Bay Area Afghan community pushes back against immigration pause
By Da Lin
Members of the Bay Area’s Afghan community said they strongly disagree with President Trump’s decision to indefinitely pause immigration from Afghanistan. The policy follows Wednesday’s shooting of two National Guard members in Washington, D.C., which left one dead and another injured. Investigators said the suspect is Afghan.
In Fremont’s Little Kabul, home to one of the largest Afghan-American communities in the country, reactions ranged from frustration to fear.
On Sunday, many Afghan-Americans stopped by the popular Maiwand Market to buy traditional Afghan bread, known as naan. While shoppers were friendly and quick to offer a piece of bread, most declined to speak publicly. Off camera, many said they were upset about the indefinite halt on immigration from Afghanistan.
Milpitas resident Ahmadtawhid Sultani, however, didn’t hesitate to share his thoughts.
“I just feel really bad and disappointed about this,” he said.
Sultani moved to the Bay Area from Afghanistan with his family five years ago. He emphasized that the shooting in Washington was the act of one individual and should not be used to judge an entire community.
“Just because one Afghan did something bad doesn’t mean all the Afghans should be punished,” he said. “Just because one Afghan is bad doesn’t mean all the Afghans are bad. There are other people that are good. What that guy did was wrong. But it doesn’t mean we should be punished for it, because we didn’t do anything.”
The federal government has paused all asylum decisions and stopped issuing visas to people from Afghanistan. Mr.Trump has also said his administration will review the status of Afghan asylum seekers already living in the United States.
That announcement has heightened anxiety among many Afghan-Americans.
“To send them back, to deport them, would be, you know, a death sentence since they supported our armed service members against the Taliban,” said Harris Mojadedi, an Afghan community activist in the East Bay. “And so there is a lot of fear in the community.”
Mojadedi said the new policy feels deeply unfair.
“What the Afghan-American community is experiencing is collective punishment, and it is discriminatory,” he said. “It is xenophobic [and] racist.”
Sultani said he is now afraid to leave the United States, even to visit family still living in Afghanistan.
“I don’t feel comfortable right now, given the policy, because I might get stuck in there,” he said.
Not everyone in the community opposes the immigration pause. One Afghan-American man, who asked not to be named because he feared backlash from friends, said he supports the president’s decision. He said he arrived in the United States as a refugee in 1981, voted for Mr. Trump last year, and believes the immigration pause will make the country safer by keeping asylum seekers out.
