Afghan Americans going back to Afghanistan?
Hello, I'm a U.S. American teacher with no ties to Afghanistan, but I teach in a high refugee area, and a lot of my students are from Afghanistan. One of my students has been absent all week, and our Pashto translator reached out to me to let me know that the student's family had decided to travel back to Afghanistan to visit family. My face probably looked a bit stunned, and the translator agreed with me, saying they urged the family not to go back and that, especially with this administration, they probably won't get back into the U.S. Of course, they went anyway.
My question is... is this a somewhat common thing? Even before this administration, I wouldn't imagine Afghans who received refugee status in the U.S. would travel back, for any reason. I worry for my student, and especially his younger sister, now being back in Afghanistan. I've had other refugee students that traveled back to their home countries that raised my eyebrows (Kurdistan, Sudan, Rwanda, etc.), and this may be ignorant, but given everything I understand, traveling back to Afghanistan (with young children) during current circumstances just seems unbelievably dangerous. Am I wrong in thinking this?