Bulwark Takes - “They Will Be Killed” Trump Orders Afghan Refugees to Self-Deport

Episode Date: April 20, 2025

Tim Miller talks with veteran Will Selber on the letters the Trump Administration have sent to Afghan refugees saying they have seven days to self-deport, many of which risked everything to help American forces. Afghan American Veterans Alliance Global Friends of Afghanistan  NXT Mission

Hey, y'all, it's Tim Miller from the Bulwark. I am delighted to be here with my friend Will Selber, former colleague of mine. He's now working with a bunch of Afghan nonprofits, Afghan American Veterans Alliance, Global Friends of Afghanistan, and Next Mission, which is focused on Afghan female soldiers. We'll put the links to these in the show notes if you want to support them. It's good to see you, brother, even though the topic is pretty bleak. Yes, yes, it is. But I'm delighted to be here. And thank you for providing me a platform to talk about this. Yeah, happy to do it. Will did four tours in Afghanistan, but who's counting?

And so met a lot of folks over there. And I started seeing these stories come across my radar this week. And I just am trying to unpack what is true about them. It's one of these things where it's in a non-Trump world, it's too horrific to be imaginable. I was like, maybe this is the new, they don't have exactly the story, right? But in Trump world, it seems to be the case, which is a bunch of Afghan refugees who came the proper way, you know, went to a third country, demonstrated credible fear, particular is a particular focus on Afghan Christians who have an obvious fear of religious persecution. Now the Taliban is running Afghanistan. And many of these people have received emails this week from the government saying basically you have seven days to leave.

So that's what I've read. I'm sure you're more familiar than this with than me. So get us up to speed on what's happening. Sure. About a week ago or so, Trump removed the temporary protective status on our Afghan allies who served beside American forces and other forces through 20 years of war that basically left them vulnerable, if you will. And, you know, now we're starting to get reports and I've heard it from multiple people that there are already Afghan refugees who have been detained and also that there were Afghan security force officers who has been detained. There's some video on it on Facebook about a certain Afghan soldier being detained. So there is video proof already that's starting to come out

of our Afghan allies who there's about 120,000, give or take that left Kabul when it fell. And then there's been a lot more that have come since then. So all of them who made it here could potentially be deported back to Afghanistan where they will certainly be murdered. I mean, just 100 percent, they will be executed by the Taliban and al Qaeda. The al Qaeda and the Taliban may not do it immediately because that's not how they kill people. They basically do targets of opportunity. So it's not going to be a systemic campaign. But any Afghan who gets sent back, who is a vetted Afghan and who's a trusted Afghan. And many of the men and women that I served with trained in the United

States previously, and have already gone through like six or seven rounds of vetting before 2001. You sent any of them back, they're going to kill them. Period. The like process, and I guess if you've been speaking to people that are like, like dealing with this, they're in flux right now. I mean, I guess the question is I, the government would say,

well, they're going to give them time to go to another country. I like, I don't, are other countries taking Afghans? Like, you know, I haven't heard anything yet that they are.

I'm sure that there will be some that step up to the plate and provide sanctuary for them. I would sure that there will be some that step up to the plate and provide sanctuary for them. I would just say, you know, imagine how this must feel for my Afghan combat veteran friends who spent the last three and a half years getting Afghan allies out. They've sunk their money into it, their personal money into it. Relationships have been ruined, marriages, families split apart because a bunch of Afghan combat veterans decided to uphold the promise that we made to our allies. And now if this really starts up, if you think the veteran suicide rate was bad, it's going to spike because you saw a spike. You saw that you saw a spike during the fall of Kabul. If we're going to start hunting our very own allies and you're going to make Afghan combat veterans try to protect them, and there's going to be guys who shepherd them along. Imagine how that must feel for them. the fall, but also now, again, as they grab the very people that they sunk their money into,

who protected them on the battlefield, to pull them all the way back. It's going to be devastating, not just for combat veterans, but also for their families. And as you can see, the Trump administration has been gutting the VA. So good luck trying to find some help. Yeah, I mean, it is just so tragic. And it's been kind of tragedy upon tragedy for you guys, our veterans who served over there. Just kind of like also just seeing the work, the rug pulled out from under you on the work that was done. But talking about the Afghans themselves, and I think since you deal with a lot of these families, you could kind of give people some perspective. You know, a lot of folks who were in Afghanistan who maybe helped us, who are translators or maybe, or even if they didn't, even if they just are Christians that are looking for a safe

