GOP Senator Slams Trump On Betrayal

A joint letter from Senators Lisa Murkowski and Jeanne Shaheen urged the Department of Homeland Security to immediately reinstate protections for Afghan immigrants, following the Trump administration’s decision to revoke Temporary Protected Status (TPS) for those who supported U.S. efforts during the war in Afghanistan. The letter, dated May 23 and made public on Friday, was released amid reports that the State Department is shutting down the office responsible for coordinating Afghan resettlement. That closure is part of a broader reorganization aimed at scaling back foreign aid and realigning agency priorities under the Trump administration’s “America First” approach.

Murkowski, a Republican from Alaska, has often broken ranks with her party, especially when it comes to foreign policy and immigration. She has been one of the more vocal GOP critics of President Trump, previously accusing the U.S. under his leadership of abandoning its allies and expressing alarm over his warm posture toward Russian President Vladimir Putin. In private conversations and public comments, she has also acknowledged the hesitance within the Republican Party to oppose Trump, noting that many lawmakers are afraid of political retaliation.

She’s not alone in voicing concern about the administration’s TPS rollback. Some Republican lawmakers from Florida, particularly those representing Miami’s large immigrant communities, have similarly pushed the administration to maintain protections for Venezuelans and Haitians.

Murkowski first criticized the move shortly after it was announced by DHS, calling it especially troubling given the backlog of asylum applications the administration has yet to address. She warned that ending TPS would flood the system with new cases as thousands of former TPS holders scramble to find legal pathways to stay in the U.S.

The elimination of TPS has been a consistent goal for Trump, who has long argued that the program is flawed and has allowed temporary legal status to extend far beyond its intended scope. Courts have been weighing in on the administration’s efforts, and earlier this month the Supreme Court ruled in Trump’s favor, clearing the way to end TPS protections for more than 350,000 Venezuelan nationals.

Murkowski has also been critical of the Biden administration’s handling of the withdrawal from Afghanistan, calling the exit strategy “botched” and warning that it placed many Afghan allies in harm’s way. She believes that ending TPS protections now only deepens the damage, particularly for those who escaped the Taliban’s reach and are trying to rebuild their lives in the U.S.

In a recent post, she wrote that the administration “should not compound that misstep by forcing them to return to the Taliban’s brutal regime,” calling the decision a “historic betrayal.”