‘They will characterize us as spies’: Afghan students abandoned by America

When she is difficult to focus on, Nilab marks her concerns on paper slips and nails them on her wall, a strategy she received in a mental health seminar at the American University of Afghanistan in Kabul.

Makes a mental note to address the issues in scheduled time and then returns to the study. This kept it reasonable when the US -backed Afghan government overturned in 2021, when the Taliban became illegal for women to receive education and when it left 2023 to study at the University campus in Qatar.

Now, in the Nilab room in Doha’s Dorm, the small notes are stacked. The interruption of the Trump government from external assistance and imports of refugees has left the terrorized that he will be forced to return to Afghanistan.

There, he would be alone and deprived of any rights as a woman. Her hard -winned training would be so useless.

Imagine the worst. “How can girls come back to Afghanistan?” Nilab, 30, said, who asked only her name to be used to protect her identity. “What will happen to us? Rape, forced marriage and death.”

On January 20, as well as Nilab planned her final work for her cyberspace, President Trump signed an executive mandate by suspending the re -establishment of refugees. The US government had promised the refugee regime for her and her classmates, but Nilab’s hopes will return to her family, who received asylum in the United States after Taliban took over.

A month later, its university lost most of its funding when Mr Trump dismantled US foreign aid programs to reorganize spending in accordance with the objectives of its foreign policy. Funding was partially restored on March 16, the University administration said, but only to operate in June. If the university is closed, students will lose their housing, cafeteria meals and Qatari students’ visas.

A third Thunderbolt came on March 15, because Mr Trump is thinking of putting Afghanistan in a list of countries whose citizens will be banned from entering the United States. Nilab does not know when she will see her family again, much less reinstated with them.

As she and other students of Afghanistan find their lives thrown into chaos, they are caught among the infinite opportunities promised by a university education and an overwhelming sense that there are no doors to open.

“I thought this long journey was over,” he said. “I was wrong.”

By approaching the means, Nilab has some time for her concerns. It has a presentation in arrays and algorithms that are shortly due.

So she writes her fears and nails them in her card.

Part of America

The American University of Afghanistan was founded in 2006 as a Coed College of Liberal Arts, with instructions in English. It was designed to train the next generation of leaders and pioneers of Afghanistan, inspired by the western ideals of justice, freedom and democracy. The students invited their campus “Little America”.

The US government has invested more than $ 100 million at the university and until last month, funding from the United States International Development Service or USAID, more than half of its operating expenses.

(The Agency has also provided scholarships for more than 100 Afghan women – including Nilab’s sister – to study at universities in Oman and Qatar, including the American University, and these students face similar budget freezing.)

When the US military hastily retired from the country in August 2021 and the Taliban returned to power, the American university was an obvious goal. The fighters rushed through its buildings, the graffiti that excluded students as the “seizure of infidel” trained US “and” wolves on the skin of sheep “.

Managers worked to get more than 1,000 students from the country as quickly as possible. Nearly 700 were evacuated to sister universities in Iraq, Kazakhstan and the United States.

The Qatari government agreed to host a temporary campus in mining. One hundred students arrived for the term that began in August 2022 and another 100 – Nilab’s team – landed a year later.

Most of the students finally left for the United States with the so -called priorities 1 visas. When Mr Trump took over in January, the remaining 35 waited for the final interviews and medical examinations before departure. Some already had airplane tickets.

They are now wandering in the almost empty campus halls in an impressive dizziness, without knowing what will happen next.

“We thought that all our wounds were finally coming to the end, so we could start breathing again,” said Waheeda Babakarkhail, a 23 -year -old programmer who dreams of working as a white hacker, tasting computer skills programs.

“I had accepted that I couldn’t stay in Afghanistan,” he said, “but now even the future I thought I would have been lost.”

The ambitions have been derailed throughout the campus. Abbas Ahmadzai, 24, a great businessman, had a job in New York. Faisel Popalzai, 23, hoped to get a job at Microsoft. A computer program was developed that can determine the potential fraudulent financial transactions. The application, called Hawks.ai, won Microsoft Hackathon last year in Doha.

She said it made no sense for the United States to knock on its doors closed.

“Trump complains that the Americans left valuable military equipment behind when they left Afghanistan,” Mr Popalzai said. “Well, he is going to leave another valuable investment behind: our minds, paid by the American people.”

Sense

If the university is forced to close in June, students face a worrying perspective.

They will lose their student visas and their right to stay in Qatar in a few weeks. If they cannot find a Qatari employer to support them or receive a work or scholarship offer in another country, they will have to return to Afghanistan.

They know strongly that “the way we trained is contrary to what the Taliban represents,” said Hashmatullah Rahimi, a 24 -year -old businessman. “We were taught to speak freely, to be independent. He does not want this person who does not want a person in the Taliban government.”

University administrators say there was no substantiated prosecution of his graduates by the Taliban acquisition. But students are afraid that they will be regarded as a threat.

“If we come back,” Mr Popalzai said, “they will be described as spies, sent to infect the Afghans against the Taliban with our American ideology.”

For students, the dangers are obvious. The Taliban has banned education for women and girls after sixth grade and prevented women from most forms of employment. They cannot travel without a male relative, they are required to cover their faces outside the house and their voices should not be heard publicly.

“Maybe we won’t be killed if we come back,” said Rawina Amiri, 24, a great businessman who dreams of becoming a professional volleyball player.

“Does that mean we have to accept to violate our rights?” added. “We have the right to learn, to contribute, to work.

Nilab remains vacuum in the US visa process. On Tuesday, a group of US appeals decided that Trump’s administration should admit thousands of people who have a refugee regime before January 20, which could include several university students. But the decision is preliminary and could be reversed.

What really threw Nilab for a loop is the possibility of being included in Afghans in a travel ban.

She has not seen her parents and her younger siblings since they moved to northern Virginia. She was given asylum because her parents had worked for the US government in Afghanistan. But because he was an adult, he was not eligible to participate.

Nilab tries to keep hope, based on the treatment skills he received as a freshman four years ago. She applies to scholarships to Europe, even when she studies her exams.

“The Koran says that when one door is closed, another opens,” he said. “But if you don’t hit, the doors will not open.”