A US official told Reuters news agency that flights of 1,660 Afghan refugees, including family members of US military partners, who were scheduled to travel to the United States have been cancelled on Trump's orders.
The group also includes unaccompanied children waiting to be reunited with their families in the United States, as well as Afghans who are at risk of Taliban reprisals for cooperating with the former US-backed government.
The White House and State Department, which oversees US refugee programmes, have not yet responded to requests for comment, Reuters reported.
Shawn VanDiver, a veteran of the Afghan war and a member of an organisation supporting the evacuation of Afghans, told the news agency, "Afghans and advocates are panicking,” said VanDiver. “I’ve had to recharge my phone four times already today because so many are calling me.
“We warned them that this was going to happen, but they did it anyway. We hope they will reconsider,” he said of contacts with Trump’s transition team.
Although Reuters quoted VanDiver as saying that the flight was cancelled, he wrote on his account on social media platform X that the flights had not yet been cancelled.
Reuters wrote that with this decision, the United States has put thousands more Afghans who have received approval to resettle in the United States as refugees, but have not yet been offered flights from Afghanistan or neighbouring countries such as Pakistan.
During his 2024 campaign, Trump repeatedly took a tough stance against immigrants and made it one of his main promises.
Nearly 200,000 Afghans have been transferred to the United States by the administration of former US President Joe Biden after the Taliban takeover.
According to Reuters, Afghans who had been confirmed to be settled in the United States have been removed from the passenger list of flights scheduled to operate until April.
These include nearly 200 family members of Afghan-American military personnel who were born in the United States or Afghans who came to the United States, joined the military, and became US citizens.
