


As the Pakistani government has removed 300,000 Afghans from its borders since Jan. 1, U.S. allies are increasingly among those being returned to their homeland. This week, two U.S. nonprofits reported that six Afghans in U.S. processing pipelines were deported in a single 24-hour period.
Since the fall of the Afghan government in August 2021, Long Island volunteer Meredith Festa has assisted 169 U.S. Refugee Admissions Program applicants whose lives were endangered because they provided care for U.S. military dogs and U.S. Embassy employees’ pets. Covering the extortionate prices of visas, rent, and healthcare in Pakistan during four years of crawling bureaucracy cost the founder of the nonprofit Paws Unite People over $1.5 million. About $400,000 came directly from Festa’s liquidated retirement savings.
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On July 23, five of Festa’s 34 unprocessed USRAP applicants, in limbo since the program’s Jan. 20 suspension, were deported to Afghanistan. Among them were two boys and a 19-year-old single female from the Hazara minority, whom volunteers are calling Kulthum to protect her identity.
Kulthum’s family’s USRAP processing had to be restarted in October 2024 due to bureaucratic confusion. Had the case been amended earlier, the family may have already found safety in the U.S. by December, when Kulthum’s mother had a harrowing electrical accident that left her with third-degree burns to much of her torso, arm, and hand.
Her recovery has been difficult. Public hospitals refused to treat an Afghan refugee, according to U.S. volunteers. Private hospitals cited an unaffordable cost of $20,000 for skin grafts. Without those interventions, Kulthum’s mother’s condition remains perilous, with her severely burned finger now separating from her hand.
Kulthum was funding basic wound care for her mother by teaching English classes. On Monday, while she was teaching, Pakistani authorities arrested Kulthum and told her family to prepare for her deportation.
Kulthum’s USRAP applicant father was unable to return to the country as his daughter’s guardian, being known to the Taliban after enduring torture at their hands for his work with the U.S. Embassy and U.S. military personnel.
When Kulthum’s sister begged Pakistani police to release her, the guards told her not to worry. “You know your sister’s very pretty,” they said. “And she’s fertile. She’ll find a husband.”
To secure Kulthum’s release, Pakistani police demanded either a bribe or a letter of assurance from the State Department that Kulthum’s family had a pathway to the United States.
Nonprofit Operation Recovery’s Director Elizabeth Lynn and Executive Director Ian Patterson launched into action to find protections for Kulthum, seeking assistance from Congress, the State Department, and the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees.
The UNHCR did not stop Kulthum’s deportation, though spokesperson Babar Baloch said that UNHCR “is coordinating on both sides of the border to verify information about and from people who have been forcibly returned, and we are providing protection interventions and humanitarian assistance on the Afghanistan side upon their return.”
Since October 2022, Afghans have lamented a lack of assistance from UNHCR as they awaited USRAP processing in Pakistan.
The State Department, which routinely provided Afghans with letters of protection prior to January 2025, did not issue a letter for Kulthum. The State Department did not respond to questions about how many Afghans remained unprocessed in the USRAP program as of its suspension. Just four Afghan USRAP applicants are known to have reached the U.S. since Jan. 20.
On Wednesday, Kulthum and four other individuals in Festa’s care were simultaneously returned to Afghanistan, as was a Special Immigrant Visa applicant supported by the nonprofit No One Left Behind.
Deported Afghans face a bleak future. A July 24 report from the U.N. Assistance Mission in Afghanistan details “torture and ill-treatment, arbitrary arrest and detention” for prior returnees. In contradiction to their claimed amnesty, the Taliban have continued their reprisal campaign, appearing to search for old enemies among over a million new refugees flooding the country from Iran and Pakistan.
Women returnees may be banned from working, education, speaking publicly, or traveling alone and must don the burka. Between June 16 and 19, the Taliban arrested “numerous” women for failing to wear the garb appropriately.
Kulthum is at risk of forced marriage, or, if her connection to her father is discovered, of imprisonment, torture, and rape at the hands of the Taliban.
Without guardians, the unaccompanied boys from Festa’s group could easily become bacha be reesh, dancing boys, for the Taliban’s pedophilic bacha bazi practice, or may be recruited as child soldiers.
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Rep. Dina Titus (D-NV) says she has “been enormously frustrated with how Afghans who are in grave danger, like [Kulthum,] have been left behind and subjected to imminent persecution and violence from the Taliban.”
“We need to recommit ourselves to protecting those who will almost certainly face torture, persecution, and death at the hands of the Taliban,” Titus said. “If we are so quick to abandon our allies, who will want to assist us in our time of need?”
Beth Bailey (@BWBailey85) is a freelance contributor to Fox News and the host of The Afghanistan Project, which takes a deep dive into nearly two decades of war and the tragedy wrought in the wake of the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan.