WATCH: Cleared Afghan refugees have U.S. flights cancelled

From PBS NewsHour.

Almost 2,000 Afghans had already been approved to resettle in the U.S. before January 27 — the date President Trump’s executive order suspending all refugee admissions into the country was supposed to take effect.

Now, tens of thousands of Afghans, including family members of active-duty U.S. service members, are in limbo as their booked flights got canceled and travel plans disrupted. And many of them helped the U.S. during the war.

Though the executive action doesn’t apply to Afghans approved for Special Immigrant Visas — people who worked for the U.S. armed forces — it will still impact thousands of others.

“We’re hopeful that he and his administration are ready to come to the table and talk about how we can make a deal to protect these loyal folks that stood by us for 20 years of war,” Shawn VanDiver of AfghanEvac told PBS News’ Laura Barrón-López.

“President Trump signed the deal to close us out of Afghanistan. We’re confident he is ready to see us through. He just has to know the impacts of the orders that he signed,” VanDiver said.

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