SCOTT SIMON, HOST:
Temporary Protected Status for Afghanistan ends on Monday, and this means that Afghans in the U.S. who have not filed for asylum or a green card can no longer work or travel abroad and are subject to removal. Abdul Feraji (ph) is an investigative journalist from Afghanistan. He joins us now. Mr. Feraji, thanks so much for being with us.
ABDUL FERAJI: My pleasure. Thank you for having me.
SIMON: Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem says, and I want to quote this, that she ended TPS for Afghans because, quote, "Afghanistan has had an improved security situation, and its stabilizing economy no longer prevent them from returning to their home country." What is your estimation now of the economic and security situation in Afghanistan?
FERAJI: I'm going to tell you something very interesting. The Department of State just announced that they banned fundings for foods and all those stuff in Afghanistan because the Taliban - they say that a terroristic group want to use it for their interests, for terroristic actions. So at the time that the Department of State says that they're a terroristic group in the power in Afghanistan, I don't know how it can be safe for those people that they are living in the United States and they can go back there and live safely.
SIMON: Well, Mr. Feraji, let me ask you, why would somebody from Afghanistan who fears for their safety back home not have applied for asylum or, for that matter, somebody who's found a better life here not have begun the green card process?
FERAJI: So right now, we have 20,000 of Afghanistanian (ph) people who have got their green cards. But the problem with the others is that most of them, they don't know how to apply, and they don't have money to provide for lawyers to apply for asylum. And this is the big problem for them, in my opinion.
SIMON: There's a travel ban in effect for Afghanistan. And on the NPR podcast Consider This, they tell the story of a single mother who worked as a nurse at a foreign-funded hospital. The Taliban threatened her because of that. She fled to Iran, then got permission to travel to Brazil, made her way overland to the U.S. border with Mexico. And the TPS program allowed her to enter the U.S. and work while she applied for asylum. It's now been more than five years since the Trump administration signed the deal with the Taliban to withdraw U.S. troops. Do you think there are a great number of people who are in the same predicament as that nurse still in Afghanistan?
FERAJI: Oh, yeah. There is a lot of Afghanistanian people. Most of them are in Pakistan because Pakistan is the only place that the United States Embassy is over there. But they don't know what will be next for them, what will happen. And there's cases that they killed themselves because they don't know what will be the next step.
SIMON: They took their own lives in despair?
FERAJI: Yes.
SIMON: Secretary Noem has said - I will quote her once more - that "permitting Afghan nationals to remain temporarily in the United States is contrary to the national interest of the United States." How do you feel about that statement?
FERAJI: Afghanistanian people, they fight against 20 to 27 terroristic groups shoulder-to-shoulder. We have spent our lives together with the United States militaries. I don't know how it came that this is not, like, for the interest of the United States. And a lot of them are those people that they used to work with the United States militaries, with the embassies, with American organizations, and they didn't have any other choice. Collapse just happened.
SIMON: May I ask, Mr. Feraji, do you have friends and family members here who are worried about not being able to stay?
FERAJI: Yes, I have - not families, but I have friends. Because of my background, and I used to work with a TV channel that we had broadcast from here to Afghanistan, I used to talk with three of them the daily (ph), and they was telling me that they don't know what will be next for them. They said that, we don't know if we go back what will happen to us. Maybe they kill us because they all didn't know that we used to live almost for one, two, three years in United States. And they know that.
SIMON: Abdul Feraji is an Afghan investigative journalist now in the United States. Thanks so much for being with us.
FERAJI: You're welcome, sir. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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