The same day, DHS proposed to strip tens of thousands of Afghan parolees of their right to work.

Members of Congress named names, pressed cabinet secretaries, and put commitments on the record.

And in Texas, 160 Afghan allies showed up and asked the question we couldn’t fully answer: if Congress cares so much, why haven’t they introduced or passed meaningful legislation?

We’ll get to all of that, but first we need you to take action.

Action Items

• TODAY IS THE LAST DAY for your member of Congress to sign onto the Crow-Bacon letter on Camp As Sayliyah. Afghan allies in Qatar are running out of time. It takes 60 seconds and is the most important action you can take today. Email them and ask them to sign on now at afghanevac.org/cas-action

• Comment on the proposed DHS rule that would strip work authorization from Afghan parolees. The comment window closes August 4, 2026. Read our explainer at afghanevac.org/ead-rule-change and submit your comment at afghanevac.org/ead-action.

• Share the Dorcas decision explainer with your networks. A federal court struck down four unlawful USCIS policies this week. Tell people what it means and who won it. Tag @AfghanEvac and use #StillWithUS

• Donate to support this work. Showing up, the Texas town halls, the Hill engagement, the new EAD explainer — all of it is possible because of your support.

A Federal Court Strikes Down Four Unlawful USCIS Policies

On June 5, 2026, a federal district court issued a landmark ruling in Dorcas International Institute of Rhode Island v. USCIS, striking down four USCIS policies that had frozen immigration benefit adjudications for Afghans and nationals of 38 other countries. Chief Judge John J. McConnell Jr. vacated the Global Asylum Hold, the Benefits Hold, the Comprehensive Re-Review policy, and the Country-Specific Factors Policy — all four policies, nationwide, effective immediately. The judge wrote that these policies threw the lives of countless immigrants into “indeterminate legal limbo,” found that USCIS had claimed authority it does not possess, and concluded that the agency had acted on “anti-immigrant sentiments that it is forbidden from letting influence its decision-making.” In legal terms: arbitrary, capricious, and contrary to law.

The relief is nationwide. Vacatur means the policies are off the books, not merely paused. The administration will almost certainly appeal and may seek a stay pending that appeal. But as of this writing, USCIS is required to resume adjudicating cases that had been warehoused under these holds: green cards, work permits, asylum applications, naturalization, and more. For Afghan allies who have been waiting, in some cases for years, for benefit decisions withheld without legal authority, this ruling matters. We said these holds were unlawful. A federal court agreed.

When we circulated our Hill explainer on June 5, the first response arrived within 90 seconds. Senate Judiciary staff called it “huge.” House staff immediately asked whether the relief was nationwide. It is. Credit where it is due: Dorcas International and their litigation partners built this case. The Afghan allies and other immigrants who served as plaintiffs put their names on a lawsuit against the federal government while living inside a system that government controls. That took courage, and this ruling is theirs.

Read our Explainer

Why it matters. The administration will fight this ruling. Compliance is never automatic, and AfghanEvac will be tracking every deadline and every filing that follows. A court win is the beginning of a new battle, not the end of one. We have seen that before. We are ready for it again.

Afghan and Iraqi Allies v. Rubio: The Court Is Watching State This Month

In May 2026, Judge Tanya Chutkan found that the State Department had “woefully failed” to meet its obligations under the court-ordered Revised Adjudication Plan for SIV processing in Afghan and Iraqi Allies v. Rubio. She responded with binding monthly benchmarks.

This month, State is required to process at least 1,000 Chief of Mission applications. It must also report to plaintiffs the total number of Afghan class members who have been stuck at Step 4 of the adjudication plan for 120 days or more. Beginning in July, State must file a public notice on the court docket each month showing how many CoM applications it processed the prior month. If it misses a benchmark, it must explain why and identify concrete steps to comply. A joint status report on overall compliance is due August 28, 2026.

Judge Chutkan also ordered State to notify Afghan SIV applicants that being a class member in this case does not protect them from Presidential Proclamation 10998. Afghan allies who are scheduled for visa interviews should know: the court-ordered adjudication process means State must schedule and conduct your interview. It does not guarantee you will receive a visa or be admitted to the United States. The travel ban still applies.

Why it matters. The Chutkan enforcement order covers the SIV pipeline only. It does not address Camp As Sayliyah, refugee admissions, or parole. But it is one of the few places where the administration faces binding legal consequences for non-compliance, with a public reporting requirement and a judge who has already found them in violation. We are watching the June numbers. So is the court.

DHS Is Dismantling the Right to Work

This did not start on June 5. The administration has been eliminating Afghan allies’ legal right to work in stages, and both moves need to be understood together.

The first rule, Employment Authorization Reform for Asylum Applicants, was published February 23, 2026, with a comment period that closed April 24. That rule targeted asylum-based work authorization: extending the waiting period to apply from 180 days to a full year, stretching processing timelines from 30 to 180 days, and creating an automatic pause mechanism that stops new work permit applications entirely whenever USCIS asylum processing times exceed 180 days. DHS acknowledged in that rulemaking that current processing times already exceed that threshold, meaning the pause would likely trigger immediately upon implementation and could, by the agency’s own estimate, last between 14 and 173 years.

Review the old Explainer

On June 5, 2026, DHS published a second proposed rule that goes further and hits Afghan allies more directly. This rule targets the three specific EAD categories through which most Afghan allies currently work legally in the United States. Nearly every Afghan ally who arrived through Operation Allies Welcome entered on humanitarian parole, holding work authorization in the (c)(11) category — the category this rule targets most aggressively. Under the proposed rule, parolees must prove economic necessity for employment and demonstrate they warrant a favorable exercise of discretion, a standard USCIS can apply or deny with wide latitude. Work permits are capped at one year. Renewals require an E-Verify-participating employer — many Afghan allies work for small businesses that do not use E-Verify. An arrest is sufficient to create a presumptive disqualification. Not a conviction. Not a charge that resulted in prosecution. Not a guilty verdict. Dismissed charges, acquittals, and sealed records offer no protection. DHS’s own analysis excludes Operation Allies Welcome cases from its historical approval-rate averages because OAW approvals were so numerous they skewed the data upward. This rule was constructed knowing who it would hit.

If you came through CARE relocation after 2022 as an SIV or refugee, this rule should not directly impact you. Afghan allies with current work authorization should consult an immigration attorney about their specific situation.

Read our Explainer

AfghanEvac has made it easy to be heard. We have built a guided comment tool that walks you through submitting a formal public comment on this proposed rule, and it only takes a couple of minutes.

This is not a petition. It is a submission to a federal rulemaking docket, and DHS is legally required to read and respond to every substantive comment before it can finalize this rule. Your comment will be a part of the official record, so feel free to share your experience.

