Stranded in Qatar, an Afghan mother, father and their three children dream of the Seattle area.
They dream of a pathway to higher education for their younger daughter, a chance for their youngest son to learn about computers and engineering. They dream of exploring the Pacific Northwest, its lush evergreen forests and watery vistas.
Most of all, they dream of reuniting with their eldest daughter, P, who has made Tacoma her home.
Four years ago, that daughter — who asked to be named only by an initial for fear her military status threatens the safety of relatives still in Afghanistan — fled Kabul with her husband. It was just days before the collapse of the Afghanistan government and the Taliban’s recapture of the capital.
The couple flew to the Seattle area and have since built a quiet but fortunate life here. They joined the military, became naturalized U.S. citizens. In May, they welcomed their first child.
But P remains tormented by the thought of what will become of her family who remain abroad and in peril, she said.
In December, P believed her family's days of living in fear were over. The U.S. had approved the family's applications as refugees, after years of interviews, paperwork, background checks and more.
Her family was set to fly to Sea-Tac International Airport on Jan. 22.
But all was upended when President Donald Trump halted the U.S. refugee resettlement program on his first day in office, Jan. 20, effective immediately. They were among roughly 12,000 refugees who had confirmed travel plans to come to the U.S. at the time.
P’s family remains in Qatar at a U.S. military base, their fate resting on the result of legal challenges against the stalled refugee resettlement program, as well as Trump's travel ban barring citizens of 12 countries from entering the U.S. Those cases could take months, or years, to resolve.
The impact of this on real human lives can't be understated," said Mevlüde Akay Alp, senior staff attorney at the International Refugee Assistance Project, which filed a lawsuit challenging the refugee ban.
People who have gone through years of processing to be resettled as refugees in the U.S. are now stuck in limbo in dire circumstances, she said. "These families … have been abandoned."
P's family, along with scores of other stranded refugees in Qatar, are twisted in knots of terror that they will be forced to return to Afghanistan and face persecution or death.
U.S. officials made a promise to Afghans like her family that they would bring them to safety, P said.
“They have to fulfill their promise,” she said.
"There's no choice"
In 2021, 10 days before the fall of Kabul, P and her husband escaped the country. At the time, her husband had spent years as an interpreter for U.S. forces. Leaving was heartbreaking, she said, but as provinces fell one by one to the Taliban, her family told her it was for the best.
“They were so happy for me that I’m getting out, I’m going to go to the U.S. and make my future,” she said. “I will have a good future.”
At the time, the future of Afghanistan under the Taliban was largely unclear, P said, but she recalled repressive policies of the past. The freedoms enjoyed by women and girls for two decades would likely be stripped away, she said, and the country could see the return of harsh restrictions on education, health care and employment. Would violence and suffering surge? she wondered.
Two months after arriving in the U.S., P and her husband joined the U.S. Army. Her husband had a supervisor back in Afghanistan who encouraged him to keep up his service. P decided to join as well. She had few other job prospects, but also an urge “to do something big.”
When she first fled Afghanistan, P had no plans to help her family also later escape. It would not be possible, she said.
"I will support you guys from here," she told her family. "I know it's difficult, but there's no choice."
But after she finished basic training and had access to her phone again to communicate with her family, she learned the situation in Afghanistan had turned dire.
Under Taliban rule, “there’s no place for women” in Afghanistan, P said. They cannot go to school beyond grade six. They are barred from most jobs. In many parts of the country, women cannot leave home without the accompaniment of a male relative. P’s sister stopped attending Kabul University, where she had been a second-year student studying environmental science.
Worst of all, P said she learned the Taliban was detaining, torturing and, in some cases, killing people affiliated with U.S. forces.
Horrified, P realized she needed to find a way to get her family out immediately. Only her mother knew she was in the Army, and she was terrified of the harm she may have put them in.
In 2022, a few months after she finished basic training, P began working with her mother to help them apply for refugee status, helping them secure Afghan passports and other documentation. The process — a long, arduous vetting — was shrouded in secrecy.
"Don’t tell anyone that you are even applying for passports," she recalled telling her mother, "because they will get curious why they’re applying for passports."
She begged her mother to keep her military status a secret from everyone, even from her siblings and aunts. Not doing so could mean their death, she warned. Already, P was worried about people finding out — some neighbors from her family's village had relatives in the Seattle area, and gossip travels fast.
In December, P received triumphant news: Her family's refugee applications to the U.S. had been approved. After about two years of hoping and waiting, everything began moving with pace.
The U.S. government arranged their flights, as was typical at the time for refugees relocating from Afghanistan, and the family prepared to travel to a military base in Qatar where they would complete their final processing.
"Everything is over"
For her father and mother, abandoning their family home in Afghanistan was agonizing, P said.
"Even the night before, when I called them, my mom and dad, they were so sad that they are leaving their home," she said. "They had been living there for their whole lives."
But her siblings were overjoyed. As P's sister has been banned from attending university, her brothers also complain of a deteriorating education system, she said. Her younger brother is interested in learning about computers, but tells P, "When I go to school, the teachers know nothing. They don’t teach us anything."
So off they went. On Dec. 30, P’s parents locked their home for the last time and handed the keys to relatives. They packed just a suitcase each of clothes, so as not to raise suspicion at the airport, P said, leaving behind everything else — family heirlooms, treasured photos.
In Qatar, the family completed the remaining steps before their journey to reunite with P, including medical exams, cultural orientation classes and interviews with U.S. immigration officials. They received their travel date and flight information — a direct flight to Sea-Tac leaving the morning of Jan. 22.
Here in Tacoma, P prepared to welcome her family with the help of Lutheran Community Services Northwest, a resettlement agency assigned to assist their case. Another unit in her apartment complex opened up, and a few days before their expected arrival, she signed a lease.
The day before their arrival, she cleaned the new unit, ready to see her family in person for the first time in years.
Her sister in Qatar, giddy with excitement, sent a flurry of chirpy messages and selfies in the late-night hours of Jan. 21.
“OK, we’re leaving the room!” one message read, accompanied by a photo of the family packing up.
“We’re going to the airport now!” as the family stood in the lobby of their building.
As they stood waiting for the bus to take them to the airport, P’s family's bubbly anticipation shattered with the arrival of devastating news: Their travel plans had been canceled, a representative from the United Nation’s International Organization for Migration told them. Trump had issued an executive order halting the refugee program.
P had just finished cleaning the apartment that night. “Everything is over,” she recalled thinking.
She began uncontrollably sobbing.
“Don’t cry, it’s not good for you,” her husband said. She was pregnant with her son.
“I cannot control myself,” she wailed.
"Now, I don't know"
P recalled watching Trump speak on Inauguration Day, the words he said. She knew refugees like her family would be targeted, she said. “But I didn’t know it’s going to happen so soon.”
Her family, like P, feels helpless and unmoored. P fears what may happen if they are forced to return to Afghanistan. Absent for months, their neighbors and relatives now know they clearly left to escape the country, she said.
“I don’t want to go back,” P’s sister told her one night. “They will kill me.”
They remain at the military base in Qatar, surrounded by scores of other refugee families also waiting, also in limbo.
Meanwhile, an ongoing lawsuit plays out in the U.S. that could determine their future. A final decision could be years away.
A Seattle federal judge in May ruled as part of a preliminary injunction compliance order the U.S. government should at minimum admit the 160 refugees who had travel plans to enter the country within two weeks of Jan. 20. A case manager from Lutheran told P after the ruling that her family would be on the way, likely before September.
But three weeks later, Trump issued a ban on travelers from a dozen countries, reviving a similar measure from his first term targeting Muslim-majority countries. Among the countries on the list is Afghanistan — meaning P’s family is still blocked from entering the U.S.
The federal judge ordered in July refugees should be precluded from the travel ban. But after a motion by the U.S. government, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals issued a stay blocking the judge's preliminary injunctions pertaining to refugees as the case moves forward.
Adding to the anguish of stranded refugees are reports the Trump administration plans to cut refugee admissions for the upcoming year to 7,500 slots, a record low that slashes the previous 125,000 cap issued by the Biden administration.
"The refugee program is a bipartisan program that's enjoyed strong support for decades," said Akay Alp, the International Refugee Assistance Program attorney. The Trump administration's proposal threatens to rob individuals who were in the pipeline of the promise of resettlement, she added, "and isn't in keeping with this country's tradition (of) offering refugees a beacon of hope."
P had been so hopeful her family would finally be safe, she said. "Now, I don't know.
At the military base in Qatar, rumors swirl every day. The heat outside is unbearable, P said, so her family largely stays inside.
To pass the time, her siblings help around the base offering to translate materials for staff members. Her mother, so excited to care for P and her husband’s son while they were out working, asks to see photos of her grandson every day.
Her younger brother, 14, watches YouTube videos, learning random tidbits about Washington state. By now it’s clear he knows even more about Seattle than she does, she said.
“Last time I called him, he was like, ‘What is a water taxi?’” P said. “I never heard about water taxi, so I was like, ‘I don’t know that.’”
Her sister hopes to return to school, maybe even attend the University of Washington, P said.
“When I call them, they are always talking about what they’re going to do once they come here,” P said. “They have a lot of dreams. That makes me sad every time I hear it.”
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