harbor here in America, they've come here, they've started lives, they're in churches, they have jobs, they're in a community, they have kids, too. Like, you know, they have families and they uprooted their whole life, came here. And now it's like what? And now we're just saying, hey, here's a letter from the government. You have seven days to go back to certain death a gender apartheid regime because the Taliban and al Qaeda are publicly executing people, there are mass sexual assaults going on in prison. Now, imagine this is your only chance and you have to pick up everything you own, get on a plane and fly all the way here in a country that is completely different. And that maybe one or two of your family members know how to speak fluent English. That was the case for about 100,000 Afghans or so less that got into the United States. and overwhelming numbers are thriving. I have a friend who's a pilot. He's a pilot and he lost all of his credentials during the fall. He had to redo everything

and he's flying right now as we speak. You know, he is providing service for this country. I have an Afghan interpreter, my very first one. He's an American citizen and I'm even scared for him. This is a man without any legs who survived an IED explosion, and he is a security guard because he wants to protect Americans. I could go on and on about the Afghans that I know, men and women who, there's that first Afghan female squadron commander who was in charge of other Afghan male pilots. She's here. Other females, tactical platoon members are here. These men and women

are doing their best. Many of them are thriving. And I tell you what, all they want, I talked to so many of them, they want this. They want to stay here. They were going to follow the laws. They want to thrive. And as soon as the Taliban and Al Qaeda aren't in charge of Afghanistan, I guarantee you every single one of them will want to go home because they love it here. But this isn't their home. But they don't want to go back now because as we speak, the Taliban has been killing our Afghan allies for the last three years. Why would they be any different? Yeah. I mean, the Taliban has been killing, you know, our Afghan allies for the last three years. Why would they be any different? Yeah, I mean, the letter that they got, I just want to read a little bit from it. If you do not depart from the United States immediately, you'll be subject to potential law enforcement actions that will result in your removal from

the United States unless you have otherwise obtained a lawful basis to remain here. You'll be subject to potential criminal prosecution, civil fines penalties, and other lawful options available to the federal government. So like, you know, for your friend that has got citizenship, right? I mean, this does not apply to all 100,000, but like, this is a huge portion of them that do not have other lawful basis to remain here if they don't have the temporary protective status. That's the gist. Yes, that is the gist. I mean, for the Afghan American citizens, it's going to be their family members, though, because many of them were able to get members of their families out. So it is going to affect them, too. And it's going to

affect any Afghan that's in the United States. Even if they're able to stay here, they're going to see their friends and family, some of them get deported and we've already turned off the pipeline like there's not going to be any other afghans getting in as as far as i know trump has already turned that off so what is the point here exactly uh and it seems like it's the focus on the people that and so can you can explain this because you were helping folks get out yes and just doing really great work but there was i guess there were you know after that first rush right then there's this next batch of people that come in and they went through kind of the old process right they would go to a third country then they got that there was the cbp one app and this way it's similar to the story with

the venezuelans just with like even more trauma but um you know where they they did it they got in the app and I, it seems to me just based on the couple of stories I've read and Christian posting elsewhere that like, it was those Afghans have been targeted first, like the ones that use the CBP one app. Cause I guess, you know, the government has it on file. They're easy to find. So yeah, I mean, that's exactly right.

Now Afghans who have followed the law and provided information, they are going to maybe be the first ones that are contacted by the American federal government. And after that, I don't know what's going to happen next, because I think that a lot of them are going to be vulnerable. Some of them got here after the fall of Afghanistan. They went through they went through an SIVs, Special Immigrant Visa process. That was for people that worked for at least a year for the American federal government in various capacities. Some of them got in as on refugee status or asylum or parole through the last three and a half years. And many of them sat in bases in the Middle East for over a year getting vetted, and then they finally make it.

So all of these men and women have been thoroughly vetted multiple times. Yeah. Well, it's quite the Easter weekend gift from the American government. Secretary of State Marco Rubio tweeted yesterday, Easter celebrates the resurrection of Jesus Christ. This Holy Weekend Easter, I call upon all nations to respect the right of Christians to declare Christ the King. So while he's calling on other nations to respect the right of Christians, he's fucking sending Christian refugees back to their death. What a sick person. It's just truly unbelievable that the shameless of of the administration on this front yeah there are members inside the administration who served in afghanistan i mean the national security advisor

served in afghanistan and wrote a book about it and door stepped up i don't remember what it was called but he talked quite passionately about the afghans and i would love to see maybe uh michael waltz say something about that because he served. He knows how valuable they were. And if any of the limited success that we had, lives were saved because my life was saved because of Afghans numerous times. They've earned their place among us. I appreciate you, man. I appreciate your service, all the work you're doing.

Once again, we'll put the links here if people want to support these efforts. The Afghan American Veterans Alliance, Global Friends of Afghanistan. That's my buddy, Will Selber. And sadly, I think this stuff's going to stay in the news. So we'll be talking to you again. All right. Thank you, Tim. I appreciate the time.

Thanks, brother. Have a good one. We'll see you soon.