ACT NOW

We submitted AfghanEvac’s own organizational comment, laying out the legal, operational, and human consequences of this rule for Afghan allies specifically. You can read what we said and submit your own comment below.

View our Official Comment

The comment period closes August 4, 2026.

Why it matters. Two rules. One systematic effort to make it impossible for Afghan allies to support themselves while waiting for a government that invited them here to process their cases. This is a choice. It can be unmade. The comment period is not a formality. It is a legal mechanism that constrains the agency’s options and lays the groundwork for litigation. Use it.

Congress Shows Up: Three Days of Testimony

Ten days ago, AfghanEvac launched a campaign asking the Afghan community and their advocates to demand answers from Secretary Rubio and other administration officials during this week’s budget hearings. 2,250 letters went into congressional offices on Capitol Hill. Congress heard our community.

Last week brought three consecutive days of congressional hearings in which members of Congress named Afghan allies by name, pressed cabinet secretaries for answers, and put commitments on the record. We are grateful. And we are tracking every one of those commitments.

On day one, Senator Chris Coons raised Camp As Sayliyah during the Senate Foreign Relations Committee Fiscal Year 2027 State Department Budget Hearing, pressing the administration on the situation facing Afghan allies still living at the transit camp in Qatar, where a September 2026 deadline looms and no credible relocation plan has been confirmed. He secured a commitment from the administration to work together toward a solution. We take that commitment seriously, and we will be back if it goes unmet. Representative Grace Meng raised CAS the same day in the House Appropriations Committee’s National Security and Related Programs Subcommittee Fiscal Year 2027 State Department Budget Hearing. Two members, two committees, one day, the same message. Thank you to both.

On day two, Representative Julie Johnson appeared in two separate hearings and did not pull her punches in either. In the House Homeland Security Committee Fiscal Year 2027 DHS Budget Hearing, she raised the death of Nazeer Paktiawal and pressed Secretary Mullin directly, securing a commitment to find out what happened to Nazeer and why he died in DHS custody. His brother, widow, and children were in our town hall in Dallas this week. They are not looking for sympathy. They want answers, and they want assurance that another Afghan family will not go through what they have endured. Secretary Mullin now has an opportunity to provide that. Representative Johnson then raised Paktiawal’s case again in the House Foreign Affairs Committee Fiscal Year 2027 State Department Budget Hearing, putting the same question directly to Secretary Rubio. That is sustained accountability. Thank you, Representative Johnson. Senator Coons also returned on day two, this time in the Senate Appropriations Committee’s State Department, Foreign Operations, and Related Programs Subcommittee Fiscal Year 2027 State Department Budget Hearing, pressing the broader situation of Afghans throughout the world, including those stranded in Pakistan, those still inside Afghanistan, and those in processing pipelines across the globe.

On day three, Representative Jason Crow came to the House Armed Services Committee Fiscal Year 2027 National Defense Authorization Act markup with an amendment that would have reopened the SIV application window and kept it open through December 2027. The amendment was withdrawn before a vote. We appreciate that Representative Crow fought to include it, and we will continue working with his office and others on the path forward.

Why it matters. 2,250 letters. Three days of hearings. Commitments secured on the record from two cabinet secretaries. This is what sustained community pressure looks like when it works. Hearings create a record. That record has to be enforced. We are doing that work.

This video is a full compilation of the questions / responses.

Action required today. Representatives Crow and Bacon are circulating a letter to their colleagues on Camp As Sayliyah. Today is the last day to contact your member of Congress and ask them to sign on. Every signature matters.

Ask your Representative to sign on

Texas: Town Halls, a Mosque, and a Ruling That Landed at the Right Moment

AfghanEvac was in Texas from June 3 through June 5. What we experienced across those three days was the full weight of this crisis in real time, and then, unexpectedly, one of the clearest signs yet that the legal strategy is working.

On June 3, we held a town hall in Fort Worth. More than 40 people attended. The questions were consistent: family reunification, stalled benefit adjudications, and the fear that relief was not coming. In the margins of that event, and in a separate meeting with resettlement agency staff from all five resettlement agencies serving the Dallas-Fort Worth area, we talked about Dorcas as the most promising avenue for near-term relief. We didn’t know when the ruling would come. We told people it was in the pipeline and that we believed it would matter.

On June 4, we were en route to the Dallas town hall at Abu Hanifa Mosque when the new DHS proposed rule on work authorization hit. Dozens of people were waiting for us. We had to explain what the rule meant in real time, to a room full of people who hold work permits in the exact category the rule targets. The EAD proposed rule would strip legal work authorization from Afghan humanitarian parolees, the largest group in that room.

The questions that followed were familiar because the challenges are familiar. Families asked about reunification. Applicants asked about stalled USCIS cases. Women whose husbands remain in detention described trying to keep their households together while navigating an increasingly uncertain immigration system. The frustration was palpable, but so was the determination to keep fighting for a future here.

After the mosque, we sat down with resettlement agency staff of Afghan heritage who shared with us the other side of the story. Having to serve a greater need even as funds are being drastically cut. Many of those staff are still waiting on their own family to arrive.

And then the question that has really stuck out, said plainly by a man in that room:

We did not have a satisfying answer. We sent that question to Capitol Hill the next morning and haven’t yet heard back.

We capped that evening by sharing a meal with executives from the resettlement agencies serving the DFW area. Dorcas came up again. Everyone in the room agreed it was the best legal avenue available. No one knew it would land the next day.

On June 5, we were visiting the George W. Bush Presidential Center — an extraordinary partner in this work — before flying back to San Diego, when the Dorcas ruling dropped.

Standing in President Bush’s Oval Office, we got word that Chief Judge McConnell had vacated all four unlawful USCIS policies, nationwide, effective immediately. It was the ruling we had been tracking for months. The people we had sat with in Fort Worth and Dallas — the families waiting on frozen benefit applications, the allies who feared losing their jobs, the resettlement staff who had been telling clients to hold on — they were the people this ruling was for.

Why it matters. The Texas trip was three days of community intelligence, coalition building, and direct accountability. What we heard in those rooms shapes what we say in Washington. We are grateful to the George W. Bush Presidential Center for their continued partnership, to Abu Hanifa Mosque for hosting us, and to everyone in Fort Worth and Dallas who showed up and told us the truth.

Battle Buddies

More than 1,000 veterans are signed up for Battle Buddies across the country and our 100% no-detention record holds when volunteers are present.

This week in Michigan, Representative Joe Tate — a Marine veteran of the war in Afghanistan, former NFL player, and former Speaker of the Michigan House of Representatives — showed up as a registered Battle Buddies volunteer. That is who this program attracts. That is who stands with Afghan allies.

