When Madina and her sister left Afghanistan in 2021 to escape the rise of the Taliban, they did so under perilous conditions. Madina’s full name is being withheld because of safety concerns.
“My father used to work with the American soldiers. It was very difficult leaving the country because you're putting yourself in danger. Once they know that you're departing, or, for example, you're going to the U.S., they kind of mark you in some sort of list. If you return back, they can assassinate you,” she said through a translator.
Now safely and legally in Connecticut, the sisters are working to adapt to their new lives.
So is Nina Opansenko from Ukraine.
Opansenko and her two children left Sumy, a city in eastern Ukraine, under heavy missile bombardment in the first days of the ongoing war. She has since been working to rebuild her jewelry business in the United States while being separated from her husband, who is still in Ukraine.
“I didn't think I’d [go] anywhere. I spent my whole life in Ukraine, and I had a really good life. I had everything: friends, opportunities, a good job, kids,” Opansenko said. “I have really good life here, which I really appreciate every moment of. But unfortunately, it was unexpected for me.”
Refugee status is a legal way to immigrate to the United States, but recent mass deportations, travel bans, and visa program cancellations have left many fearing for their status. Afghan and Ukrainian nationals have mainly entered the country through humanitarian parole, a temporary immigration status that covers individuals facing urgent humanitarian crises, but that has not lessened the fear.
Maryam, who likewise asked that her last name be withheld for safety concerns, is 20 years old and also from Afghanistan. She arrived in the United States in late 2024 with her family, after Taliban laws prevented her from attending medical school and her sisters from graduating high school.
To fund their education, Maryam and one of her sisters were selling paintings and homemade candles at a recent craft fair in New Haven sponsored by a refugee assistance organization. She said ever-changing American immigration policies are scary for those who are escaping violence in their homelands.
“It is such a common thing for all refugees, not just from Afghanistan, people from every country that are refugees here. They are afraid of new conditions here,” Maryam said.
Fear is the ever-present emotion in refugee communities since the start of the Trump administration, advocates say. More and more at-risk individuals are turning to support in the community to help.
Local organizations and community groups have been instrumental in helping those with refugee and other protected statuses restart their lives in Connecticut. The recent immigration crackdowns have strained resources, but they have also fired up volunteers wanting to help.
St. James Episcopal Church in West Hartford has been helping immigrant communities since it first sponsored Laotian refugees in the 1970s. The congregation has since assisted a Syrian family to resettle locally and are currently providing meals to undocumented individuals in the Hartford area.
Rev. Bob Hooper says recent federal immigration policies have only inspired his parishioners to become more involved.
“We've always had this kind of fire, the desire and the recognition of our need as privileged people to help those who are less privileged. Then to see the abusiveness of the system has really rallied people up around here,” Hooper said. “Maybe I can't stop a deportation, maybe I can't get somebody the documents they need - although we've been able to help with that too - but we can feed you.”
Among the biggest blows to U.S. refugee service organizations was the Trump administration’s closing of the Welcome Corps, a federal program that provided support to refugees entering the United States. Dismantled by the new administration on February 26, Welcome Corps previously allowed Americans to directly sponsor refugees.
Advocates say its shuttering has had real consequences, as fewer refugees are now able to obtain visas or the necessary funds to enter the United States.
Carrie Berman is a volunteer with SAWA, a West Hartford-based organization that works with refugees new to Connecticut. She says the closure of Welcome Corps has prevented a family of Syrian refugees from entering the United States despite having approved paperwork.
“I was working with a family who had applied 10 months ago, and they had already had their application go through. They've been approved,” said Berman. “And so now this family of eight, they're stuck in Jordan, and they have health problems.”
Berman and her organization, which is comprised entirely of volunteers, work closely with IRIS, a New Haven-based nonprofit that provides case management and legal services for individuals with refugee and other special status.
IRIS has faced significant budget cuts in recent months after federal funding was altered or stopped under the Trump administration. It has closed its New Haven office and is struggling to fully provide for its clients.
Maggie Mitchell Salem is the executive director of IRIS and an advocate for immigrants and refugees. Like Berman, she has also worked with those seeking safety in the United States who have seen their entry denied shortly before arrival or who have not been able to obtain the necessary status to stay in the United States long-term. Salem said that individuals such as Madina and Maryam are under particular threat.
“I worry for Afghan humanitarian parolees. Many of them are Afghan allies, or they worked for the Afghan national government, and their travel was expedited in August 2021,” she said. “Some people who came here in those early months came here as humanitarian parolees and have been waiting to adjust their status to a more permanent pathway.”
She said some need time to prove that they have the qualifications, experience working with the U.S. government and U.S. forces to earn a special immigrant visa or to be a refugee.
“Many of them have not had that status change happen,” she said.
The uncertainty has left many individuals unable to secure visas for vulnerable family members, or even fearing deportation themselves.
Madina, whose father worked for American forces in Afghanistan, fears not only for her own status but that of her family back home. With the recent travel bans imposed by the Trump administration, the rest of her family remains in the Middle East and is unable to join her. Her father has been unable to get a visa.
“My family basically is in pieces now. My mom and my two brothers are still back in Afghanistan. My father is in Qatar, waiting to come here, and there is no word yet. I'm fearful for both being here and for the family back home that is scattered,” Madina said.
“It's putting us in a place where it's really fearful, because I don't know what is going to happen to us. I don't know what will happen to my mom and two brothers back home, as well as my father.”
Avery Martin is a journalism student at Southern Connecticut State University. This story is republished via CT Community News, a service of the Student Journalism Collaborative, an organization sponsored by journalism departments at college and university campuses across the state.
