Roofing Contractor in Irmo, SC

A refugee family in Irmo, South Carolina fears a new U.S. travel ban will prevent their niece from escaping Taliban rule and reuniting with them.

IRMO, S.C. — Mohammad Sharafoddin, his wife and young son walked at times for 36 hours in a row over mountain passes as they left Afghanistan as refugees to end up less than a decade later talking about their journey on a plush love seat in the family's three-bedroom suburban American home.

He and his wife dreamed of bringing her niece to the United States to share in that bounty. Maybe she could study to become a doctor and then decide her own path.

But that door slams shut on Monday as America puts in place a travel ban for people from Afghanistan and a dozen other countries.

“It’s kind of shock for us when we hear about Afghanistan, especially right now for ladies who are affected more than others with the new government,” Mohammad Sharafoddin said, referring to the country's Taliban rulers. “We didn't think about this travel ban.”

Since the Taliban took control of Afghanistan in August 2021, as the Western forces were in the final phase of their withdrawal from the country, they have barred education for women and girls beyond sixth grade, most employment and many public spaces. Last August, the Taliban introduced laws that ban women’s voices and bare faces outside the home.

President Donald Trump signed the travel ban on Wednesday. It is similar to one in place during his first administration but covers more countries. Along with Afghanistan, travel to the U.S. is banned from Myanmar, Chad, the Republic of Congo, Equatorial Guinea, Eritrea, Haiti, Iran, Libya, Somalia, Sudan and Yemen.

Trump said visitors who overstay visas, like the man charged in an attack that injured dozens of demonstrators in Boulder, Colorado, earlier this month, are a danger to the country. The suspect in the attack is from Egypt, which isn't included in the ban.

The countries chosen for the ban have deficient screening of their citizens, often refuse to take them back and have a high percentage of people who stay in the U.S. after their visas expire, Trump said.

The ban makes exceptions for people from Afghanistan on Special Immigrant Visas who generally worked most closely with the U.S. government during the two-decade war there.

Thousands of refugees came from Afghanistan

Afghanistan was also one of the largest sources of resettled refugees, with about 14,000 arrivals in a 12-month period through September 2024. Trump suspended refugee resettlement on his first day in office.

It is a path Sharafoddin took with his wife and son out of Afghanistan, walking on those mountain roads in the dark, then through Pakistan, Iran and into Turkey. He worked in a factory for years in Turkey, listening to YouTube videos on headphones to learn English before he was resettled in Irmo, South Carolina, a suburb of Columbia.

His son is now 11, and he and his wife had a daughter in the U.S. who is now 3. There is a job at a jewelry maker that allows him to afford a two-story, three-bedroom house. Food was laid out on two tables on Saturday for a celebration of the Muslim Eid al-Adha holiday.

Sharafoddin's wife, Nuriya, said she is learning English and driving — two things she couldn't do in Afghanistan under Taliban rule.

“I’m very happy to be here now, because my son is very good at school and my daughter also. I think after 18 years they are going to work, and my daughter is going to be able to go to college,” she said.

The family wants to help a niece

It is a life she wanted for her niece too. The couple show videos from their cellphones of her drawing and painting. When the Taliban returned to power in 2021, their niece could no longer study. So they started to plan to get her to the U.S. at least to further her education.

Nuriya Sharafoddin doesn't know if her niece has heard the news from America yet. She hasn't had the heart to call and tell her.

“I’m not ready to call her. This is not good news. This is very sad news because she is worried and wants to come,” Nuriya Sharafoddin said.

While the couple spoke, Jim Ray came by. He has helped a number of refugee families settle in Columbia and helped the Sharafoddins navigate questions in their second language.

Ray said Afghans in Columbia know the return of the Taliban changed how the U.S. deals with their native country.

But while the ban allows spouses, children or parents to travel to America, other family members aren't included. Many Afghans know their extended families are starving or suffering, and suddenly a path to help is closed, Ray said.

“We’ll have to wait and see how the travel ban and the specifics of it actually play out,” Ray said. “This kind of thing that they’re experiencing where family cannot be reunited is actually where it hurts the most.”

The Taliban criticize the travel ban

The Taliban have criticized Trump for the ban, with their top leader Hibatullah Akhundzada saying the U.S. was now the oppressor of the world.

“Citizens from 12 countries are barred from entering their land — and Afghans are not allowed either,” he said on a recording shared on social media. “Why? Because they claim the Afghan government has no control over its people and that people are leaving the country. So, oppressor! Is this what you call friendship with humanity?”

Irmo’s new skate park hasn’t been open long, but it’s already getting attention.

Tucked away in the Friarsgate neighborhood inside Rawls Creek Park, it hosted the Boardr series, a national, all-ages skateboarding contest, on March 28-29. The event drew hundreds to the park to watch talented skateboarders show off their skills, said Marie Ryan, a volunteer on the committee that worked to get the skate park built.

“There were 71 contestants there from 20 states, from Texas to Maine,” Ryan said.

The activity on the 8,500-square-foot skating area is vindication for Ryan and others who organized and pushed for years to get the skating amenity added to the park.

She estimates that anywhere from 50 to 100 people use the park daily, just based on how many people she sees during her frequent visits.

On a recent Friday afternoon, a half-dozen elementary school-aged skateboarding students in matching blue helmets were riding around the park’s concrete bowl learning tricks from Joshua Robinson, who teaches skateboarding for the after-school program at Universal Outreach Church.

