The fate of thousands of Afghans waiting to reach the United States after serving with American troops was thrown into limbo after President Trump took office. Now military veterans are scrambling to bring as many of them as possible to the country before the administration introduces a travel ban that could restrict their entry.
In an executive order on Jan. 20, Mr. Trump instructed cabinet members, including the secretary of state, to compile a list of countries “for which vetting and screening information is so deficient as to warrant a partial or full suspension on the admission of nationals from those countries.”
The order called for the list to to be completed within 60 days. As that deadline nears, supporters of the Afghan allies have accelerated efforts to bring those eligible to the United States.
“We have been engaged in high-intensity, frenetic work,” said Andrew Sullivan, a military veteran and the executive director of No One Left Behind, a nonprofit whose team has been working marathon days to raise money and arrange flights.
Amid the chaotic pullout from Afghanistan in August 2021, the U.S. military helped evacuate 78,000 Afghans who worked as interpreters and in other capacities during the war. Tens of thousands of others who aided U.S. forces are still trying to reach the United States.
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The wartime allies can apply for a Special Immigrant Visa, which allows them to travel to the United States with their families and receive permanent residence. Many have been waiting for months or longer in neighboring Pakistan and in Albania and Qatar to complete processing by U.S. authorities.
In his first term, Mr. Trump barred nationals from seven majority Muslim countries — Iran, Iraq, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria and Yemen — from entering the United States. This time, Afghanistan is among the countries whose citizens could be categorically blocked, according to U.S. officials. The officials said that Cuba and Venezuela could also be added.
If Mr. Trump includes Afghanistan in a new travel ban, Afghans who helped the United States could be stranded indefinitely.
After his inauguration, the president also signed an executive order that paused funding for refugee resettlement, suspending travel to the United States for thousands of people around the world who had been screened and approved for entry.
Afghans who had obtained Special Immigrant Visas were not barred from relocating to the United States. But in shutting down refugee admissions, the State Department canceled the contracts that had also covered the costs of transporting the Afghan allies. Suddenly they had to pay their own way, and many could not afford the cost.
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“People with visas in their passports saw their pathway to safety stripped away overnight,” said Sonia Norton, advocacy director for No One Left Behind, which is based in Arlington, Va.
The organization’s main role had been to supplement government support by providing Afghan families with loans to buy cars, further their education and adjust to the United States. After the executive orders, it quickly pivoted to an emergency fund-raising campaign.
About 37,000 Afghans, and their families, have been issued Special Immigrant Visas since 2009, when the program began. The Taliban, which rules Afghanistan, regards those Afghans as traitors. Thousands have faced retaliatory violence and hundreds have been killed for assisting the United States, according to a 2022 report by No One Left Behind.
At the time that Mr. Trump signed the executive orders in January, some 1,000 Afghans and their family members had visas to come to the United States. Returning to Afghanistan is not an option for them, Mr. Sullivan said.
“There’s a very real chance that they could get kicked back to the Taliban with a U.S. visa in their passport, and that could be deadly to these allies,” Mr. Sullivan, 38, who was an Army infantry company commander in Afghanistan, said in an interview from Doha, Qatar, where his team was on the ground in recent days.
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“If we don’t know what’s going to happen with immigration policy, we’re not going to sit idly by,” he said. “We’re going to come and support them.”
No One Left Behind, established in 2014, has raised millions of dollars in a matter of weeks from veterans and other Americans to buy airplane tickets for Afghan families who had already been cleared to travel to the United States from Albania, Qatar and Pakistan.
Several veteran groups, including Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America, have voiced concern for the fate of the Afghan allies.
Three Republican members of Congress said in a letter to President Trump that his executive orders had resulted in the “immediate shutdown” of Afghan relocation efforts. “These are not random applicants or illegal migrants who’ve crossed the southern border,” said the March 4 letter signed by Michael Lawler of New York, Michael McCaul of Texas and Richard Hudson of North Carolina.
“For many Afghans in the pipeline, staying in Afghanistan is a death sentence,” they said.
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The White House did not respond to request for comments on the impact of the executive orders or the effects of a potential travel ban on Afghans who supported the U.S. mission.
Aman Jafari, who interpreted for U.S. Navy Seals, arrived in Portland, Ore., from Albania on March 5 with his wife and four young children.
