He Supported the US War in Afghanistan. Now He May Be Deported to the Taliban.

About 200,000 Afghans have resettled in America under the humanitarian parole program after the US military withdrew from Afghanistan. But the Trump administration terminated those protections, and since January, ICE has more aggressively targeted Afghans in recent years. In this Washington Post story, John Woodrow Cox writes about “H,” an Afghan man who has built a life in America with his wife, raised two US-born kids, and done everything “right.” He is law-abiding, hardworking, and patriotic. He has learned English and embraced American culture; he has shown his support for Trump; he has “always seen himself as the sort of person America would welcome,” he tells Cox. But Homeland Security has labeled H an “unvetted alien from a high threat country”—and wants to send him back. (You may need to create a Washington Post account to read this article.)

But the 200,000 Afghans who have found refuge in this country since the war’s end hold a unique place in the diaspora of American immigrants. Many braved extraordinary danger on the government’s behalf, and the overwhelming majority came here legally. Lawmakers hosted news conferences to celebrate the arriving heroes. Churches found them homes, clothes, jobs. At airports, greeters held signs in Dari that read, “Welcome to your new home.”

To board the C-17 out of Afghanistan, according to H and his wife, he provided documents showing more than a decade of work and education that aligned with U.S. interests. His brother, beloved by the U.S. Marines and Army officers he served with, vouched for him. He submitted to background checks in Qatar and at Dulles International Airport. At Fort Pickett in Virginia, where he and his wife were housed for a month, they each provided photos and fingerprints to run through international databases. They were screened again when they applied for their humanitarian parole and work authorizations, and H’s asylum application required him to interview with Homeland Security for nearly two hours.

Now, on his worst nights in the detention center, he reminds himself of the promise America made to Afghans who supported its cause: “Nobody will be left behind.”