Sign up for Battle Buddies

What We Are Seeing: Mega-Master Calendar Hearings

After reporting on the expected rollout of mega-master, or “balloon docket,” hearings, we are now seeing implementation in immigration courts in Chicago, Indianapolis, and San Diego. These hearings schedule as many as 120 individuals before a single judge at the same time. Most respondents arrive without lawyers. In that environment, rights can be waived unintentionally, and the consequences can be severe and permanent.

At these hearings, respondents are being pressured to complete a form called the “Respondent’s Pleading Declaration.” Signing this form without understanding it could result in a judge finding you removable. If you receive a pleading declaration, you still have the right to due process and to fight your case with legal representation. For guidance on your rights, see the National Immigrant Justice Center’s guidelines.

If you have an upcoming immigration court date:

• Let us know you need a Battle Buddy.

• Check your case status daily at the EOIR website. You will not know your hearing is a mega-master until you arrive at court.

• Arrive on time. Respondents who arrive late are being treated as absent and issued deportation orders in absentia.

• Be prepared for long wait times.

• Seek legal representation before your hearing if at all possible.

For more on what to expect, see this resource from Immigrant Help NY. We will share updates as we receive more information.

A Note on Volunteer Standards and Community Safety

AfghanEvac’s work depends on trust. The Afghan community trusts us to show up with accurate information, no hidden agenda, and deep respect for who they are and where they are. That trust is fragile, and it is everyone’s responsibility to protect it.

We need to address something that happened at one of our Texas town halls. An individual who is not an AfghanEvac volunteer, not affiliated with our organization, and who has a known history of spreading misinformation in Afghan advocacy spaces attended uninvited and began providing “assistance” to community members. This is not the first time concerns have been raised about this individual in Afghan advocacy spaces. We are not naming him here because doing so would give him a platform he has not earned and create a public dispute that serves no one in this community. But we are not pretending this did not happen, and we are not pretending he is welcome.

This was not one of our volunteers. We are proud of the people who show up for this work.

The standard is not complicated. Show up with accurate information. Leave your agenda at the door. Treat every Afghan ally in the room with the dignity they are owed. Proselytizing in our spaces or in community spaces where we are guests, including mosques and cultural centers, is against our organizational ethics and will not be tolerated. If you cannot commit to that standard, this is not the right space for you.

If you see someone at an AfghanEvac event who is not part of our team and is sharing unverified information or behaving inconsistently with our values, find a staff member or organizer immediately.

Important Information for Afghan Allies in the United States and Their Advocates

Resettlement agencies have flagged something we need to share with the community who are already present in the United States.

The federal government is preparing a new outreach initiative that will specifically seek out Afghan allies in the United States who do not yet have durable immigration status and conduct outreach interviews.

We do not know exactly how or when this will happen. What we do know is that the initiative is being designed right now, that it is coming before the end of this fiscal year, and that it is being built specifically for this population in a way that departs significantly from how similar efforts have been conducted in the past.

We are not in a position to say this is malicious. We are in a position to say that in this environment, with this administration’s track record toward Afghan allies, any federal effort to identify and make contact with the most vulnerable people in the pipeline warrants extreme caution.

If someone contacts you about a new federal survey or outreach effort, you are not obligated to participate without understanding exactly what will be done with your information. Talk to a lawyer. Contact us.

We will share more guidance as it becomes available.

In the News

• A federal judge strikes down Trump administration immigration policy affecting 39 countries — Associated Press

• Judge blocks series of Trump policies halting immigration processing — The Hill

• US Judge Invalidates Trump Policies Targeting Immigrants From 39 Countries — Reuters

• Judge strikes down Trump policy that halted asylum decisions for 39 countries — PBS NewsHour

• Federal judge strikes down Trump immigration policy imposed after National Guard members shot in DC — WTOP

• HIAS Welcomes Court Ruling on USCIS Processing Ban — HIAS

• Capital Tonight Texas — Spectrum News

• Episode 143: Shawn VanDiver on Camp As Sayliyah Future, Legal Updates — The Afghanistan Project Podcast with Beth Bailey

This week brought both warning signs and reasons for optimism.

A federal court rejected unlawful policies that had frozen immigration benefits for thousands of people. At the same time, DHS proposed new restrictions that could make it harder for Afghan parolees to work and support their families. Congress secured commitments from administration officials, but many Afghan allies continue asking when oversight will become action.

Across Fort Worth and Dallas, Afghan allies showed up not because they wanted another meeting, but because they wanted answers. They wanted to know whether anyone was still paying attention. We told them the truth: the challenges are real, the road ahead will be difficult, and none of this will be solved quickly.

We also told them something else: This community remains engaged. The courts are listening. Advocates are showing up. Veterans are standing beside their wartime allies. And Afghan families continue demonstrating extraordinary resilience in the face of uncertainty.

That work continues next week, and the week after that. Thank you for being part of it.

Secretary of State Marco Rubio testifies before Congress four times between June 2 and 3, and for the first time the members asking the questions will have a fulsome account of what has been done to America’s Afghan allies. We assembled that account with the country’s leading resettlement agencies and put it in front of every office that will hold a gavel.

The rest of the week filled in around that fight. A close Rubio aide was quietly promoted to a top White House post.

A bipartisan pair of House members opened a letter demanding answers on the roughly 1,100 Afghans still trapped in Qatar.

A hard SIV paperwork deadline lands Friday, June 5.

And in a federal courtroom, one ally was pulled back from the edge of deportation, a reminder of what happens when our people show up and refuse to let the paperwork win.

There is real work to do before tomorrow morning. Start here.

ACTION THIS WEEK

1. Tell your member of Congress to ask Rubio about Afghans
   Secretary of State Marco Rubio testifies before four committees on June 2 and June 3. If your representative or senator sits on one of these committees, their staff has what they need to make Afghans part of the record.

   1. You can also read our Memo to Congressional Offices, the Questions Tipsheet we suggested for members, and the letter we led with the CEOs of the nation’s leading resettlement agencies on that same site.

2. Call, write, and post. Get your Representative on the bipartisan CAS letter

   Reps. Jason Crow and Don Bacon are leading a bipartisan letter pressing the State Department for answers on any plan to move the roughly 1,100 Afghans held at Camp As Sayliyah.

   1. This is a three-part push. Call your representative’s office, send the letter through our system, and post the ask so others in your district do the same. The deadline for offices to sign on is end of day Monday, June 8. Everything you need is at afghanevac.org/cas-action.

3. Plug into the programs that put people to work

   Advocacy from Washington matters, and so does the work happening in driveways, courtrooms, and living rooms across the country. Two programs make it real.

