Dozens of California students and parents are stranded in Afghanistan after taking a summer trip to the country.
More than 20 students and 16 parents from the Cajon Valley Union School District in El Cajon, Calif., visited Afghanistan on summer vacation. Now they are among thousands of people who are waiting to leave the country amid the chaotic U.S. withdrawal that has caused political unrest across the nation, according to the Los Angeles Times.
Are they Afghans who had moved to the US? Are they children of US military personnel who were serving in Afghanistan?
The OP’s link is paywalled for me, so I did a quick check on the US Embassy to Afghanistan’s site. I see on this security alert that as of 15 May 2021, Afghanistan was listed as “Level 4 - Do Not Travel”.
Some of the students and family are back in US
Six students who were among a group of El Cajon Valley Union School District students stuck in Afghanistan have made it back safely to the U.S., according to a liaison working with the families.
. . .
The families had traveled separately to Afghanistan for summer vacations to see their grandparents, cousins and other relatives. Most of the families came to the United States on a special immigrant visa after having worked for the U.S. government or U.S. military in Afghanistan, officials said. The visa allows only the person and their spouse and children.
“Just like you and I, they had used the summer to go back to see their relatives," Superintendent David Miyashiro said. “No one felt that were going to be unsafe or unable to return.”
The Hill story doesn’t really make it clear that it wasn’t some sort of organized school excursion.
Serban contacted to Miyashiro last week and told him that multiple families had reached out to him concerned that their students would lose out on classroom instruction due to being in Afghanistan, according to the Times.
Among, I assume, other concerns.
Now that further information has clarified that the Cajon Valley School District had nothing to do with these vacation trips of individual students from the district to visit their families in Afghanistan, the OP might want to request a change of thread title.
I suggest something like “Civilian travelers to Afghanistan on family visits, what the ever living fuck were you thinking?!”
They were recent immigrants from there going home to see family. To a country that was in a relative time of peace, compared to the last 20 years. Months before any of this came about.
If the US govt had trouble foreseeing the current events, why should the civilians have been any more prescient?
Well, the government didn’t want to foresee events or acknowledge what they were being told from within. But your point stands.
Fair point. Assuming they made these plans about six months ago, at the time it might have looked like going to Afghanistan was a good way to get away from political instability.
How much “prescience” does it take to follow a US State Department “Level 4: Do Not Travel” travel advisory?
Monty in post #3 already linked to the US Embassy’s May 15 Level 4 advisory. And here’s the link to the previous Level 4 advisory from April 27, saying right in the first line, “Do not travel to Afghanistan due to COVID-19, crime, terrorism, civil unrest, kidnapping, and armed conflict .”
(And that Level 4 advisory was already in effect as early as mid-March, and probably earlier, but the “Alerts and Messages” archive seems to run out at that point.)
Any US resident who traveled to Afghanistan as recently as “early May and June”, as your cite in post #4 mentions, has absolutely no justification for claiming that they couldn’t have known it would be dangerous or didn’t have official warning not to do so.
No it isn’t. Even if you made travel plans at a time when the travel advisory risk level was low, you should have the sense to check travel advisories near your departure date and be willing to change your plans if the risk is too high.
I figured the second sentence in that post would make it clear I was being facetious.
True, I was not sufficiently appreciative of what was actually a pretty funny quip. 
There’s currently 141 countries on that level 4 alert, Including the Bahamas and the UK.
Yeah, because of the dangers associated with a particular pandemic you might have heard of.
A massive increase in the prevalence of Level 4 travel advisories worldwide doesn’t mean that the State Department is saying “Eh, Level 4 doesn’t really mean anything anymore, don’t worry about it”. It means the State Department is telling you to STAY THE FUCK HOME.
If the kids who traveled to Afghanistan were Afghans by birth or are the children of Afghans, they could probably blend in quite easily, so it might be safer for them than an obvious American visitor.
Americans travel to risky places for dumber reasons (“I already booked the flight!) than visiting family they may never have the chance to see again.
However, they might not be able to get back out again.
ISTM the United States Embassy there disagrees with your assessment. The link I posted was to a travel warning back in May, before the summer vacation would’ve begun.
How safe is it there for Afghans? I’d venture to say no safer than it was the last time those scum the Taliban were in charge of the country.
Yeah. I’m not going to judge people for wanting what could easily be a last chance for their kids to see their grandparents, or have any sort of memory of their family or their home country.