Demonstrators are going to protest against the ban on the trip announced by US President Donald Trump.
(Patrick T. Fallon / Geth)
Since President Donald Trump has taken office, federal assistance to refugees, once a tool for those in danger, was largely abolished or rejected.
In Chicago, the refugee relocation agency witnessed the cool decline of new arrivals. From October 2023 to September 2024, the organization helped 705 refugees. But in the federal financial year of 2025, this number fell up to 50, which is a “complete shutdown of our refugee gas pipeline”, according to Emily Parker from the fugitive.
This pipeline refers to the often complex administrative process of relocating refugees from the crisis and the new country. The latest arrival – and the only arrival – Afghan owners of special immigrants (SIV): people in Afghanistan who worked with the US forces, have been reduced for 365 days or more. Many of these SIV owners had to leave their families behind, unable to bring them from the new administration policy.
“We cannot replace state programs. We cannot replace family reunion. We cannot physically bring people from countries,” Parker said. “Now all we can do is support people who are already here.”
Almost 200,000 Afghans arrived in the US under Biden’s administration, many thanks to the move to find the people left behind who worked with the US government and received SIV. One with a refugee who made a journey through Siv, Abdul, worked for several years in Herats with automatic management services (AMS), a company contracting the Afghan Defense Ministry, which cooperates with foreign military forces. Its role was to prepare the Afghan National Police in ordering cars, searching them through Kabul and distributing them to four military parts of the country.
In 2021, when the US was preparing for removal, and the Taliban resumed control, foreign employees began to leave, he said, and AMS closed. “When the Taliban went at the time, I didn’t think,” I’m safe, “or” my family is safe. “That’s why I came here,” he said.
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Afghan staff received documents confirming their work they used for visas. Abdul said he should receive a letter of recommendation, provide biography, ID and human resources to obtain approval of the Head of Mission (C), which provides SIV from the US State Department. But since the US no longer had an embassy in Afghanistan, he had to move to Rwanda to complete the visa process. He traveled to Iran, then Dubai, spending $ 4,000 on the journey.
In Rwanda, the US Embassy asked about his salary, work and needs of the company, and then issued a visa in two to three weeks. After submitting medical documents and interviewing, Abdul could finally relocate to Chicago.
“Chicago is a very pleasant place,” he said. “Good people, a good center. I like it.” He now lives in an apartment with many other Afghan refugees and other Migrants of Central Asia or the Middle East. In the living room, a Turkish neighbor, a refugee, called “Sister” helped to take care of it, providing fruit dishes during the conversation. “It’s like a community,” he said.
Navigation of Trump’s new policy was not easy. On his first day ago as Trump signed Executive order The cancellation of flights for Afghan refugees – including those who are connected by families. In June, he suspended the US refuge program, leaving countless applicants in the bureaucratic void. Other grants have now stopped, such as the temporary protected status and coordinator for the Afghan resettlement. In the same month, Trump adopted his “big beautiful bill”, increasing the fee for seeking asylum and placing a ban on Afghans with immigration or nemigration visas.
Abdullah’s parents, two sisters and brother remain in Afghanistan, creating a huge emotional burden for him. His father, who worked for the same company for over ten years, never received a letter of recommendation to get a SIV visa, as AMS gave them only a small percentage of employees. He later received one from the former ruler in India, and his case is now awaiting assertion of Com – often a long process.
Abdullah’s story is thousands, he said. “When my family does not come here, I try to return and visit my family,” but go back because the Taliban continues to arrest people. After the absorption of Abdul and his family changed their address. He said that the Taliban has spies everywhere, and “they can be your neighbors,” who reported to them that you worked for the US military.
He is now working in food delivery, often sending several hundred dollars back to his family in Afghanistan for essential items, and expressed disappointment without finding a job in America, similar to the one he had in Herat. “We don’t want to be a boss or leader,” he said. “We just want the system.”
His family connects to WhatsApp once a week, though the internet connection is bad. His younger sisters between the ages of 13 and 21 cannot attend school for more than “six years,” he said, citing a ban that forbids Afghan women to continue their studies in the sixth grade. He said his mother missed him, and that his sister repeatedly asks when he returns. “It’s hard for me … most of the time I lie to them”
He told them that he would leave only two to three months. Now it has been over a year.
Earlier, the State Department’s care program helped to move the Afghan allies to countries such as Qatar, Pakistan and the United Arab Emirates, but now it is almost impossible to avoid Afghanistan, Parker reports. “I am in contact with one family whose husband is here. He was a pilot in Afghanistan who work with American forces,” she said. “His wife and children never evacuated. They had to, and they just live in their home. They weren’t on the street four years … We almost confirmed that they would have to wait another four years.” The family, she said, has no means to go beyond Afghanistan. “It is so risky to even go through Pakistan. It is very, very, very dangerous and scary.”
“While refugee admissions were greatly reduced the first trump administration, this is the first time in our history that we’re the first a ban on all refugees. Schulze of Refugee One, which has helped welcome more than 22,000 refugees since the passage of the refugee act in 1980. The Organization will Continue Rent Money, Immigration Counseling, employment certificate, mental health services and more. But federal funding is per capita, so less refugees means a tougher budget.
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“Our development department does a very good job to ensure that we have a really good kind of private funding that was very nice to get from people who really seek to help and supplement in the light of grant loss,” she said, adding that Illinois and Chicago is also a great fan for refugees.
In 2024 Governor J. B. Packer and the Ministry of Household Services Illinois have announced additional financing of municipalities for $ 17 million to support the asylum. And the city budget in Chicago should use $ 150 million to assist new arrival.
If you reduce the financing in -depth, the agency will be forced to provide skeleton services for those who are now in the refugee pipeline that Parker believes that it will happen over the next two years. This will mean that the agency can provide food, water, shelter and clothing, but programs that help customers apply for college, study trade or add additional adjustment levels.
“We are doing our best with the people who are already here,” she said. “But people who suffer from family reunion are the wound we are unable to cure.”
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