Shawn VanDiver Criticizes Suspension of Afghans’ Travel to the US

Shawn VanDiver, founder of AfghanEvac and VP of External Affairs at Athenian Group, has criticized the suspension of Afghan evacuations to the US, calling it a mistake by Donald Trump’s administration.

In an interview with Sky News, VanDiver said that over 10,000 vetted Afghans, including children, are ready to travel to the US.

 “We have been in Islamabad for three years, waiting for US visas. We are facing severe financial and security problems here,” an Afghan refugee in Pakistan, Sepozhmai, told .

Meanwhile, Pakistan’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs announced that based on an agreement between Washington and Islamabad, all Afghan refugees in Pakistan with US immigration cases will be relocated to the US by September 2025.

 The ministry’s spokesperson confirmed that the agreement remains in effect.

Ehsanullah Ahmadzai, an advocate for refugee rights, emphasized the need for a strategy between Afghanistan, Pakistan, and the international community to address the challenges faced by Afghan refugees in Pakistan.

On another front, Interior Minister Nancy Faeser stated that Germany is actively working to deport more criminals to Afghanistan.

According to a Reuters report, Faeser mentioned that Germany is the only European country that has deported criminals to Afghanistan since the Islamic Emirate took power in 2021.

“I would like to make it very clear that we are working hard to deport further criminals to Afghanistan,” Faeser told Reuters.

 “As an Afghan living in Germany, I hope we can prevent such incidents in the future and utilize the educational and employment opportunities that Germany has provided for our intellectual growth,” Murtaza Akbar, an Afghan migrant in Germany, told .

This comes after a recent knife attack by an Afghan citizen at a kindergarten in Bavaria, Germany, which resulted in the deaths of a two-year-old child and a 41-year-old man.