The United States government has a checkered history of helping persecuted masses. Through the decades, though, millions of Asians have sought refuge in the U.S.
The Displaced Persons Act of 1948 allowed in over 200,000 persons displaced by Nazi persecution. These refugees often arrived after their families had been slaughtered.
In the 1970s, amid the losing efforts in Vietnam, the United States took in over 1 million Vietnamese refugees. In the 1990s, the U.S. introduced a “lottery” system to encourage a diversity of immigrants, and the Obama administration offered protection from deportation for undocumented immigrants who arrived in the U.S. as children.
When the U.S. engagement in Afghanistan collapsed in 2021, some 200,000 Afghans arrived in the United States. Some had limited or no documentation. The Biden administration favored Afghans and Ukrainians as refugees, even offering them quick entry across the Mexican-U.S. border during its last year in office. Many had obtained Brazilian papers.
Immigration policy in the U.S., which remains incoherent, is now nearly devoid of the altruistic intentions of the past. The Trump administration, capitalizing on growing nationalism and xenophobia in the country, is targeting foreign students and has banned visas for citizens from many nations entirely. In its latest move to ban the entry of citizens from Afghanistan and Myanmar, among others, President Donald Trump wrote that he intended to “protect the United States from foreign terrorists and other national security and public safety threats.” The U.S. government does not maintain an embassy in either Myanmar or Afghanistan, and it has complained that those countries can’t help screen their citizens.
In the words of one former U.S. official, who until recently worked to expedite Afghan asylum requests, the new U.S. blanket ban in the form of last week’s White House proclamation, is “horrifying, but Trump always seems to get away with more than any normal president could.” Like many former U.S. officials, he expressed dismay that his nation has given up on the idea of helping those in dire situations, including the politically persecuted.
Citizens from Afghanistan and Myanmar both inside and outside the United States at present, when interviewed for this story, said they felt betrayed by a nation they contended once stood in their minds for global freedom and democracy.
Citizens from both countries said the Trump administration’s blanket bans, which also include new student visas, are no way to address the troubles in their own countries, particularly in the absence of substantive U.S. support for a political opposition. They said that a lack of U.S. political engagement has served to enhance authoritarian rule supported by China, among others.
Myanmar is in the throes of an intensifying civil war with refugees and displaced persons being rebuffed from borders and possible safe havens in Asia. In May, Chinese leader Xi Jinping met with Myanmar’s junta leader, General Min Aung Hlaing, in Moscow to discuss economic and security issues. The militant opposition in Myanmar insists that sophisticated Chinese drones have become a favorite of the military junta for attacks across the country.
“There are so many Myanmar citizens still stuck in Thailand with no status,” said Tun Lin, 27, a student in Washington, working to raise money for the opposition. “The day when any of us considered the United States a champion of democracy is now over. Revolution takes time and engagement. It is a marathon.”
Tun Lin is one of the lucky ones. He applied for political asylum four years ago and is now situated in the United States with a “green card.” He is able to work as a bartender at the Busboys and Poets bookstore as he pursues his studies.
Afghanistan, by contrast, presents a much different scenario. The war in that nation ended abruptly in 2001 when the Taliban seized power, and the United States fled for the exits in chaotic scenes that rivaled the U.S. departure from Saigon in 1975. Trump and his advisors alleged that former President Joe Biden acted cowardly in the haste of the 2021 withdrawal. Some fleeing Afghans clung to airplanes and dropped hundreds of feet onto the airport tarmac in Kabul. In the aftermath, the Taliban stepped up its harsh rule and rejected repeated international petitions to allow education for girls and young women.
A “special status” for Afghan nationals living in the United States will end in July this year. Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem, in announcing the end, said, “Afghanistan has had an improved security situation, and its stabilizing economy no longer prevent [Afghans] from returning to their home country.” She did not mention the glaring threat of political persecution.
With tens of thousands of Afghans in the U.S. still awaiting approval for green cards, refugee communities are expressing alarm and dismay. Mohammed in Los Angeles, who preferred to use just one name, worked for five years as an interpreter for the U.S. military in one of the most dangerous regions of Afghanistan, but after four years, he still has not been approved for a green card and the possibility of citizenship.
He said he and his family are worried about the prospect of being deported back to his nation, which is now deemed “safe” by U.S. officials. “I’ll be imprisoned for sure, particularly after the public statements I’ve made,” Mohammed said.
“Trump says the ban is to protect American citizens, but you can be sure that it is not in the interest of allies who sacrificed their lives for the U.S. efforts to establish democracy,” he said. “The Taliban now make jokes about people who have fled or want to flee, insisting they are ‘US stooges’ left behind to their own devices.”
Another Afghan, Nadeem in Kabul, recently lost his job as a government newscaster because he would not grow a beard. He has decided to try to make money as a freelancer, but still hopes to get his young family to the United States one day: “I’ll go anywhere at this point, but no one is offering to help.”
Those who escape on their own often die in transit. Turkish police fired on a group of Mohammed’s colleagues who tried to cross the mountains from Iran into Turkiye earlier this year. When they retreated on foot, wounded and bleeding, to Iran the group of nearly 20 people froze to death in the mountains. Their bodies were not recovered for a month, he said.
“As far as I can see, the Taliban will be in power for years to come,” he said. “The U.S. has even refused a visa to Ahmad Wali Massoud, whose father led the earlier resistance to Taliban and Russian rule. He wanted to come to the U.S. to raise money, but there is no interest in supporting an overthrow.”
The Trump administration refers to the Taliban as a “Specially Designated Global Terrorist” group, adding that the government there lacks a competency to issue passports or screen passengers.
In the absence of a comprehensible U.S. immigration policy in recent years, some citizens of Afghanistan and Myanmar, as well as students from other countries, have, in desperation, sought to overstay visas in the U.S. or to arrange phony marriages. In issuing its new bans, the Trump administration said that Afghans overstay business visas at a rate of about 10 percent and student or exchange visas at a rate of 30 percent. Likewise, Myanmar citizens overstay business visas at a rate of 27 percent and 42 percent overstayed visas for students and exchanges. For both countries, student visas are now suspended indefinitely.
Ironically, the White House edict issuing the travel ban said the move was to prevent entry by persons with hostile attitudes toward U.S. “founding principles” – one of which has been the right to asylum.
The tradition of welcoming immigrants began early on after the decimation of the native population. In 1788, a year before he assumed office in New York as the first president, George Washington wrote to a recent U.S. immigrant and political exile, Andrian Van der Kemp, expressing his own wish that “this land might become a safe and agreeable Asylum to the virtuous and persecuted part of mankind, to whatever nation they might belong.”
The “Mother of Exiles” still stands tall in New York Harbor, beckoning the world with her torch and the words: “Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free…” Yet in 2025, under the second administration of President Donald Trump, the lady’s reputation rests in tatters.