   1. Our Afghan Community Ambassadors Program trains and equips Afghan community members to lead advocacy in their own cities, and you can learn more and sign up at afghanevac.org/community-ambassadors.

   2. Battle Buddies pairs volunteers with allies who have to show up for immigration check-ins and court dates, and the program’s record of no detentions when a Battle Buddy is present still stands. Learn more at afghanevac.org/battle-buddies.

   3. You can also print our flyers and put them up where your community will see them, at go.afghanevac.org/flyers.

4. Fund the fight. This work runs on support from people who refuse to look away. Give at afghanevac.org/donate.

Your advocacy, on the map

We launched a new advocacy system this week, and it is already working. In less than one week, our members have taken more than 1,000 individual actions across 40 states. The tool lets you act on a letter or a campaign in a single click, and it lets us see where the energy is building and where it still needs a push. This is the first version, and we are going to keep improving it. The goal is simple. Make it easier for you to be heard, and easier for us to turn that into pressure where it counts.

A win worth naming

Good news is rare in this fight, so we are going to sit with it. This past week, an Afghan ally we will keep anonymous, a Special Immigrant Visa recipient and a lawful permanent resident, walked into a federal courtroom facing the loss of everything he had been promised. The government had thrown his status into question on a strained reading of the recommendation-letter rules that would have required something the law does not. He was placed in removal proceedings over it. In plain terms, an American green card holder was at risk of being deported to the Taliban.

He did not face it alone. Our AfghanEvac Battle Buddies team stood with him in court, the way they have shown up for allies across the country. His legal team did exceptional work. And the judge saw the denial for what it was, ruling completely in our ally’s favor and calling out the weakness of the government’s position. On the strength of that ruling, his attorneys have moved to end the deportation case entirely, and the government has ten days to respond. We are keeping his name and face out of this because his family in Afghanistan remains at risk, and that caution is the whole point.

This is what the work looks like on a good day. One ally, one courtroom, one bad interpretation rejected. It matters beyond this family, because the same flimsy theory is being used against others, and this shows it can be beaten. When we show up, when the lawyers are sharp, and when a judge reads the record, the machine does not always win. Hold onto that this week.

They shut it all down. Now Rubio has to sit in the chair

Secretary of State Marco Rubio is scheduled to testify before four committees on June 2 and June 3, his first sustained appearances on the Hill since the scope of the collapse became undeniable. This week, we are making sure no member walks in unarmed.

Start with the number that says everything. The Department’s own SIV program update, released May 13, confirms zero Special Immigrant Visas issued to Afghan applicants since January 1, 2026. Of the 50,500 visas Congress authorized, 5,970 remain unused. Roughly 178,000 Afghans hold Chief of Mission approval and are waiting. The Department keeps conducting interviews. It is not issuing visas. A program that interviews people and then hands them nothing is not a program. It is a waiting room with no door.

The visas are only the start. A travel ban bars Afghans from entry. Temporary Protected Status has been terminated. The One Big Beautiful Bill Act stripped food assistance from entire categories of lawfully present people, and the chaos has been bad enough that even green-card-holding allies have been denied SNAP in some states. The May 27 refugee determination handed 10,000 slots to Afrikaners and named Afghans nowhere. Three Afghan refugees have been resettled this entire fiscal year. Three.

And roughly 1,100 Afghans are still trapped at Camp As Sayliyah in Qatar, sent there for final vetting and then left in place when the Secretary's Department froze the program around them. Around 800 are women and children. Roughly 150 are immediate family members of active-duty U.S. service members, the families of people serving in our military right now. They have been held in transit for more than a year, with no resettlement, no return, and no plan for their future. This is not a backlog. It is a population the Secretary is responsible for, abandoned in place.

Here is the part Congress needs to understand, because it is the whole argument. Almost none of this would be landing the way it does if Enduring Welcome had kept moving. Enduring Welcome brought allies here with durable status, the green cards and legal footing that shield a person from a benefits cut or a travel ban. The administration shut it off on day one and has spent every month since dismantling the machinery around it. The result is families waiting years for reunification, allies stranded overseas, and the cleanup dumped onto the nonprofits and volunteers who never should have had to carry it.

None of this is fate. It is a series of choices, and every one of them can be unmade. Judge Tanya Chutkan’s February 6 order requires the continued adjudication of Afghan cases, and the contrast between that order and a zero issuance rate is an oversight finding waiting to be made. We are asking members to convert every half-answer about review, consideration, or further study into a Question for the Record with a hard deadline, and to build the answers into FY27 report language. August marks five years since the fall of Kabul. The FY27 budget will tell the world whether the United States still believes a wartime promise is a promise to be kept.

Read our Memo

The letter, signed by AfghanEvac and the country’s leading resettlement agencies

On May 29, ahead of Secretary Rubio’s testimony, we sent a joint letter to congressional leadership and the relevant committee leaders. We did not send it alone. The chief executives of six of the country’s principal resettlement agencies signed it with us, HIAS, Church World Service, Global Refuge, World Relief, the U.S. Committee for Refugees and Immigrants, and the Ethiopian Community Development Council. Seven organizations spanning faith traditions, humanitarian missions, and decades of resettlement work, agreeing on one thing without reservation. A promise made by Americans in wartime is a promise to be kept.

The letter puts the documented record in front of the members who will question the Secretary this week and asks them to require him to answer for it on the record. We wanted you to know it went out, and we want you to read it.

Read the Letter

The June 5 SIV document deadline lands this week

If you or someone you are helping has a pending Chief of Mission application in the Afghan SIV pipeline, this Friday, June 5, is the deadline to get every supporting document in. This is the State Department’s own cutoff. Any letter of recommendation, employment verification, or additional document the Department has requested for a pending COM application must be submitted by 11:59 on June 5, sent to AfghanSIVApplication@state.gov. The application window for new COM requests already closed on December 31, 2025, so this is the last structured opportunity to complete a file that is already in the system.

Two things people need to hear clearly, because the confusion around this is real.

1. This deadline is only for supporting documents on a pending COM application. It does not apply to visa processing steps after COM approval, and it does not change appeal rights. If a COM denial letter arrives, the deadline to appeal is 120 days from the date of that letter, even if that date falls after June 5.

2. And none of this is contradicted by the fact that the Department has stopped issuing visas. Processing and issuance are legally separate. Judge Chutkan’s order requires the former to continue, and a complete file is what protects an applicant’s place when issuance resumes.

Get the documents in. The recommendation-letter and verification rules are exactly where the government has been manufacturing denials, including in the case we describe above, so precision on dates and supervisor details is not a formality. It is the difference between a file that moves and a file that gets rejected. IRAP has published current practitioner resources for getting this right, and our team can help you find the door.

