News
Trump’s Travel Ban Threatens Afghan Allies
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.
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.
“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.
“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.
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.
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.
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.”
Alain Delaquérière contributed research.
Just over 50 career and political intelligence staff at the Office of the Director of National Intelligence have been removed from their roles since Bill Pulte became the agency’s acting director, Friday.
Six career and political intelligence staff were terminated and 45 were sent back to their home agencies, according to three sources familiar with the personnel moves.
Pulte has been asking deputies and other directors for suggestions about cuts. Some of the ODNI deputies pushed for more cuts, but Pulte said that the 51 was enough for now, one of the sources said.
One source characterized the cuts as thoughtful and methodical. No staffers have been removed from the counterterrorism group.
No further firings are planned for now, two of the sources said.
The cuts follow hundreds of staff reductions last year by former Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard, who stepped down last week. Last year’s planned downsizing sought to bring the office’s headcount from 2,000 to around 1,300.
President Trump has pushed for further cuts, directing Pulte to “execute the immediate and needed downsizing of the office” in a Truth Social post earlier this month.
The office is charged with overseeing the country’s intelligence agencies and helping them coordinate with each other. It was created in response to the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, which investigators widely believe was preceded by a failure of intelligence agencies to share information.
Since then, Gabbard and some lawmakers have argued the ODNI has become bloated and has added more bureaucracy to the intelligence community — worsening a problem it was created in part to resolve.
Republican Sen. Tom Cotton of Arkansas, who chairs the Senate Intelligence Committee, said earlier this month the office has “grown far beyond its original mandate.” Many of the office’s staff hail from other intelligence agencies but have been detailed to ODNI, and Cotton argued large numbers of them should be returned to their “home agencies.”
Sen. Mark Warner and Rep. Jim Himes, the top Democrats on the Senate and House intelligence panels, warned Pulte against making large-scale staff cuts, calling it an inappropriate course of action for an acting official without national security experience.
“While there is room to consider responsible reductions to ODNI’s workforce, any large cuts would follow on a substantial downsizing that has already occurred in 2025 and risk jeopardizing the mission of an organization explicitly created after 9/11 to prevent any future such terrorist attack,” the two Democrats wrote in a joint statement.
After Gabbard announced in May that she would resign from the post, Mr. Trump said he would install Pulte, a housing finance official, as acting director of national intelligence. He later nominated Jay Clayton, the top federal prosecutor in Manhattan, to serve as Senate-confirmed director.
Mr. Trump’s pick for acting director of national intelligence, who assumed the role on Friday, has sparked intense pushback in Congress. Democrats, and some Republicans, questioned the selection due to his lack of national security experience.
Democratic Rep. Jason Crow of Colorado said Sunday he’s worried that “Americans are at risk” with Pulte serving as DNI “because we have someone who’s incompetent at the head of this agency,” in an interview on “Face the Nation with Margaret Brennan.”
In addition to Pulte’s lack of national security experience, Democrats have railed against the pick for his role in investigations into Mr. Trump’s political foes. Crow, who serves on the House Intelligence Committee, said he’s “obviously concerned that this is somebody who’s a political attack dog, and his single biggest qualification is that he’s loyal to Donald Trump and is willing to go after Donald Trump’s enemies.” But he said more immediately, he’s concerned about Americans’ safety.
“This is a really important position. This sits atop our intelligence agencies, and by law, Congress mandated that this person have significant intelligence experience because they have to make sure that we’re keeping Americans safe, which is not what Bill Pulte is capable of doing,” Crow said.
Since Pulte’s selection, Democrats have declined to extend Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, which grants intelligence agencies broad authority to spy on overseas targets, causing the legal provision to expire earlier this month.
And as Senate GOP leaders tried to bring an end to the impasse by moving to quickly confirm Clayton as permanent director of national intelligence, the president abruptly called for Clayton’s confirmation hearing to be canceled last week.
Talks on extending FISA Section 702 were already strained, with some members of both parties pushing for stricter guardrails and arguing the program can scoop up Americans’ communications without a warrant. Intelligence officials say the program is essential to national security.
