When she finds it difficult to focus, Nirab writes down her worries about paper slips and is a strategy she picked up at a mental health seminar at the University of American Afghanistan in Kabul.
She makes mental notes to deal with the issues at scheduled times and then returns to her studies. It kept her sanity. When the US-backed Afghan government collapsed in 2021, the Taliban made it illegal for women to receive an education and left in July 2023 to study at a university exile campus in Qatar.
Now, in the dorm room at Nirabu in Doha, small notes are stacked. The Trump administration's closure of foreign aid and refugee hospitalizations left her fearful that she would be forced to return to Afghanistan.
There, she was alone and deprived of her rights as a woman. Her hard-earned American-style education would be almost worthless.
She imagines the worst. “How can a girl return to Afghanistan?” said Nirab, 30, who asked her to be used to protect her name alone. “What will we do? Rape, forced marriage and death.”
On January 20th, President Trump signed an executive order to halt refugees resettlement, just as Nirabu had planned her final project for her cybersecurity degree. The US government had promised her and her classmates refugee status, but Nirab's hopes to rejoin her family, who have been exiled in the US after the Taliban took over, have been shattered.
A month later, her university lost most of its funds as Trump dismantled the American foreign aid program and relocated spending in line with the administration's foreign policy goals. According to the university's administration, funds recovered partially on March 16th, but are sufficient to operate until June. If the university is closed, students will lose their housing, cafeteria meal plans and Qatar student visas.
The third Thunderbolt came on March 15th. It was said that Trump was considering placing Afghanistan on a list of countries that would be banned from entering the United States. Nirab doesn't know when he will see his family again.
When she and other Afghan students realize that their lives are in chaos, they are caught up in between the infinite possibilities promised by university education and the overwhelming sense that there is no door left to open.
“I thought this long journey was over,” she said. “I was wrong.”
With the midterm approaching, Nirab has little time for her concerns. She will immediately give a presentation on the array and algorithms.
So she writes down her fears and pins them to her message board.
Part of America
The University of Afghanistan in the United States was founded in 2006 as a coeducational liberal arts college with English instruction. It was designed to educate the next generation of Afghan leaders and innovators who have been ingrained in Western ideals of justice, freedom and democracy. Students called the campus “Little America.”
The US government has invested more than $100 million in universities, and until last month funding from the US Agency for International Development (USAID) covers more than half of its operating expenses.
(The institution also offers scholarships to more than 100 Afghan women, including Nirabu's sister, to study at universities in Oman and Qatar, as well as American universities, whose students face similar budget freezes.)
When the US troops rushed out of the country in August 2021 and the Taliban returned to power, American universities were obvious targets. The militants ran through the building and scribbled the students down as “American-trained Pagan spies” and “wolves in sheep skin.”
Administrators worked to bring over 1,000 students out of the country as soon as possible. Nearly 700 evacuated to sister universities in Iraq, Kazakhstan and the United States.
The Qatar government has agreed to hold a campus that exists on the temporary campus. From August 2022, 100 students arrived, and another 100 (the Nirabu group) arrived a year later.
Most students eventually left for the US on a so-called priority 1 visa. When Trump took office in January, the remaining 35 people were waiting for a final interview and a medical checkup before departure. Some already had plane tickets.
They are now in a blank hall near the temporary campus, stunned and daze, not knowing what will happen next.
“We thought all the trauma was finally coming to an end, so we were able to start breathing again,” says Wahieda Baba Kalkhail, 23, a programmer who dreams of working as a white hat hacker, testing a computer program with a defective security program.
“I was accepting that I couldn't stay in Afghanistan,” she said.
Aspirations have gone off track throughout campus. Business major Abbas Ahmajay, 24, worked in event management in New York. Faisel Popalzai, 23, wanted to get a job at Microsoft. He developed an AI-assisted computer program that could identify potentially fraudulent financial transactions. The app called Hawks.ai won the Microsoft Hackathon last year at Doha.
He said it would make no sense for the US to close the door.
“Trump complains that he left valuable military equipment behind when Americans left Afghanistan,” Popolzai said. “Well, he's trying to leave behind another valuable investment. Our hearts have been paid by the American people.”
A sense of fear
If the university is forced to close in June, students will face an astonishing outlook.
They will lose their student visa and their right to stay in Qatar within a few weeks. If they are unable to find an employer in Qatar to sponsor them, or if they are unable to obtain jobs or scholarship offers in other countries, they must return to Afghanistan.
They are enthusiastically aware that “the way we are educated is at odds with everything the Taliban represents.” “We were taught to speak freely and become independent. One person in the Taliban government doesn't want that.”
University administrators say there have been no documented persecution of graduates since the Taliban acquisition. However, students fear they will be seen as a threat.
“When we return,” Popalzai said, “They labeled us as spies and were sent to infect Afghans against the Taliban with American ideology.”
For female students, the risks are clear. The Taliban banned the education of women and girls after sixth grade, banning women from most forms of employment. They cannot travel without male relatives. They need to cover their faces outside the house, and their voices should not be heard publicly.
“I might not be killed when I get back,” said Rawina Amiri, 24, a business major who dreams of becoming a professional volleyball player.
“Does that mean we should accept that we infringe our rights?” she added. “Do you expect Americans to waive those rights because Americans have promised us visas and then changed their minds?”
Nilab maintains its frontier in the US visa process. On Tuesday, a panel in the U.S. Court of Appeals ruled that the Trump administration must recognize thousands of people refugee status before January 20th. However, the verdict is preliminary and can be reversed.
What really threw the Nirab for the loop is the possibility that Afghans will be included in the travel ban.
She hasn't seen her parents or younger siblings since moving to northern Virginia. They were granted asylum as her parents worked for the US government in Afghanistan. However, she was an adult and she was not entitled to join them.
Nirabu tries to endure hope by relying on coping skills he picked up as a freshman four years ago. She is studying for her exams, but still applies for a scholarship in Europe.
“The Quran says when one door is closed, another door opens,” she said. “But if you don't knock, the door won't open.”