Learn more from IRAP

The same small circle now runs the Afghan file at both State and the White House

Days before Rubio sat down in front of Congress, the administration moved to consolidate his authority. Mike Needham, Rubio’s State Department Counselor and the director of his Policy Planning Staff, has been promoted to Assistant to the President and Deputy National Security Advisor, the move first reported by Axios on May 26. Needham is one of Rubio’s closest and longest-serving aides. He ran Rubio’s Senate office as chief of staff for six years, and before that he led Heritage Action for America. He replaces Robert Gabriel at the National Security Council. Because Rubio is also serving as acting National Security Advisor, Needham now sits directly beneath him on the White House side of the house, while continuing to work hand in glove with the building he just left. Dan Holler, Rubio’s chief of staff at State and another veteran of both the Senate office and Heritage Action, steps into Needham’s old role.

Here is why this matters to us specifically. Needham and Holler are not unfamiliar names on this issue. They are among the senior State officials AfghanEvac has written to directly (since January 2025) about the deteriorating conditions at Camp As Sayliyah, including our urgent letters this winter when missile debris was falling on the camp. The men who received those letters have never once responded to a message from us about Afghans, not one, and now they are being elevated rather than held to account.

That is the accountability record in one sentence. The same officials, the same unanswered inbox, more power, and still no principal-level meeting and no answers on the people stranded in Qatar.

As Rubio testifies this week, members should put these names and this concentration of authority on the record, because there is no longer anyone left to pass the question to.

A bipartisan letter on the Afghans still held at Camp As Sayliyah

About 1,100 Afghans remain at Camp As Sayliyah in Qatar, the U.S. government facility where allies were sent for final vetting and onward movement to the United States. Around 800 are women and children. Roughly 150 are immediate family members of active-duty U.S. service members. They have been held in transit for over a year while the refugee program sits suspended. Reps. Jason Crow and Don Bacon are now circulating a bipartisan letter pressing the State Department for answers on any current or proposed plan to relocate that population.

The reason this letter matters is simple. Earlier this spring, senior State Department officials floated transferring the CAS population to the Democratic Republic of the Congo. The administration says it is no longer pursuing that agreement, but the proposal has never been formally rescinded, and on May 17 the World Health Organization declared the Ebola outbreak in the DRC and Uganda a public health emergency of international concern. A plan that was a betrayal when it surfaced is now a betrayal aimed at an active outbreak zone. The fact that it remains on the table at all tells you how thin the floor is for these families.

This is a choice, and it is a bipartisan one to fix. Reps Crow and Bacon have given every House office a clean, low-cost way to put the Department on notice.

Tell your representative to sign on before the June 8 deadline.

Take Action NOW

Meeting with Congressman Morelle

On Friday, we sat down with Congressman Joe Morelle in Rochester, alongside AfghanEvac member organization Keeping Our Promise, to walk through exactly where the pipeline stands and what his office can do to help make progress for our mission partners.

These meetings matter because they connect the national fight to the families living it in a specific district.

The Rochester Town Hall

We also held an AfghanEvac town hall in Rochester over the weekend for the local Afghan community, and more than sixty people turned out. That number is the story. More than sixty of our Afghan neighbors came out wanting straight answers on the status and future of the pathways their families depend on, the SIV program, P-1 and P-2 referrals, family reunification, and the question of legal status here in the United States.

Austin Ponce, the Western New York Regional Assistant for Senator Kirsten Gillibrand, came to hear directly from Afghans about what they are facing, exactly the kind of presence that turns constituent stories into congressional attention. These are the people living inside every policy fight we cover, and showing up in person, in their community, is the least we can do.

The Keeping Our Promise Keynote

Over the weekend, I delivered the keynote at Keeping Our Promise’s Road to Resilience gala. The Rochester organization, led by Ellen Smith, has spent years getting Afghan and Iraqi allies to safety, and its volunteers were part of the team that helped secure the court win above.

The speech laid out where things stand, what the next stretch demands, and why this work cannot pause just because Washington has.

You can watch the full speech on our YouTube channel.

Watch the Full Speech

Keeping Our Promise, and a baby who almost did not make it

A few months ago, Keeping Our Promise was fighting to reunite an infant with his parents. The father had served the United States as a guard, and the family had earned their visas to come here. But the baby’s visa contained a single spelling error. Before it could be fixed, new entry restrictions slammed the door, and the child was suddenly blocked from the country his parents were cleared to enter. The parents faced an impossible choice. Stay in hiding in Afghanistan, where the father was hunted for his service, or leave for safety without their baby and pray someone could reunite them later. Their visas were expiring. The baby had none. With a regional conflict closing airspace and flights vanishing, the window was closing by the day.

They made the heartbreaking decision to travel ahead during a brief ceasefire, leaving their child behind. And for five months, Keeping Our Promise refused to let that be the end of the story. Petitions. Emails to the U.S. Embassy in Islamabad. Calls. Late nights and early mornings working every channel to secure the baby a corrected visa, physically move a passport across a border, and then get that baby out to safety.

It worked.

Baby Mahdi made it to Rochester.

It happened because a community decided that love is stronger than fear, and because a handful of people refused to give up on one child.

That is the work. Not abstraction, not policy in the aggregate, but one guard, one wife, one baby, and a promise someone insisted on keeping. When people ask what is actually at stake in the fights we cover every week, this is the answer.

A personal word about Ellen and Judy

I want to step out of the organizational voice for a moment and speak for myself. The baby in that story is alive and with his parents because two women in Rochester decided that was going to happen and then made it true. Ellen and Judy have spent more than a decade doing this work, the late-night calls, the emails to embassies, the cases nobody else would touch, the families everyone else had written off. They do not do it for recognition, and they almost never get it.

What Ellen and Judy have built is generational. More than 2,000 allies and their families have been resettled in Rochester because of Keeping Our Promise, and the children who arrived terrified are now on honor rolls, the mothers once barred from school are earning degrees, and sixty-one families have bought homes and put down roots. That is not a program. That is a legacy, measured in human lives that will ripple forward for decades. Across the entire AfghanEvac community, there are people safe today who would not be if Ellen and Judy had decided this was too hard.

I got to spend real time with both of them this weekend, and I left more determined than I arrived. They are the best of what this coalition is. Thank you, Ellen. Thank you, Judy. We are honored to stand beside you.

Next stop, Texas

This week we head to Texas, and it is a full schedule. We will host two town halls, one in Fort Worth on June 3 and another in Dallas on June 4.

While we are there, we will meet with DFW-area resettlement affiliate partners, and we will sit down with the Afghan staff who work inside those agencies, the people doing the daily work of resettlement and who too often carry it without recognition.

If you are in Fort Worth or Dallas, we want to see you at a town hall. Reach out and we will get you the details.

