The Trump administration’s termination of Temporary Protected Status (TPS) for Afghans in the United States will take effect on July 14, leaving over 11,000 Afghans in the US subject to immediate detention and deportation. A TPS designation allows people from certain countries the US government recognizes as temporarily unsafe to remain in the US and work legally.
Afghanistan under the Taliban is undeniably dangerous and unjust for everyone. But women and girls who are returned to Afghanistan will be particularly vulnerable.
The end of TPS comes just days after the International Criminal Court issued arrest warrants for two senior Taliban leaders over their systematic violations of women’s rights. Human Rights Watch has previously concluded that Taliban authorities were committing the crime against humanity of gender persecution against Afghan women and girls. These determinations reveal how imperiled Afghan women and girls will be if the US deports them back to Afghanistan.
Under the Taliban, who reclaimed power in Afghanistan following the US withdrawal in 2021, Afghan women and girls are no longer able to attend secondary school and university. They also face severe employment restrictions, limited access to health care, and strictly curtailed access to public spaces. Both Afghan women and some United Nations officials have described their situation as “gender apartheid.” TPS is a mechanism for circumstances that constitute generalized threats to safety, which is especially important for Afghan women who might lack documentation to show individualized threats to establish claims under the US asylum procedure.
The US should also consider that some Afghans with TPS are likely to now have children with US citizenship. They may be separated from their families or subjected to dangerous circumstances if their parents are forced to make the impossible decision of leaving them behind in the US or taking them to live under the Taliban.
The US government should recognize the dire conditions that await Afghans and reinstate TPS. Otherwise, the termination of these protections will force Afghans to confront unimaginable risk.