In the months after the United States-backed government of Afghanistan first fell to the Taliban, international condemnation of the regime and support for Afghan refugees were swift and widespread. But now, the shifting tides of international immigration policy have definitively turned against Afghan refugees. As Iran, Pakistan, and the United States all begin to either deport refugees or further block off immigration pathways, the opportunities available for Afghans attempting to make a life outside of Afghanistan’s strict confines continue to narrow.
The story of modern Afghanistan has been irrevocably shaped by August 15, 2021 — commonly known as the fall of Kabul — the date on which the Taliban seized the Afghan capital and ended 20 years of U.S. intervention in Afghan politics. The Taliban first formed in the early 1990s, taking advantage of the power vacuum that formed in the years after the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan. They seized the capital in 1996 and established a theocratic state that followed a strict interpretation of Shari’a law until their overthrow by U.S. forces in 2001. Despite their removal from power, the Taliban quickly regrouped and began to take back territory across Afghanistan.
While analysts predicted that the capital would eventually fall into Taliban hands following the Biden administration-led withdrawal, the speed of the takeover shocked the international community and served as a testament to the raw power of the regime that was to come. In the months following a chaotic evacuation of US military personnel and certain vulnerable allies from the Kabul airport, the Taliban began to stretch their influence into nearly every sector of public and private life, especially concerning the rights of women. Currently, Afghan women cannot move freely in public without the accompaniment of a male guardian or access education past the sixth grade. At a time when the international community should be recognizing the four-year anniversary of the fall of Kabul and working to protect Afghan rights globally, governments around the world are taking action to end protections for Afghan nationals and block off immigration pathways for Afghan women and girls who hope to continue their education.
Notably, the Temporary Protected Status (TPS) designation for Afghanistan was terminated on July 14, 2025, affecting over 11,000 Afghans currently residing and working in the United States. The TPS designation was created in 1990, and it is typically used to designate certain countries as unsafe and provide protection for individuals from those countries in the United States, giving them the right to live and work legally. Afghanistan was put on the Temporary Protected Status list in the aftermath of the fall of Kabul, when the State Department deemed that the dangerously unstable conditions in Afghanistan warranted action. A large portion of TPS holders in the United States entered the country through Operation Allies Welcome, an interagency project directed by the Biden Administration, which sought to resettle Afghan allies and provide temporary housing. This termination puts Afghan TPS holders at risk of being deported back to Afghanistan and thus face potential discrimination or Taliban reprisal.
Internationally, the issue of deportations for Afghan citizens is even more dire. Since the beginning of 2025, over 2.6 million Afghans have been deported from neighboring countries. Both Iran and Pakistan have begun a crackdown on undocumented Afghan refugees, many of whom are returning to a country they barely remember. Returnees are at increased risk of poverty, early marriage, violence, and exploitation. Following Iran’s war with Israel earlier this year, the Iranian government released an edict demanding that all 2 million undocumented Afghans in the country leave before July 6, 2025. Afghan men, women, and children returning to Afghanistan often face long and difficult journeys and are often not allowed to bring most of their possessions with them, effectively forcing them to start over in an entirely new world. The issue of forced removal has been especially severe for unaccompanied women, who, by virtue of their solo deportation, have found themselves in direct conflict with Afghanistan’s law against women traveling without male guardians.
The Afghan population in Iran has been steadily growing over the last years, and Iran currently has the largest refugee population in the world. Work permissions for Afghans are only granted in 10 out of Iran’s 31 provinces, and even those permits typically only apply to arduous physical labor. The Iranian government has frequently accused Afghans of engaging in espionage or spying on behalf of the Israeli state, and the recent wave of deportations can be attributed to heightened tensions following the 12-day Iran-Israel war. Anti-Afghan sentiment is widespread in Iran, and many onlookers speculate that the government is effectively seizing upon the chaos caused by the war to remove the significant Afghan population of the state. This upheaval has affected Afghans of all stripes, with those who were not forcibly deported from Iran still facing troubles in the anti-Afghan atmosphere.
Andishvar, a 20-year-old Afghan poet and scholar who spent several months legally living in Iran with her aunts after escaping from Afghanistan, characterized her time in Iran mainly by her long and arduous attempts to extend her visa. The experience left her declaring that she would “never go to Iran again.”
“It was such a stress, and such a big stress for me, because the police were always on the road, and they arrested the Afghan citizens, especially those who are living in Iran illegally. And there were not too many opportunities for Afghan women or Afghan girls,” says Andishvar.
Andishvar is now in Oman, where she has been living illegally ever since the expiration of her visa in April 2025. She is at constant risk of deportation, a fear that paralyzes her days. “Every time I go to the market or leave the house, or I go outside, I am stressed—hearing that I might be arrested by the police or maybe deported to Afghanistan. And that makes me really upset, because I never want to go back to Afghanistan. I just want to keep fighting and standing firm until my last breath,” Andishvar explained.
The difficulties that Afghan nationals have been facing in the immigration process are especially severe for women because of a lack of educational access and opportunities. The current erasure of Afghan girls and women from public life is unprecedented in the modern world, with the United Nations currently predicting that the exclusion of girls from secondary schools could cause early childbearing to rise by 45 percent and increase maternal mortality by more than 50 percent.The exclusion of women from educational life is also tied to their exclusion from professional life, leading to an Afghan society in which women are invisible in the public sphere. This utter isolation is compounded by policies such as the Taliban’s ban on women reciting or singing in public.
“Maybe the Taliban can bring changes to our appearance. Okay, they might force us to what to wear or where to go, but they never can change our minds and our thoughts. So our mind and our thoughts are only controlled by our souls,” Andishvar said when asked about her experience in continuing her education despite the Taliban’s policies. She hopes to work hard on her English skills and eventually gain a scholarship to a university in the United States or Canada, where she will continue to study poetry and further her education. However, even the future of this plan is uncertain — the administration’s ban has significantly affected the plans of many female Afghan students who have been accepted into U.S. universities. While those students might have once been able to continue their education relatively easily once accepted, the current status of immigration has caused severe difficulties in obtaining student visas.
Another factor in the administration’s actions against Afghan students can be seen in the dismantling of foreign aid programs and grants. A USAID endowment program that provided 208 Afghan girls with scholarships to the American University of Afghanistan and Texas A&M has been left in limbo following Trump’s cuts, leaving students uncertain of their ability to finish their studies. Previously, students were able to take in-person classes in Qatar and Oman or learn remotely from Afghanistan, but it is unclear if that arrangement will be able to continue under the Trump administration. For the women studying abroad, a forced return to Afghanistan would place them at risk of direct reprisal from the Taliban and would put a complete halt to their efforts to complete their studies.
“For now, I never, never wish to go to Afghanistan again, because there is not—Afghanistan is not, right now, the place where girls or women can grow themselves,” says Andishvar. “So that is what I’m focusing on, to get out of the country, into a country that I have freedom and I have the right to gain knowledge.”
Andishvar and thousands of other girls like her, both inside and outside of Afghanistan, deserve the right to pursue an education and mark out their own destinies. Their generation is lucky—they have had the opportunity to experience the freedom of education that they now seek to regain. Future generations may not have the same opportunity, and once cut off from all forms of education, Afghan girls will struggle to conceptualize a life outside of the narrow confines that have been prescribed to them. As the world continues to look away from this tragedy, the foundations are being set for an Afghanistan where women are completely barred from the opportunities and education they once saw as natural. As the Taliban encroaches more and more into the everyday lives of Afghan women, the international community has a responsibility to take action to protect humanitarian rights in Afghanistan.
Featured Image Source: UN Women