And if you are anywhere else and want us to bring a town hall to your community, tell us at afghanevac.org/town-hall. We are building the next round of these now.

In the press

• New Trump administration rule forces most immigrants seeking green cards to return to home countries first — Houston Public Media

• Trump administration plan would allow for quick asylum rejections without interviews — CBS News

• US veteran charged with ‘conspiracy’ over ICE protest refuses to plead guilty — The Guardian

• Mike Needham promoted to top White House national security post — Axios

• Rubio promotes top aide Mike Needham to role on National Security Council — The Washington Post

• US draws up plans to halt immigration, customs processing at ‘sanctuary city’ airports — Reuters

• Exclusive: Brussels to host Taliban in talks on Afghan deportations — Euractiv

• Russia and Taliban sign military agreement — The Independent

• Rochester’s Road to Resilience gala supports Afghan allies — Rochester First

• Shawn VanDiver on Camp As Sayliyah Future, Legal Updates — The Afghanistan Project Ep. 143

For nearly five years, we have shown up for our mission partners.

Since the day this administration took over, they have hidden behind a nebulous “Afghanistan policy review” while quietly dismantling everything built to support those same allies.

One side keeps showing up. The other will not even say plainly what it has done.

This week is an opportunity for accountability. The only open question is whether Congress takes it.

That is why every reader has to act, and has to ask their friends to act too. Ask the questions. Sign the letter. Then send this to someone and tell them to do the same.

Yesterday, the country observed Memorial Day.

We remember the 2,461 American service members who gave their lives in Afghanistan, the thirteen who died at Abbey Gate on August 26, 2021, and every Gold Star family who has carried that loss in the years since.

We remember the Afghan interpreters, soldiers, and partners who fell beside them.

The promise we are fighting to keep was made in their company.

The day after the wreaths are laid is the day the work resumes.

This is that day.

This week we are also reminding our community that wherever you are, in the United States or anywhere in the world, you can ask us to come to you.

We show up.

Town halls coming up in Rochester, Dallas, and Fort Worth. More cities on the way.

Sign up at afghanevac.org/town-hall and we will build a visit around the people who want us there.

ACTION THIS WEEK

• Read and share the new USCIS adjustment of status explainer. afghanevac.org/aos-guidance-change

• Call your senator and your representative before Tuesday, June 2. Secretary Rubio testifies before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on Tuesday, June 2, and the House Foreign Affairs Committee on Wednesday, June 3. Ask your members to press him on CAS, the new AOS memo, and June SIV compliance benchmarks. Capitol switchboard: 202-224-3121.

• Register your interest in our town halls. Learn more in the writeup below, but we want to come to your area and can only do that if we have a critical mass of people.

• Donate. afghanevac.org/donate

• Share this with your networks.

  Share

CAS UPDATE — THE DRC PLAN IS DEAD. THE PROMISE IS NOT.

The administration’s plan to relocate Afghan allies from Camp As Sayliyah to the Democratic Republic of the Congo is dead. After weeks of public pressure, a 29-senator letter led by Senator Blumenthal, sustained press attention, an open letter signed by over 1,000 people, and the courage of CAS residents like Zahra, the State Department is back to the drawing board on where the 1,100 Afghan allies still held at the camp will go.

This is a real win but it is not the win. The State Department is now identifying alternative destinations, and we are tracking that work closely with our partners and our congressional allies. We are not going to speculate publicly about specific options under discussion. What we will say is what we have always said. Approximately 900 of the 1,100 people at CAS are already approved for U.S. admission. Around 150 are immediate family members of active-duty U.S. service members. More than 400 are children. They were vetted. They were promised. They are owed the destination they were promised.

So what does success look like at CAS. It is the same as it has been since this began.

1. U.S. admission for those who can clear, through the U.S. Refugee Admissions Program or humanitarian parole, the path Senator Shaheen named in her May letter to Secretary Rubio.

2. For any case that cannot move directly to the United States, a third-country arrangement that respects the service these allies rendered to our nation, with durable legal status, freedom of movement, family unity, and access to continued U.S. case processing.

Nothing less.

Significant effort is going into making that outcome real. Coalition partners, members of Congress in both parties, retired flag officers, faith leaders, and Afghan-led organizations are all working this from different angles, in different rooms, with the same goal. The DRC plan is dead because we made it untenable.

If the next plan is bad, we’ll do everything in our power to make that one untenable too.

And we will keep showing up, in public and in private, until every person at CAS has an answer that honors what was promised to them.

CAS Explainer

USCIS QUIETLY REDEFINES THE GREEN CARD

On May 21, USCIS issued Policy Memorandum PM-602-0199, the most consequential administrative action against Afghan allies inside the United States since the travel ban. It does not change a single line of statute. It changes how every USCIS officer is now instructed to treat humanitarian parolees, which is to say nearly every Afghan ally brought here through Operation Allies Welcome.

In the policy memo, Adjustment of status is reframed as an “extraordinary” act of “administrative grace.” Officers are told to treat parole entry as a negative factor and to require “unusual or even outstanding equities” before approving. A clean record, a job, a family, a life built across four years in America, none of that is sufficient on its own anymore.

The administration’s stated alternative is consular processing from the home country. For Afghan allies, that alternative does not exist. The U.S. embassy in Kabul has been closed since August 2021. The administration is directing Afghan allies to pursue a pathway it knows is unavailable.

A denial does not deport anyone today. It begins the chain. Denial triggers referral to immigration court, which initiates removal proceedings, which end in deportation orders. This memo belongs alongside the Chamorro detention memo, the travel ban, the SIV processing freezes, and the executive orders suspending refugee admissions. Taken together, they are a coordinated administrative campaign to block Afghan allies from achieving lawful permanent residence in the country they helped serve.

Adjustment of Status Guidance Explainer

If you have a pending adjustment application, talk to a qualified immigration attorney now.

Read our Statement

IF YOU RECEIVED A CHIEF OF MISSION DENIAL OR WITHDRAWAL OF SUPPORT

We are seeing a sharp rise in Chief of Mission denials and withdrawals of support being issued to Afghan allies who are already inside the United States. These letters revoke the underlying approval that anchors the SIV pathway and, depending on the recipient’s posture, can cascade into a loss of status, work authorization, or legal protection from removal.

The letters look like this

If you are in the United States and you have received a COM denial or a withdrawal of support, fill out our intake form at afghanevac.org/com-help. Once we have your information, we will refer you to a legal services provider. We will also share de-identified data with the immigration attorneys and litigators working on this issue, so the response keeps up with the scale of what is happening.

A few things to be clear about.

This is for people in the United States only. If you are outside the United States, this intake will not be actioned, and we will not give anyone false hope. The legal questions for allies still in transit are different and require different support.