“When Mr. Trump canceled flights, we didn’t have money to book our own flights to America,” said Mr. Jafari, 33. ”We just worried terribly what would happen next.”
Then No One Left Behind stepped in, he said.
On Tuesday, Mr. Sullivan arrived in Los Angeles from Doha to meet potential donors.
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Evelyn Moore, 67, who has no military connections, said she had donated to the organization’s effort because Mr. Trump’s policies could have “dire consequences” for those who risked their lives for the United States.
“We must keep our allies on a path to the U.S., as promised,” she said.
By the end of this week, No One Left Behind hopes to have flown to the United States every Afghan who already has a visa.
It must also help them get on their feet in their adopted country.
Mr. Trump’s executive order halted funding to nonprofits like the International Rescue Committee and HIAS, which used to provide services such as rental assistance and job placement to refugees and Afghan allies for at least 90 days after their arrival.
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No One Left Behind has partnered with community organizations and volunteers in cities like Portland, Rochester, N.Y., and Sacramento to fill the void.
Mr. Jafari’s family is living in an Extended Stay America hotel outside Portland while he waits for an apartment to be leased for his family. Rent will be paid by No One Left Behind and a local group, the Afghan Support Network, until Mr. Jafari becomes self-sufficient.
“I am so glad that I arrived in America,” he said. “I want to work hard for my family to have a good and bright future.”
Your investigation of these allegations is consistent with the IG’s mission to prevent waste, fraud, and abuse in federal agencies, and can help determine if politically connected crypto interests are undermining our national security. As Congress considers legislation on the market structure for digital assets, we must ensure that cryptocurrencies like USD1 are not providing the President and senior officials with the ability to line their pockets at the expense of the public interest.
The following facts have been reported in multiple outlets regarding Mr. Witkoff:
• Mr. Witkoff’s son Zach Witkoff is the CEO of World Liberty Financial (WLF), which the President’s family owns a majority stake in.³
• Beginning in January, one of Sheikh Tahnoon’s employees, Fiacc Larkin, joined WLF as the “chief strategic advisor” while continuing to work at G42, an AI investment firm owned by Sheikh Tahnoon that, according to the U.S. intelligence community, works closely with Chinese military companies.4
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On May 1, 2025, Zach Witkoff announced that MGX, a state-owned investment firm controlled by Sheikh Tahnoon, had agreed to use a WLF-issued stablecoin, USD1, to make a $2 billion investment in Binance. As a result of this deal, WLF stands to reap hundreds of millions of dollars in transaction fees from MGX, and more from the returns on any investments it makes with the $2 billion deposit.³
As of August, Mr. Witkoff maintained a financial interest in WLF and thus stands to personally benefit from his son’s business dealings with the UAE.6 Nevertheless, he did not recuse himself from deliberations regarding the UAE, which may violate federal ethics law.
The following facts have been reported about Mr. Sacks:
●
•
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He is a special government employee who continues to serve as a “general partner” at his venture capital fund, Craft Ventures.
8
The Abu Dhabi Investment Authority, an Emirati sovereign wealth fund controlled by Sheikh Tahnoon, was an early investor in Craft Ventures and continues to hold an investment in the fund.
In addition, Craft Ventures is invested in BitGo, which has partnered with WLF to provide the technical infrastructure for USD1. If BitGo’s valuation grows, based on the UAE’s investment into USD1, Mr. Sacks and his firm stand to benefit.
3 Yahoo Finance, “Trump family reportedly has a 60% stake in the World Liberty Financial,” Anand Sinha, March 31, 2025,
https://finance.yahoo.com/news/trump-family-reportedly-60-stake-172742661.html.
4 New York Times, “Inside U.S. Efforts to Untangle an A.I. Giant’s Ties to China,” Mark Mazzetti and Edward
Wong, Nov. 27, 2023, www.nytimes.com/2023/11/27/us/politics/ai-us-uae-china-security-g42.html.
5 New York Times, “At a Dubai Conference, Trump’s Conflicts Take Center Stage,” David Yaffe-Bellany, May 1, 2025, https://www.nytimes.com/2025/05/01/us/politics/trump-cryptocurrency-usd1-dubai-conference-
announcement.html.
