Dear President Trump,

We respectfully ask for your immediate intervention to stop the risk of ethnic cleansing and civilian displacement as a consequence of Syrian President Ahmed Al Sharaa’s troops operating in northeast Syria.

Genocide survivors- the Yazidis and their Kurdish, Christian and secular Arab neighbors- had briefly found haven in the Kurdish area of Syria after surviving the 2014 ISIS genocide recognized by the U.S. Congress and parliaments worldwide.

Just as these survivors are rebuilding their fragile lives in the new Syria you have so courageously nurtured, these religious minorities face now a new threat as hardened ISIS extremists are being released from prisons and the notorious Al Hol camp is now at risk of breach.

The United States, in working to build the future in Syria, must ensure that future doesn’t deliver what Assad started with the Syrian Civil War and what ISIS almost achieved in Syria and Iraq at the end of the Obama presidency- the displacement, disappearance and erasure by genocide of the vulnerable Yazidis and all minorities.

The United States is the final hope for Syria’s Kurdish, Christian and Yazidi minorities. Scores of Yazidi people have already fled Aleppo over the last ten days. We are alarmed by reports of massacres, abduction of women and other crimes.

Residents fleeing Al-Hasakah have contacted us in terror concerned that thousands of ISIS fighters are now at large. Many Syrian minorities -Kurds, secular Arabs, Yazidi and Christians - are now feeling unsafe in their homes. 

Uncontained ISIS extremists risk Syria experiencing a new wave of terrorism. It was an ISIS cell leader who was reportedly responsible for the Mar Elias Church suicide bombing in Damascus killing 25 in June 2025- that person was tied to the very Al Hol camp which may now be emptied. Such attacks on Syria’s minorities are now poised to increase further. 

We are grateful for and salute your deep personal commitment to defending religious freedom for people of all faiths across the world and in our country. The Unted States must defend the religious freedom of Syria’s most vulnerable and hold Syrian leaders and their regional allies accountable for violations. Your envoys must be unwavering in their commitment to these values.

Mr. President, you crushed ISIS in 2017 with the enormous sacrifice of the Kurdish people. Today, these noble peoples turn to you to thwart ISIS once again and avert the decimation of their communities. They aim simply to be equal citizens in a new Syria, if they survive. 

Respectfully,

Qanta A. A. Ahmed MD FCCP FAASM

Senior Fellow, Independent Women’s Forum; Life Member, Council on Foreign Relations; Associate Professor of Medicine (Clinical); NYU Langone Health.

Signatories

Rabbi Abraham Cooper, Simon Wiesenthal Center, Former Chair; US Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF) 

Professor Jan Kizilihan PhD; Director, Institute of Mental Health Science, Germany and Iraq

Reverend Johnnie Moore, PhD; Former Commissioner, U.S. Commission for International Religious Freedom

House of Yazidi in Aleppo, Syria

House of Yazidi in Amude, Syria

House of Yazidi in Afrin, Syrian

⁠House of Yazidi in Tirbespiye, Syria

House of Yazidi in Hezek, Syria

House of Yazidi Region of Cizir, Syria

Ezdina Organization, Syria

Yazidi Association Sere Kanye, Syria

Yazidi Unity Cerahe, Syria

Union of Yazidi Women, Syria