You must include proof that you are in the United States. The form will ask for a copy of your green card. Without it, the intake will not move forward.

Do not wait. A COM denial or withdrawal of support is not the end of your case, but the response window matters. Submit your information today.

We will keep updating the community as the legal response develops. If you know an ally who has received one of these letters, forward this section to them today.

Get Help

COME SEE US, OR LET US COME TO YOU

As often as we are asked, we visit Afghan communities around the country and around the world to answer questions, hear stories, and build community. We take what we hear and carry the voices of our allies into Congress, into the press, and into the rooms where decisions are made. San Diego this past weekend is one example. There will be more.

For security reasons, we do not usually share town hall details publicly more than a few days in advance. We do circulate flyers throughout the Afghan community in each region as the event approaches. If you are a community leader in a region we are visiting, we will get the flyer to you.

We have town halls coming up in the next few days in Rochester, Dallas, and Fort Worth. If you are in one of those communities, sign up now so we can get you the details. If you want us to come to your community, sign up. The more interest we see from a region, the faster we can build a visit around it.

Sign up for a town hall

A note for Afghan women and girls specifically. The May 23 listening session at Kunduz Kabob House was the kind of conversation we want to keep having, in more places, with more women and girls at the table. If you want to be part of the next one, join our Women and Girls engagement list. This list is for women and girls only.

Join our Women and Girls list

DORCAS INTERNATIONAL INSTITUTE OF RHODE ISLAND v. USCIS

Counsel argued Dorcas on May 21, challenging four USCIS policies that have functionally frozen adjustment of status for refugees and asylees, the Global Asylum Hold, the Benefits Hold, Comprehensive Re-Review, and the Country-Specific Factors Policy. We expect a ruling, or at least an indication of where the court is heading, in the coming days or weeks. As soon as we have it, we will put it out. Watch your inbox.

ENGAGEMENT CONTINUES WITH TALIBAN IN EUROPE

Last week, we shed light on the fact that European countries such as Germany have opened talks with the Taliban regime to potentially repatriate Afghan asylum seekers from Germany back to Afghanistan. Pathways for Afghans are being restricted everywhere, and this latest move by European governments puts even more pressure on advocacy groups and Afghan communities to share their stories about why negotiations with the Taliban put all Afghans at risk.

Right now in Germany, talks are ongoing between members of the German government and other European entities to ensure that Afghans have a safe pathway to a durable life for them and their families.

#AfghanEvac is showing up by standing in solidarity with our German Afghan community and advocating for every Afghan voice to be heard instead of the Taliban regime who continue to put millions in harms way.

BATTLE BUDDIES IN NEW YORK CITY

The Battle Buddies team spent time in New York City this past week alongside volunteers from the New Sanctuary Coalition, observing immigration court hearings at 26 Federal Plaza. Former New York City Comptroller Brad Lander was also in the courtroom. The pattern across the master hearings was unmistakable. In nearly every case, respondents were either pretermitted or pressured into accepting voluntary departure. Only two cases made it through to scheduling for individual hearings, and those individual hearings are now being set for October 2029 because of the backlog. That timeline cuts both ways. It puts the merits of these cases past the current administration, which is the upside. It also leaves respondents exposed to ICE detention for years in the interim, which is the danger. Court observation is part of how we document that danger and push back on it.

The Battle Buddies team also joined the New Sanctuary Coalition’s weekly pro se clinic at 55 West 15th Street in Manhattan. If you are in the New York City area and do not have legal representation, the clinic can help with forms, paperwork, and navigating the immigration legal process. Clinics run Wednesday evenings from 5:45 to 8 PM.

Our 100 percent no-detention record for Battle Buddies holds.

Sign up to be a Battle Buddy

CONGRESS, POSTPONEMENTS AND A HEARING THAT MATTERS

The House Foreign Affairs Subcommittee hearing on 25 years in Afghanistan, with witnesses from SIGAR, has been postponed again. After moving from May 19 to June 24, it has now been pushed to after the August recess, with a working target of Tuesday, September 2. This is the second postponement in two months.

The hearing's framing is the 25-year arc since 9/11, but anyone watching knows that arc does not end at the war. It ends at the withdrawal, the broken promises, the people still at CAS, and the people receiving Chief of Mission revocations in the mail. We expect those topics to come up. We will be in the room when they do.

We will come back in August with more information. AfghanEvac will host a happy hour following the hearing, co-hosts and sponsors welcome, email shawn@afghanevac.org.

Sign up to show up

The hearings that matter this coming week are back-to-back. On Tuesday, June 2, Secretary Rubio testifies before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. On Wednesday, June 3, he testifies before the House Foreign Affairs Committee. Two days, two committees, one Secretary, and the first major opportunity since the DRC plan collapsed for members of Congress to put him on the record about what comes next. We are working with offices on both sides of the aisle, in both chambers, to make sure the questions get asked. The three that matter most.

1. With the DRC scenario abandoned, what is the State Department’s plan for the 1,100 vetted Afghan allies at CAS, and on what timeline. Will the Department admit eligible CAS residents to the United States under USRAP or humanitarian parole.

2. How does the Department reconcile the new USCIS adjustment of status memo, which directs Afghan parolees to consular processing in their home country, with the fact that there is no U.S. consular presence in Afghanistan.

3. How does the Department intend to meet the monthly SIV processing benchmarks ordered by Judge Chutkan beginning in June.

If a senator on Foreign Relations or a representative on Foreign Affairs represents you, call before Monday. We have sent more than 30 documented communications to senior officials over 15 months. We have not had a principal-level meeting. The record speaks for itself. Postponement is not denial. It is delay. Delay is policy.

Watch the Hearing

ON THE GROUND IN SAN DIEGO

San Diego carried a lot this week.

Standing with our Muslim neighbors. Before we get to anything else local, we hold the families and community of the Islamic Center of San Diego. On Monday, May 18, two teenage gunmen opened fire outside the largest mosque in San Diego County, killing Amin Abdullah, Mansour Kaziha, and Nader Awad. The three men gave their lives shielding worshippers and the 140 children inside the school next door. Authorities are investigating the attack as a hate crime. Our hearts are with the families. Our hearts are with Imam Taha Hassane and the entire Islamic Center community. And our gratitude is with the city of San Diego, which wrapped its arms around our Muslim neighbors in the days that followed, with hundreds gathering for an interfaith vigil at Lindbergh Park, faith leaders of every tradition standing beside Imam Hassane, and neighbors of every background showing up. That is the San Diego we know.

Hate does not stay in its lane. The logic that says one community is the threat is the same logic used to scapegoat Afghan allies, refugees, and immigrant families. We reject it wherever it appears, and we stand with every community in this city that has been told they do not belong.

