Afghan refugees urge Pakistan to ease visa regime after Trump pauses US resettlement programs

(24 Jan 2025)
RESTRICTION SUMMARY:

ASSOCIATED PRESS
Islamabad - 24 January 2025
1. Right pan shot of Afghan families in Pakistan holding placards during a meeting after US President Donald Trump’s suspension of the US' refugee program, banners reading (English) "President Trump! Exempt Afghan allies in Pakistan from this order" and "USA please lift the USRAP suspension"
2. Various of families during meeting
3. Close of a banner held by Afghan woman/refugee
4. SOUNDBITE (Pashto) Bi Bi Saanga, Afghan refugee:
“My request is to the newly elected president of the United States, Mr. Trump, for God's sake, listen to us! Our patience has run out, we have lost everything, our economic situation has become absolutely zero, we are facing food shortage, we can only feed our children two meals out of three. We saved the money from one time meal to pay for our Pakistani visa extensions fee. I spent three years in single room accommodation along with my three kids.”
5. Various of Afghan women holding banners
6. SOUNDBITE (Pashto) Bi Bi Saanga, Afghan refugee:
“At the moment, no one has money to pay the Pakistani visa fee, no one has money left for food, and no one has much money left to pay house rent. Everything we had is going to end. Here (in Pakistan) we are in a very bad condition. I swear that since this news came out, me and my three children have not eaten from morning to evening. We are all in severe mental distress.”
7. Various of Afghan women in meeting
8. SOUNDBITE (Dari) Shaista Farman, Afghan refugee:
“When we heard the news that President Trump had suspended the refugee program including for Afghans, since then we are in shock. We can’t go back to Afghanistan. If I go back, I will face hardship and may be killed.”
9. Close of Shaista holding banner
10. Various of women holding banners
11. SOUNDBITE (Pashto) Bi Bi Habiba, Afghan refugee:
“Our request to Pakistani authorities is please make things easier for us in the visa process and reduce the visa fee. We do not want any financial support or any other help, we just want things to be made easier for us. We are passing through a difficult time, and this is our request to the other countries of the world, especially to the US. We have nothing; everyone is now in mental distress.”
12. Various of meeting
13. Various of visa facilitation centre, Afghan refugees standing in front
STORYLINE:
Afghan women who fled after the Taliban seized power appealed on Friday to U.S. President Donald Trump to exempt them from an order suspending the relocation of refugees to the United States.

An estimated 15,000 Afghans are waiting in Pakistan to be approved for resettlement in the U.S. via an American government program.

It was set up to help Afghans at risk under the Taliban because of their work with the U.S. government, media, aid agencies and rights groups, after U.S. troops pulled out of Afghanistan in 2021, when the Taliban took power.

But in his first days in office, Trump's administration announced the U.S. Refugee Admissions Program would be suspended from Jan. 27 for at least three months.

During that period, the White House said the secretary of homeland security in consultation with the secretary of state will submit a report to the president on whether the resumption of the program is in the U.S.' interest.

At a meeting of Afghan women refugees in Islamabad, Bi Bi Saanga pleaded to Trump: "We have lost everything, our economic situation has become absolutely zero."

She added: "We are all in severe mental distress.”



"We do not want any financial support or any other help."







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