Asked whether Democrats have miscalculated, Crow said “not at all.”
“I know how important it is, but I’m unwilling to trade Americans’ constitutional rights, privacy and essential civil liberties for temporary extension to this program,” Crow said.
Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina said on “Face the Nation” that “any Democrat that shuts down FISA at a time of great peril for the United States is making a huge mistake.”
“We’re playing with fire here, no matter what side does it,” Graham said. “America needs FISA up and running.”
Andrea (left), Pablo (center), and Martin Langesfeld (right) hold a photograph of their daughter and sister, Nicky Langesfeld and her husband Luis Sadovnic, at a park in Doral, Fla., where the city named a street Nicky Langesfeld Place to honor her memory, Martin says, “as a reminder that she’ll be here with us forever.” Nicole “Nicky” and Luis were two of the 98 people killed when the Champlain Towers South condominium building collapsed in Surfside on June 24, 2021.
Meredith Nierman/NPR
hide caption
toggle caption
Meredith Nierman/NPR
SURFSIDE, Fla. — Just around the corner from where a beachfront condominium collapsed five years ago, there’s a makeshift memorial: a plastic banner strung up on a wood frame, with the names of the 98 victims, ranging in age from a year-old infant to a 92-year-old grandmother.
“It’s an unfortunate reminder of how big this tragedy was,” says Martin Langesfeld, locating the name of his sister Nicky, 26, and her husband Luis Sadovnik, 28. “It’s more than just names. It’s stories. It’s families.”
Two-thirds of the 12-story Champlain Towers South building collapsed just after 1 a.m. on June 24, 2021. It started when the pool deck caved in. Seven minutes later, as many of the occupants were sleeping, the tower began to fall.
Five escaped, and three were rescued from the rubble with severe injuries by first responders. Search teams evacuated residents in the remaining part of the building, which was demolished 10 days later for safety reasons.
Search and rescue personnel work in the rubble of the 12-story, beachfront Champlain Towers South condominium that crumbled to the ground on June 24, 2021 in Surfside.
Joe Raedle/Getty Images
hide caption
toggle caption
Joe Raedle/Getty Images
Hundreds were left without a home and belongings, and the state was forced to grapple with how it regulates structural safety.
Langesfeld is among those who’ve been pushing to improve what they consider a lax system of building oversight. His sister and brother-in-law were newlyweds, who had moved into the condo together just a few months earlier.
“A dream place, home, where you feel you’re safest is where they were killed,” he says.
He’s also frustrated there is no permanent memorial honoring the victims, while a new luxury condo is going up on the land where Champlain Towers once stood.
“It’s been almost five years and there’s no development for the memorial,” he says. “And the development for the new building is very well underway.”
The North Tower of the Champlain Towers condominium complex stands on April 27, overlooking the vacant site where its sister building, Champlain Towers South, collapsed on June 24, 2021. The collapse resulted in 98 deaths and remains one of the largest structural failures in U.S. history. A new luxury condominium complex, the Delmore, is slated for construction on the empty lot.
Meredith Nierman/NPR
hide caption
toggle caption
Meredith Nierman/NPR
Technical findings released Monday by the National Institute of Standards and Technology concluded the problem started about three weeks before the collapse when two connections between garage columns and the pool deck failed, causing cracks to grow and loads to shift to connections that were not strong enough to support them.
Investigators found “severe and widespread deviations in the building’s original structural design from the codes and standards of the day,” and that the building’s construction in 1981 deviated from the design drawings. Investigators will issue a final report later that includes recommendations for changes to standards, codes and practices to improve building safety.
To date, no one has been held criminally responsible.
But in a complex civil lawsuit, more than 30 defendants contributed to a $1.2 billion class action settlement reached just a year after the collapse to address wrongful death, personal injury and property loss claims.
“I think what was apparent to all parties, legal parties, is that it was an enormous loss,” says Coral Gables attorney Rachel Wagner Furst, co-lead counsel representing the Surfside victims.
None of the settling parties admitted liability or wrongdoing, but Wagner Furst says the litigation pointed to many factors that contributed to the scope of the disaster beyond the condo board, which was singled out in the initial lawsuit for not heeding warning signs and deferring repairs on the 40-year-old building.