“For summer camp, I bring them out here every morning,” Robinson said. “This will be the first summer we can skate in this park.”

Previously, Robinson’s class had to travel around to other skating venues in the area, or just learn the basics on a ramp set up in the church’s parking lot. Having the skate park here, a 10-minute walk from the church, will make the program much more convenient for the kids.

“Way before the park was open, the town wasn’t even totally sold on it,” said Alonzo Johnson, the pastor at Universal Outreach. “We started hosting on the campus here, and the community excitement drew 150 kids out there, and that demonstrated to the town that there was an interest in this sort of thing.”

“I think it’s mentally beneficial for kids because it gives them something to do, and it’s a low barrier to entry,” Robinson said. “Kids like to do it because it’s something you can do on your own terms. There’s not a lot of rules. ... I got into it because there wasn’t anyone telling me what I had to do or how to organize my time.”

Near where Robinson’s students are learning to ollie, three men from North Carolina are performing their own tricks. They previously came to Irmo for the Boardr event, but were so impressed with the park’s layout they made the trip back to skate some more.

“It’s nice that it has trees,” said Tony Gregerson. “You’d be surprised how many skate parks don’t have trees and shade. It can get brutal in the summer.”

His friends Nathan Lemker and Brian Stephenson agreed Irmo’s was one of the top skate parks they have seen in their years riding.

“I would say it’s in the top three or four,” said Stephenson, who estimates he’s skated at a baker’s dozen of parks across the Carolinas. Because of its more even-sided obstacles, Irmo’s course is “more open to both regular and goofy (i.e., right-footed or left-footed) skating,” the North Carolinian said.

Irmo Mayor Bill Danielson said Boardr is planned to be an annual event in Irmo, with the skating competition slated to return to Rawls Creek next March. The mayor said it was one of the most successful initial events the town has done.

“The guy who runs all of it said we probably have one of the top five in the country because of the way it’s designed and how many competitors can use it,” Danielson said. “There were people there from 5 to 60 in age. Everybody came in that weekend, stayed in our hotels and ate at our restaurants. It’s an excellent facility.”

He credited Ryan with leading the push for the park. David Toole, owner of Bluetile Skateboards in Five Points, said he’d wanted a good skate park to open for years when Ryan and others spoke to him about the efforts in Irmo.

“They had a timeline of six months, and I thought, ‘y’all are crazy,’” he said. “It’ll be five to 10 years.”

But in just a couple years, Irmo was able to get the park completed by dedicated skate park designers 5th Pocket for a cost of $380,000. It had a soft open last fall, but the Boardr event was considered the park’s grand opening.

“She’s the GOAT of the whole thing,” Toole said, using the initials for “Greatest of All Time.” “She has a knack for staying on the ball.”

The Southern California-born Ryan has six children between the ages of 11 and 26 who are avid skateboarders. Thanks to them, she was part of a community push to add a skate park to the town.

“I’m a stay-at-home mom, so I was able to just kind of stay with this project,” she said. “There was a small committee involved in it since the beginning, then we really started having discussions with local business owners, and really just got everybody to be behind.”

That effort eventually won over the support of Irmo’s top decision-makers.

“Mayor Danielson really helped, [Town Administrator] Courtney Dennis, everybody came together with hospitality tax dollars,” Ryan said. “We raised the money for the design, donated skateboards. The community just saw the need for it.”

Toole donated a hundred skateboards from Bluetile to participants at the Boardr event, Danielson said, “so it was a huge event from that standpoint.”

“The people who are able to advocate for these parks tend to be older, more affluent skateboarders, and they don’t want what the kids want,” Toole said. “Irmo is very entry level. Pretty much anyone can go and have fun. Someone who is very skilled might get bored, but you can skate in it and find joy.”

”I live right next to [Owens Field Skate Park], and I’ll drive to Irmo five times over to skate there,” Toole said.

Even when the Irmo Skate Park isn’t hosting huge events, the community still gets a lot of use out of the facility.

”I never drive by there when there isn’t somebody up there riding,” the mayor said. “It’s always in use.”

“It’s a skate park everybody can use,” Ryan said. “It goes from beginner to advanced.”

A new spot with Japanese flavors is headed to a growing area near Columbia.

Sumo Sushi & Hibachi Grill is coming to 1100 Dutch Fork Road suite H in Irmo. There is a banner hanging on the front of the building announcing the restaurant is “coming soon,” as well as a large poster hanging in the window touting the same. There are city building permits posted in the window, and construction was ongoing when a reporter briefly went by Wednesday morning.

The restaurant is coming to a busy and growing area along Dutch Fork Road. It will be in a shopping strip that includes a Pizza Hut, an El Charro Mexican restaurant, a Coco Bowlz and several other businesses. There is a Walmart Supercenter next door, and a host of other national businesses are located nearby, including an Aldi that opened in 2023 and a Whataburger that debuted last year.

About 28,000 cars per day travel down that stretch of Dutch Fork Road, per state Department of Transportation data.

Sumo Sushi & Hibachi also has a location at 7510 Garners Ferry Road in Columbia. That location’s menu features a host of sushi rolls and special rolls, including the deep-fried Godzilla Roll that features spicy tuna and avocado and is topped with snow crab, spicy mayo and eel sauce. It also has hibachi plates with chicken, shrimp, steak and more.

An opening date for the Irmo Sumo location hasn’t been publicly announced.