- Different religious beliefs and values in a new environment, may be harder to uphold religion. 
- Time, traveling across the border or seeking help in Kabul will take time to travel.

Explicit Benefits:
- Better financial status: “Most returnees are worse off financially” because the economy is collapsing for people in Afghanistan. The economic environment much better in Pakistan and most other countries refugees can migrate to. Living conditions will also improve along with financial status since the economy is more stable.
- Safer environment to live in, away from terrorists, lawlessness, and frequent natural disasters in Afghanistan.
- More opportunities in the new country since it is hard to make a living under the harsh financial and political situation in Afghanistan.

Implicit Benefits:
- Eased from fear of danger in Afghanistan.
- Hope of starting a new and better life in the country immigrating to.

The US dramatically reduced the number of air raids against the Taliban, leaving the Afghan National Security Forces at a significant disadvantage, which ultimately lead to the Taliban takeover of Kabul. This is a cultural settlement activity because the Doha Agreement advanced the Taliban's invasion and affected the political structure in Afghanistan.
- In 2008, the Taliban conducted a suicide car bombing in an Indian embassy in Kabul. Resulting in 58 casualties and 141 wounded victims. This is a physical and cultural settlement activity because it was done with force and invoked fear amongst Kabul citizens.

Environmental Impacts:
- Natural disasters: From 2020 to 2023, almost 200,000 floods, about 100,000 earthquakes, and nearly 500 avalanches.
- Structures destroyed by terrorist activity and natural disasters.

- Just recently in Badakhshan, a 6.5 magnitude earthquake happened. Causing 10 deaths, 80 injuries, and more than 665 houses destroyed. 

Cultural Impacts:
- After the Taliban takeover of Kabul, terrorist attack rates in Afghanistan increased by 42%, this is a political impact because the attacks are mostly motivated by the conflict within groups in Afghanistan, and the Taliban takeover escalated the situation.
- The large waves of people leaving Afghanistan impact the country demographically because the decreasing population can create issues like a lack of workforce, brain drain, and unsustainable population growth.
- The Taliban's enforcement of strict Islamic laws impacts Afghanistan culturally, demographically, and economically. Since women are not allowed to work, receive an education, or go outside on their own, many families choose to kill female infants at birth and only keep males. Imbalancing the male: female ratio and impacting the country's demographic.
The removal of female workers and students also economically impacts schools and workplaces. Though the primary workforce in Afghanistan was men, the sudden and complete removal of female workers and students impacted the economy drastically. The decrease of educated females also culturally impacted Afghanistan, slowly transforming the society into a patriarchy.

- The large difference between Muslim culture and American culture may be hard for some Afghan refugees to accept, as almost 100% of all Afghans in Afghanistan are Muslim while only about 1% of the U.S. population is Muslim. 
- Opportunity cost: Gave up the chance to cross the border to Iran or Pakistan to come to America, may feel regret.

Benefits of Leaving:
Explicit:
- As the Afghan refugees awaited the processing of their Visas and resettlement, they received medical care and extremely cheap temporary housing.

- The American government also assisted in resetting Afghan refugees and provided Special Immigrant Visas (SIVs) to Afghan refugees. 

- The living conditions in American military bases are much safer and more comfortable in general in comparison to crime and collapsed economy back in Afghanistan.

Implicit:
- Afghans in American military bases were relieved from the stress and fear of violence back in Afghanistan.
- Afghans suffering from trauma or mental illnesses were provided treatment.

Implicit Benefits:
- Around 98.5% of Iranians identify as Muslims, so the primarily Muslim Afghan refugees would be in an environment that supports and respects their culture, while countries with different cultural structures might treat Muslims as outsiders.
- There are many Afghan refugees in Iran, so Afghan refugees that choose to migrate to Iran will be well accepted in the community.

Cultural Impacts:
- Iran has started to loosen policies on Afghan refugees. This is a political impact because this choice of Iran reflects its standpoint on the Afghan refugee crisis.
- The waves of Afghan refugees may further polarize the already discriminated religious minorities in Iran and those minorities may conform to the majority and become Muslim. This is a demographic and social impact because the Afghan refugees first change the population structure of Iran (Increasing numbers of Muslims), and also affect how religious minorities are treated socially in Iran.
- Afghan refugees will contribute to the economy in Iran by working and consuming local products (Economic).
- The abundance of undocumented Afghan refugees has affected Iran demographically, as more displaced Afghans will follow in their footsteps if they see these undocumented Afghan refugees are mostly not restricted in Iran.
- The sheer number of undocumented Afghan refugees has also fueled the superiority some Iranians feel towards Afghans. This is a social impact because it impacts how Iranians and Afghans interact with each other.

https://www.unrefugees.org/news/afghanistan-refugee-crisis-explained/#Why%20have%20people%20from%20Afghanistan%20been%20forced%20to%20flee?

https://www.cfr.org/backgrounder/taliban-afghanistan#:~:text=The%20Taliban%20have%20prohibited%20most,and%20prevented%20women%20from%20working.

https://apnews.com/article/politics-975dd3cff6825885d8b73fb521c5ed39#:~:text=The%20refugees%20were%20housed%20at,Air%20Force%20Base%2C%20New%20Mexico.

https://www.acaps.org/country/iran/crisis/afghan-refugees#:~:text=The%20situation%20for%20Afghan%20refugees,separation%2C%20violence%2C%20and%20persecution.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Afghanistan%E2%80%93Iran_border#:~:text=The%20border%20traverses%20a%20generally,main%20border%20crossing%20is%20located.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Islam_in_the_United_States#:~:text=Islam%20is%20the%20third%20largest,of%20the%20total%20U.S.%20population.

https://www.statista.com/statistics/1349941/iran-share-of-muslim-population-by-type/#:~:text=In%202020%2C%20around%2098.5%20percent,belong%20to%20ethnic%20minority%20groups.