She notes, “Companies and individuals who had serviced the Champlain Towers South condominium building in the years before the collapse that had arguably or allegedly failed in some way to provide proper maintenance advice or counsel, including the security company that had staffed the front desk of the building and was on duty at the time that the alarm ought to have sounded.”
Attorney Rachel Wagner Furst served as co-lead counsel for the plaintiffs in a class-action lawsuit for the victims of the Champlain Towers South collapse in Surfside, which resulted in a $1.2 billion settlement.
Meredith Nierman/NPR
hide caption
toggle caption
Meredith Nierman/NPR
The Surfside collapse was a wake-up call for condo associations and regulators around the country.
In the immediate aftermath in South Florida, some two dozen properties were evacuated for safety concerns. Most eventually were able to return after repairs.
The state responded by passing more stringent regulations, including new mandates for structural inspections and requiring condo associations to maintain a minimum level of reserve funding for structural upkeep.
“The Florida legislature pushed the burden to create safe housing stock in Florida onto the people who are least able to bear it, which is the Florida consumer,” says Ft. Lauderdale attorney Donna DiMaggio Berger who specializes in condominium law, and founded a group that lobbies on behalf of the more than 50,000 community associations in Florida.
She says developers also should share in the burden.
“If we wind up with the safest housing stock in the country. Bravo, well done,” she says. But “safe buildings start with the people who build them and repair them.”
Construction cranes line the skyline along the beach in Surfside, Fla., on April 27.
Meredith Nierman/NPR
hide caption
toggle caption
Meredith Nierman/NPR
No matter how well-intentioned, the building reforms could have unintended consequences, says Miami-Dade County Mayor Daniella Levine Cava.
She says some buildings have been taken over by people who want to turn them into more expensive, luxurious developments.
“There’s tremendous pressure that people can’t afford these things and so they’re forced to sell,” she says. “We call it ‘condo vultures,’ and it is at our peril.”
Levine Cava says she understands that people want to live “the good life” in South Florida, but there must be balance.
“We know we live in paradise,” she says. “We also know that we need to have people of all means in our community.”
Miami-Dade Mayor Daniella Levine Cava says her community was severely changed by this tragedy, “the pain is still very real. Many people have moved on with their lives and others are still suffering greatly.”
Meredith Nierman/NPR
hide caption
toggle caption
Meredith Nierman/NPR
That’s long been the conundrum in Florida, a trend that accelerated during the COVID-19 pandemic when people flocked to the Sunshine State.
And it’s evident in Surfside, just north of Miami Beach, which is becoming an ultra-wealthy enclave with a wall of condos lining the Atlantic, and more under construction. The area is adjacent to swanky shopping malls and private islands where tech titans have waterfront estates.
The Champlain Towers South property itself is soon to be home to the community’s latest luxury development, The Delmore. Billed as “expansive mansions in the sky,” the sales price of the units starts at $15 million; penthouses go for more than $150 million.
“Each penthouse has its own private pool, and that’s a glass-fronted pool that gets the view to the ocean,” says developer Jeffery Rossely, pointing to the layout on a scale model in a posh sales gallery.
Jeffery Rossely, a developer at the Dubai-based firm Damac Properties, points to a model of a luxury property called The Delmore.
Marisa Peñaloza/NPR
hide caption
toggle caption
Marisa Peñaloza/NPR
Rossely is with Damac Properties, a Dubai-based firm. This is the company’s first residential project in the U.S. Damac was the only bidder with a $120 million cash offer for the property.
“It was obviously at the time a tragic opportunity, but the courts had already ordered sale of the property,” Rossely says. “The money was required to compensate the victims.”
But the project has not received a warm welcome in Surfside. At town meetings he says his company has been accused of having blood on its hands.
A sign welcoming visitors to Surfside, Fla., stands directly across the street from the former site of the Champlain Towers South condominium. Today, a new luxury residential development called The Delmore is under construction on the empty lot where the tower once stood.
