe for them to return home.

The current TPS for Afghans began in September 2023 and extends through May 20 of this year.

Afghans who are here on TPS got a shock in April when Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem announced that she would not be renewing the protection when it expires.

After that, any Afghans in the U.S. under the program will be at risk of deportation to Afghanistan.

“Everyone I speak to is concerned that if this protection is revoked, a lot of people’s lives are going to be in danger,” said Khalil Yarzada, a former Afghan translator for U.S. and NATO forces in Afghanistan who became a U.S. citizen in February. “A lot of people are going to see a target on their back.”

Soon after President Trump took office, the State Department shut down its Office of the Coordinator for Afghan Relocation Efforts (CARE) and the program that CARE oversees, Operation Enduring Welcome.

U.S. Congressman Michael McCaul, a Texas Republican, is the former chair of both the House Foreign Affairs Committee and the House Homeland Security Committee.

In March, he and two other Republican representatives sent a joint letter to President Trump, Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Homeland Security Secretary Noem urging them not to end the Enduring Welcome program.

“Such a decision would abandon over 200,000 wartime allies and have lasting consequences for America’s global credibility, military operations, and veterans,” McCaul and his House colleagues wrote. “The Taliban considers anyone who worked with the U.S. to be an enemy. They are being hunted, detained, and executed. Over 3,200 documented killings and disappearances of former Afghan military personnel, interpreters, and U.S. government partners has already occurred.”

The reasons for the policy change

Zakaria, the Houston immigration attorney, thinks the president’s motivation for ending programs like TPS for Afghans is because of his campaign pledge to enact mass deportations when he took office.

“What the Trump administration’s policy [is] at this moment is to create this mass group that can be deported,” Zakaria said, “and one way is to cancel the existing legal protocols or legal protections that are in place, and thus making those people unlawfully here, and then deport them.”

Ali Zakaria is an immigration attorney based in West Houston.

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Tricia McLaughlin, assistant secretary for public affairs at the Department of Homeland Security (DHS,) issued the following statement explaining the decision to end TPS for Afghans:

“Secretary Noem made the decision to terminate TPS for individuals from Afghanistan because the country’s improved security situation and its stabilizing economy no longer prevent them from returning to their home country,” McLaughlin wrote. “Additionally, the termination furthers the national interest and the statutory provision that TPS is in fact designed to be temporary. Additionally, 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.”

While Noem argues that the security outlook in Afghanistan has improved, the U.S. State Department’s website lists the travel advisory for Afghanistan at the highest risk, Level 4: “Do Not Travel, due to armed conflict, civil unrest, crime, terrorism, and kidnapping. Travel to all areas of Afghanistan is unsafe.”

NPR reached out to two of the staunchest critics of former President Joe Biden’s handling of Afghanistan, Congressman McCaul and Texas Republican Sen. John Cornyn, for their reactions to the approaching end of TPS for Afghans.

Cornyn did not respond to repeated requests for comment. McCaul sent the following statement:

“From the Houthis in Yemen to the cartels on our coasts, the Trump administration is taking decisive action to root out terrorism and make our world safer,” McCaul wrote. “The Taliban, however, have made their thirst for retribution against those who helped the United States clear. Until they demonstrate clear behavioral changes, I urge the administration to continue prioritizing the safety of the Afghan men and women who risked their lives to help our troops.”

The last two Congresses have taken up a bill called the Afghan Adjustment Act, aimed at speeding up the path to permanent legal status for Afghans who aided U.S. forces during the war and expanding the eligibility for Special Immigrant Visas (SIVs).

The measure died at the end of 2022 and 2024, and the current Congress has yet to refile the bill.

“Personally, I would like to see that happen yesterday,” said Yarzada, who heads the SIVs and Allies Program at Combined Arms. “The SIVs have given so much of their life, of their livelihood, to be in a place where they are, and I think it is our duty as Americans to support them, to give them a fair shot, a fair chance to be able to build a life here in the United States, because this is the most American thing that we can do.”