“What we are seeing this week was avoidable,” Jenna Gilbert, director of refugee representation at Human Rights First, said. “We could have had a more robust evacuation process. This could have been done differently and in a coordinated manner.”

Nemat Sadat, a former political science professor at the American University of Afghanistan, said the withdrawal is “one of the biggest mistakes in U.S. foreign policy history.” Sadat, who now lives in the U.S., was removed from his faculty position in Kabul and received death threats due to his outspoken advocacy on LGBTQ rights.

“I understand nobody likes war, everyone is tired of war,” he said, adding it feels like the United States is abandoning the people of Afghanistan. “Whatever progress has been made in 10 years, it will be totally gone,” he said of the small amount of progress that has been made by sexual and gender minorities.