President Donald Trump is expected to announce a travel ban that would prohibit migrants from numerous countries, including Afghanistan, from immigrating to America. That decision is of particular concern to the estimated 600 Afghan refugees living in Summit County, many of whom came to America after serving with the U.S. military during the war in Afghanistan.
One member of that community is Lida Ahmadi. She knows about the sacrifice made by Afghans who worked with the U.S. and the risk they now face, because that was her experience.
Ahmadi worked as a translator at the U.S. Embassy in Kabul and was on one of the last flights out of Afghanistan before the Taliban took over. However, before leaving, the Taliban briefly took control of the airport, meaning she had to go into hiding for a week until flights were available again.
"I was like, 'This is it, my life is done,'" said Ahmadi, who now works as a bilingual community care lead at Asian Services in Action in Akron.
She eventually got out. However, an estimated tens of thousands of other Afghan translators, soldiers, lawyers and judges who worked with the U.S. military remain in Afghanistan. They must fight to avoid detection by the Taliban because collaborating with the Americans is a crime punishable by death, Ahmadi said.
“Just imagine what's happening right now to them, still how many days they are going to hide in different places to survive," Ahmadi said. "How many days they're going to survive without food, without water, without anything, without being able to go out.”
'What happened to that promise?'
Things may be getting worse for those who remain in Afghanistan because of Trump's expected wide-ranging travel ban. Afghan refugees would be prohibited from coming to the U.S., Ahmadi said.
Groups like No One Left Behind, a nonprofit dedicated to supporting former interpreters and other U.S. allies, oppose the travel ban.
“We would have let down our allies in a way that I think is just unacceptable," said Andrew Sullivan, the group's executive director. "We see it as just a real moral imperative that we keep our promise to the folks that served alongside our troops and diplomats for 20 years.”
Trump signed executive orders Jan. 20 — his first day in office — delaying immigration. The first held up funding for flights to the U.S. and for resettlement costs for Afghan refugees under the Special Immigrant Visa program for Afghan civilians, such as translators. The second executive order paused the U.S. Refugee Admissions Program, which applies to Afghan military members who trained and fought with the U.S. military.
Afghan allies were made a promise and now feel betrayed, Ahmadi said.
“I'm just so hopeless, like we were promised... we were told, 'You interpret for us, we will bring you here safely,'" she said. "'You will have a good life here.' What happened to that promise now?”
Plenty of blame
Ohio Rep. Jack Daniels, a Republican who represents Summit County, cautioned against blaming Trump alone for delays in Afghan refugee arrivals.
Former administrations, including that of former President Joe Biden, did not move quickly enough to bring these refugees to America, he said.
“Pausing a program when a new administration comes in is a very minor blip in their case," Daniels said. "It seems to me like this is an opportunity to be outraged about something that we should have been outraged about in December and November of last year.”
Sullivan agreed that there is plenty of blame to go around.
“All of the administrations, from the Bush administration through Obama through Trump through Biden through Trump again, and all the Congresses, all of them have a responsibility for where we are today," he said.
However, Daniels agreed that these refugees should be brought to the U.S.
"These are people who we need, who treated our country well when they probably didn't have to," he said.
It's not only doing right by people that previously helped the U.S., it's bringing in people who will benefit the country now, Daniels added.
"These are the type of immigrants we need and we want," he said. "We should be working to support and help so that they not only get the help that they need and deserve to get out of a difficult situation in their country, but so that they can be here to help our culture and our society and the employment problems that we have, and many other reasons that immigration is good for this country."