6U.S Office of Government Ethics, Form 278e for Steven C. Witkoff, August 13, 2025, p. 23, https://static01.nyt.com/newsgraphics/documenttools/090d0de07e1d2fdf/bbf02867-full.pdf.
18 U.S.C. § 208.
8 White House, “Limited Waiver Pursuant to 18 U.S.C. § 208(b)(1) Regarding A.I. Assets,” June 2025,
https://www.whitehouse.gov/wp-content/uploads/2025/06/David-Sacks.pdf.
Nigel Farage has refused to criticise Donald Trump’s claims that paracetamol, sold in the US as Tylenol, could cause autism, insisting “science is never settled” and he would never “side with” medical experts.
The Reform UK leader said he had “no idea” if the US president was right to tell pregnant women to avoid taking acetaminophen, also known as Tylenol and paracetamol, and suggesting that those who could not “tough it out” should limit their intake.
Scientists and global health agencies including the World Health Organization have strongly dismissed Trump’s false claims, calling them misguided and saying the evidence linking paracetamol use in pregnancy and autism was “inconsistent”.
The UK’s health secretary, Wes Streeting, told the British public they should not “pay any attention whatsoever to what Donald Trump says about medicine”, adding: “I trust doctors over President Trump frankly, on this.”
But in a wide-ranging interview with LBC’s Nick Ferrari, Farage was asked directly if Trump was right to share those unproven claims. He said: “I have no idea, I’ve no idea. You know we were told thalidomide was a very safe drug and it wasn’t. Who knows Nick, I don’t know.
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“He [Trump] has a particular thing about autism. I think because there’s been some in his family, he feels it very personally. I’ve no idea.”
When Farage was asked if he would side with medical experts who say it is dangerous to make the link, he added: “I wouldn’t. I wouldn’t. When it comes to science, I don’t side with anybody, right? You know? I don’t side with anybody, because science is never settled. We should remember that.”
Yet when challenged over whether it was irresponsible for Trump to make such an unproven claim, Farage said: “That’s an opinion he’s [Trump’s] got. It’s not one that I necessarily share.”
Farage’s refusal to condemn Trump’s claims comes weeks after a controversial doctor, Aseem Malhotra, was given top billing at Reform UK’s party conference and used his main-stage speech to claim the Covid vaccine caused cancer in the royal family. Malhotra is an adviser to Trump’s health secretary, Robert F Kennedy.
In the same interview, Farage said Trump was “right to say” that sharia law “is an issue in London”.
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“Never take what he [Trump] says literally, ever on anything. But always take everything he says seriously,” Farage said, adding: Trump “has a point.”
“So is he right to say that sharia is an issue in London? Yes. Is it an overwhelming issue at this stage? No. Has the mayor of London directly linked himself to it? No.”
Labour MPs have urged Keir Starmer to reprimand Trump’s administration after the US president falsely claimed in a speech to the United Nations: “I look at London, where you have a terrible mayor, terrible, terrible mayor, and it’s been changed, it’s been so changed.
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“Now they want to go to sharia law. But you are in a different country, you can’t do that.”
Trump has been publicly attacking the London mayor, Sadiq Khan, since 2015 when the Labour politician criticised Trump, the then presidential candidate, for suggesting that Muslims should be banned from travelling to the US.
A spokesperson for Khan said: “We are not going to dignify his appalling and bigoted comments with a response. London is the greatest city in the world, safer than major US cities and we’re delighted to welcome the record number of US citizens moving here.”
During the LBC phone-in, Farage also said Reform’s plan to ban anyone who was not a UK citizen from claiming benefits would not apply to Ukrainians and Hongkongers.
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“No, because they come for different reasons,” Farage said, adding those who had lived in the UK on indefinite leave to remain and had not worked or paid into the system would be told their benefits would be cut.
Roula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter.
Alphabet’s market capitalisation surged above $3tn for the first time on Monday on the back of a sharp rally for the search giant’s shares over the past few weeks.
Shares in Google’s parent company have climbed more than 30 per cent to a record high of $252 since the group posted double-digit growth in revenue and profit in quarterly results out in late July.
The rally means Alphabet joins Nvidia, Microsoft and Apple as the only US companies valued above $3tn. Chipmaker Nvidia in July became the first company to hit a $4tn market value.