Meredith Nierman/NPR
hide caption
toggle caption
Meredith Nierman/NPR
“I didn’t understand why there would be angst for someone coming in and paying that money upfront,” says Rossely.
But in retrospect, he concedes, the project needed a different approach.
“We should have spent a bit more time on due diligence, on community reaction, rather than on the physical property itself,” Rossely says. “We went through what I would call the traditional due diligence. Maybe we should have gone through emotional due diligence, as well.”
The question now is whether people will want to live in the new building. There are no buyers yet in the pre-sale phase.
Meanwhile, the town of Surfside will light a torch at 1:15 a.m. on Wednesday, just outside the development’s fence, to remember the Champlain Towers South victims five years after the collapse.
News
Trump says proof of his allegations that vandals cut Reflecting Pool paint will be provided in court
Washington — President Trump on Monday said proof will be provided in court of his allegations that vandals “cut” a massive slit in the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool, which he claims is the reason the paint is peeling on the recently renovated but algae-plagued project.
In an exchange with CBS News senior White House correspondent Ed O’Keefe, Mr. Trump insisted that vandals, rather than questionable craftsmanship, are responsible for the enduring problems following the $14.7 million sealant job. The president claimed vandals cut a 350-foot slit in the pool between the World War II Memorial and the Lincoln Memorial. Five people have been arrested for vandalism related to the Reflecting Pool, and five additional individuals were issued federal citations, according to the U.S. Park Police, although neither the company behind the project nor the U.S. Park Service has said a cut slit was responsible for the peeling.
Asked if he had proof, such as photos or video, that vandals used a knife to cut a massive slit in the pool, Mr. Trump responded: “Well, let’s put it this way, when you have a 350, I think it’s 350, not 250, when you have a 350-foot slit, from one end to the other, you think that’s proof? You think that’s proof?”
O’Keefe noted that reporters had been to the site and found no evidence of a slit.
“Well, you’d have to go see the Parks Department. They’ll show it to you, or see, see the secretary, but I saw it,” Mr. Trump said, likely referencing Interior Secretary Doug Burgum. “They cut it, they cut it very violently. The same thing with the floor, they cut it, and then they lifted it. They pulled it, and that’s what it is.”
After defending the project, the president said, “We also have pictures.”
O’Keefe asked the president for evidence of his claims.
“Yeah, at the right time you’ll see it,” Mr. Trump said. “You’ll see it in court. You’ll see it in court, but all you have to do is call the Parks Department, call the Department of Interior.”
The president also suggested someone may have placed fertilizer in the water to create the algae that teams have been attempting to clear.
“If you put fertilizer in the water, you get algae, but somebody said they might have put fertilizer, they did something to create the algae,” the president said, again without providing evidence for his claims.
CBS News has reached out to the National Park Service and the Department of the Interior. So far, there’s been no response.
Atlantic Industrial Coatings, which received a no-bid contract to install the sealant on the floor of the Reflecting Pool, told CBS News there are “some areas” that “require repairs.”
“These areas are a very small part of the massive 7-acre project, and do not indicate a failure of the liner,” the company said. “These repairs can not be made until the pool is drained. As soon as it’s feasible for the park, the pool will be drained and AIC will be back to make those needed repairs as part of the warranty.”
-
News9 minutes agoODNI under Pulte fires 6 staff, sends 45 back to home agencies
-
Los Angeles, Ca2 hours agoAir quality concerns remain as the Boyle Heights warehouse fire continues to burn
-
Detroit, MI2 hours agoWenceel Pérez returns home, but when will he return to Detroit Tigers?
-
San Francisco, CA2 hours agoSan Francisco Supervisor Jackie Fielder to return following mental health leave
-
Dallas, TX2 hours ago
Impact: How Jeffery Simmons’ extension could affect Quinnen Williams
-
Miami, FL2 hours ago
Jaylen Brown bidding war? Haslem drove this? All the fallout from Antetokounmpo trade to Miami
-
Boston, MA2 hours agoYour next Uber ride in Boston could be a taxi
-
Denver, CO2 hours agoNuggets 2026 NBA mock draft tracker 2.0: What national experts predict Denver will do
