There’s been a spike in detentions of Afghans living in San Diego recently and it’s being condemned by the local chapter of America’s largest Muslim civil rights group, CAIR, which stands for Council on American-Islamic Relations.
In a statement issued Dec. 3, the Executive Director, Tazheen Nizam of San Diego’s CAIR said:
“This past week, our office has seen a spike in calls from Afghan community members suddenly facing new threats to their status and safety. This morning, I accompanied an Afghan evacuee to what ICE claimed was a routine check-in in San Jose; despite full cooperation, he was detained immediately. We’re hearing the same fear from long-time green card holders, already-vetted refugees, and families who have waited years to reunite with loved ones now trapped in limbo.
None of this makes anyone safer. Detaining fully vetted Afghans and shutting down every path forward—here and abroad—does nothing for public safety. It tears families apart and retraumatizes people who placed their trust in this country.
Legally, this kind of sweeping, nationality-based response to the alleged actions of one person raises serious due process and equal protection concerns. We are monitoring these actions closely and are prepared to challenge any discriminatory enforcement targeting Afghan nationals or other communities of color”.
The visa and processing freeze, combined with increased enforcement, means that:
- Families who have waited years to reunite with loved ones now have no timeline for when—or if—they will see them again.
- Green card holders who have lived in the United States legally for years fear sudden disruption to their status or increased scrutiny at ICE check-ins and ports of entry.
- Asylum seekers who fled Taliban persecution face indefinite limbo with no clear path forward.
- Afghans abroad who risked their lives supporting U.S. missions are left stranded, despite explicit promises of protection and resettlement.
- Community members in the Bay Area fear harassment, surveillance, and detention based largely on nationality.
CAIR California (CAIR-CA) and CAIR National have condemned both the Afghan-specific immigration freeze and the broader USCIS order freezing asylum adjudications for all nationalities, and have highlighted the devastating impact on thousands of people from the 19 listed countries whose immigration applications are on hold and whose previously approved benefits are being re-reviewed. CAIR has stressed that immigrants and asylum seekers from these countries already undergo multiple rounds of interviews, biometric checks, and inter-agency security screenings.Community members who experience immigration delays, detentions, harassment, or rights violations are encouraged to contact CAIR-SD for assistance.
CONTACT: CAIR-SD Executive Director Tazheen Nizam, (760) 201-7626, tnizam@cair.com
Here is a great example of the fiction that the Trump Administration is only going after immigrants who are criminals or have entered the country illegally. The truth is abundantly apparent. The Trump Administration ignores legal status, legal process, court orders, and anything else that gets in the way of their assault on immigrants.
We will regret this cruel treatment of immigrants. It calls to memory our history of using immigrants whenever we need them to build our railroads, pick our crops, care for our children and elderly, staff our factories, and do whatever other jobs are dangerous, low-paying, no-benefit, and dead-end. When we feel threatened by changes in culture, bad public policy, political and private greed, we inhale the lies that seed the public dialogue with nonsense about how the immigrants are stealing our jobs and victimizing our citizens. And then we kick throw due process out the window so we can kick the immigrants out of the country.
We are an ungrateful people.