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UNHCR alarm over forced Afghan refugees returns from Tajikistan
On Thursday, UNHCR, the UN refugee agency, warned of the danger faced by Afghan refugees who continue to be detained and deported from Tajikistan, reiterating that it’s illegal to force those fleeing persecution back to their homeland.
In the latest incident, some five Afghans, including a family comprising three children and their mother, were returned home to Afghanistan, despite UNHCR’s protests.
“Tajikistan must stop detaining and deporting refugees, an action that clearly puts lives at risk,” said Elizabeth Tan, UNHCR’s Director of International Protection. “Forced return of refugees is against the law and runs contrary to the principle of non-refoulement, a cornerstone of international refugee law.”
Separate from legal ramifications, the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) also expressed concern on Thursday over the ability of returning refugees to make a living.
Richard Trenchard, Representative of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) in Afghanistan, warned that, “almost half the total population face acute food insecurity – hunger on a daily basis.”
The legal and physical perils faced by returning refugees have therefore been compounded by the ongoing food insecurity crisis, which has become more acute in the year since the Taliban takeover.
To combat this nascent crisis, the United States Government has announced an $80 million grant to the FAO. Specifically, the grant will be used to build Afghan resilience and bolster efforts to provide food security in the face of continuing drought, economic crisis and conflict.
The five-year contribution from the US Agency for International Development (USAID) will meet farmers’ immediate needs and build healthier, more climate-smart and resilient livelihoods.
Through increasing nutritious food production, fostering environmental sustainability, promoting climate-smart agricultural practices and supporting the diversification of household incomes, FAO aims to revive struggling food markets.
As Mr. Trenchard reflected, “USAID’s generous support will help Afghanistan’s farmers to begin seeing beyond the current crisis and start laying foundations for future recovery.”
The direct outcome of investments by the US and FAO will be the increased production and processing of nutritious food. However, the butterfly effect of such development will be improved economic resilience, enhanced public health, and strengthed community security.
Significant environmental benefits will also be achieved through the planting of new forests, climate-smart pasture development, river bank management and reducing soil erosion.
The projects have been designed to encourage engagement by historically oppressed groups in safe income-generating activities.
FAO fosters gender inclusive and intergenerational collaboration to enhance access to local markets and create microfinancing opportunities.
These initiatives target various products including dairy, livestock, crops and aim both to give people tools such as zero-energy cold storages, micro solar dryers and equipment for safe collection and handling of milk and to expand frayed market infrastructures.
Therefore, these schemes are essential because they will not only meet immediate needs, but also eliminate the potential for future insecurity, FAO said.
President Donald Trump suspended the green card lottery program on Thursday that allowed the suspect in the Brown University and MIT shootings to come to the United States.
Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem said in a post on the social platform X that, at Trump’s direction, she is ordering the United States Citizenship and Immigration Services to pause the program, the Associated Press reported.
“This heinous individual should never have been allowed in our country,” she said of the suspect, Portuguese national Claudio Neves Valente.
Neves Valente, 48, is suspected in the shootings at Brown University that killed two students and wounded nine others, and the killing of an MIT professor. He was found dead Thursday evening from a self-inflicted gunshot wound, officials said.
Neves Valente had studied at Brown on a student visa beginning in 2000, according to an affidavit from a Providence police detective. In 2017, he was issued a diversity immigrant visa and months later obtained legal permanent residence status, according to the affidavit. It was not immediately clear where he was between taking a leave of absence from the school in 2001 and getting the visa in 2017.
The diversity visa program makes up to 50,000 green cards available each year by lottery to people from countries that are little represented in the U.S., many of them in Africa. The lottery was created by Congress, and the move is almost certain to invite legal challenges.
Nearly 20 million people applied for the 2025 visa lottery, with more than 131,000 selected when including spouses with the winners. After winning, they must undergo vetting to win admission to the United States. Portuguese citizens won only 38 slots.
Lottery winners are invited to apply for a green card. They are interviewed at consulates and subject to the same requirements and vetting as other green-card applicants.
Trump has long opposed the diversity visa lottery. Noem’s announcement is the latest example of using tragedy to advance immigration policy goals. After an Afghan man was identified as the gunman in a fatal attack on National Guard members in November, Trump’s administration imposed sweeping rules against immigration from Afghanistan and other counties.
While pursuing mass deportation, Trump has sought to limit or eliminate avenues to legal immigration. He has not been deterred if they are enshrined in law, like the diversity visa lottery, or the Constitution, as with a right to citizenship for anyone born on U.S. soil. The Supreme Court recently agreed to hear his challenge to birthright citizenship.
Sixty-one members of the U.S. Congress have urged the Trump administration to reverse its decision to halt immigration processing for Afghan nationals, warning that the move unfairly targets Afghan nationals following a deadly shooting involving two National Guard members.
In a letter addressed to Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, the lawmakers said the incident should not be used to vilify Afghans who are legally seeking entry into the United States. They stressed that Afghan applicants undergo extensive vetting involving multiple U.S. security agencies.
The letter criticized the suspension of Special Immigrant Visa processing, the termination of Temporary Protected Status for Afghanistan, and broader travel and asylum restrictions, warning that such policies endanger Afghan allies who supported U.S. forces during the war.
“Exploiting this tragedy to sow division and inflame fear will not make America safer. Abandoning those who made the courageous choice to stand beside us signals to those we may need as allies in the future that we cannot be trusted to honor our commitments. That is a mistake we cannot afford,” the group said.
The U.S. admitted nearly 200,000 Afghan nationals in the wake of the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan.
Thousands of Afghans who worked with the U.S. military and their families still wait at military bases and refugee camps around the world for a small number of SIVs.
An earthquake of magnitude 5.3 struck Afghanistan on Friday, the United States Geological Survey (USGS) said.
The quake occurred at 10:09 local time at a depth of 35 km, USGS said.
Its epicentre was 25 kilometres from Nahrin district of Baghlan province in north Afghanistan.
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