Afghan Women and Girls Listening Session, Kunduz Kabob House. On Saturday, May 23, AfghanEvac and Second Families SD co-hosted a listening session for Afghan women and girls in the San Diego region. More than 60 women attended. The conversation was led in Pashto, Dari, and English. The room was theirs. We were there to listen. What we heard does not stay in the room. It travels with us to the Hill, to the press, and into the next round of policy fights. Thank you to Niamatullah B. Khan and Second Families SD, to Kunduz Kabob House, and to every woman and girl who came and spoke.

If you are an Afghan woman or girl and you want to be part of the next conversation, join our Women and Girls engagement list at afghanevac.org/women-and-girls. This list is for women and girls only.

Hazara Culture Day, Liberty Station. On Sunday, May 24, AfghanEvac was proud to stand with the Hazara community at Hazara Culture Day at Liberty Station. California Assemblymember Chris Ward, joined by Field Representative Michael Bravo, presented a Certificate of Recognition honoring California Hazaras. The Hazara community has carried generations of persecution in Afghanistan, most recently under the Taliban. Days like this are how a community insists on being seen and refuses to be reduced to a footnote.

AfghanEvac Event Remarks

In the Press

• "Showing Up is the Love Language of Advocacy." A Conversation with Shawn VanDiver of #AfghanEvac — Austin Kocher

• How the Trump administration is changing the green card application process — KCRA Sacramento

• Trump administration upends green card process, potentially compelling hundreds of thousands to leave US to apply — CNN

• New rule requires most green-card applicants to apply from outside U.S. — Washington Post

• Trump administration to force foreigners in the U.S. to apply for a green card abroad — NPR

• Trump’s Green Card Changes Could Force Hundreds of Thousands to Leave U.S. — TIME

The country paused yesterday to honor the fallen. Today, we get back to the work they would expect of us.

More than 1,100 vetted Afghan allies are still inside a camp we built, waiting for a destination the United States owes them and that is now, finally, back on the drawing board.

Tens of thousands more, already here and already vetted, woke up last week to a memo telling them the green card they were eligible for is now an act of grace.

Hundreds more are receiving letters revoking the Chief of Mission approval that anchors their legal pathway.

In San Diego this past weekend, Afghan women, girls, and Hazara families showed up for each other and asked us to keep showing up for them.

We will.

America made a promise.

We are not asking. We are reminding the people who made it that the deadline for keeping it is now.

We are furious. We are focused. And we are not going anywhere.

Meanwhile, the country the administration was prepared to send 1,100 vetted Afghan allies to is now under a WHO public health emergency for Ebola, and a familiar scammer is back, telling Afghan families to skip lawyers and trust him instead.

Here is where things stand and what to do about it.

Action This Week

• Read the new State Department SIV report and share our statement. The numbers tell the story. Review the report at go.afghanevac.org/2026-dos-update-siv. Our statement is here.

• Read and share this story on the Ebola outbreak in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. This is the country to which the administration was, until last week, planning to send 1,100 vetted Afghan allies. WHO declared a public health emergency of international concern on Sunday. bbc.com/news/articles/c2l2p0wwzzdo

• Send us a 60-second video. Organizations and individuals welcome. Please do not put yourself at risk. We will post videos to amplify the work happening across this ecosystem. Send to share-my-video@afghanevac.org letting us know we have your permission to post. Please include your name, organization, and location.

The State Department Confirms What We Have Been Saying for Months

On Wednesday, May 13, the State Department released a report meant to update Congress on the Afghan Special Immigrant Visa program. The headline numbers are unambiguous.

Current State of SIV

Scroll through yesterday’s Instagram update to learn more and keep reading below.

Zero SIVs have been issued to Afghan applicants since January 1, 2026.

Of the 50,500 principal applicant visas Congress authorized, 5,970 remain (like we said back in January, before official numbers were released).

The program is effectively closed. Since the application deadline came and went on December 31, 2025, no new Chief of Mission applications will be created, and the administration has paired the legal wind-down with a presidential proclamation that suspends visa issuance to Afghan nationals altogether. The Department says it is still reviewing applications and conducting interviews. It is not issuing visas. This is the policy outcome we have been documenting all year. A federal court ordered the government to keep adjudicating cases in February. The administration has complied with the letter of that order while ensuring nothing the adjudications produce can be acted on. Applicants are being told to show up for interviews, in most cases across borders and at significant cost, without being informed that under current policy their applications will be denied and they’ll have to start over when and if the travel ban is lifted. That is not a process. It is a trap.

The SIV report is significant because it is the program with the longest bipartisan record, an incredibly rigorous vetting framework, and the clearest statutory promise. The administration has chosen to let it close.

To be clear about what this report covers, this is the Special Immigrant Visa program for Afghans who served the United States during the war. It is not the U.S. Refugee Admissions Program (P1 and P2). It is not family reunification. It is not asylum. Each of those tracks has its own status and its own active litigation, and we have a section on each below.

Our statement is on our website and all over our social media.

Read the Report

Case Processing Updates by Pathway

The SIV report is the headline this week, but the rest of the pipeline matters and continues to deteriorate. Here is where each pathway stands.

SIV. Adjudications continue under the February 6, 2026 court order in Afghan and Iraqi Allies v. Rubio. Visa issuance does not. The new report confirms zero issuances since January 1. Chief of Mission averages remain over 669 days. Approximately 178,000 Afghan SIV applicants have already received COM approval and are stranded somewhere in the pipeline.

SIV Current State

USRAP P1 and P2. The refugee admissions program remains suspended outside the narrow set of cases ordered restored under Pacito v. Trump. The Ninth Circuit upheld most of the suspension in March. Travel for the small group with imminent flights at the time of the freeze has resumed in small numbers, but the program is not running for the broader Afghan caseload. We hope to see Afghans included in the reportedly forthcoming “emergency” Presidential Determination update.

Family reunification. Families separated for years are still separated across all categories, with no relief expected in the near future.

Here is the full Pathways section and the Dorcas explainer that follows it, ready to drop in.

Case Processing Updates by Pathway

The SIV report is the headline this week, but the rest of the pipeline matters and continues to deteriorate. Here is where each pathway stands.

SIV. Adjudications continue under the February 6, 2026 court order in Afghan and Iraqi Allies v. Rubio. Visa issuance does not. The new report confirms zero issuances since January 1. Chief of Mission averages remain over 669 days. Approximately 178,000 Afghan SIV applicants have already received COM approval and are stranded somewhere in the pipeline.

USRAP P1 and P2. The refugee admissions program remains suspended outside the narrow set of cases ordered restored under Pacito v. Trump. The Ninth Circuit upheld most of the suspension last fall. Travel for the small group with imminent flights at the time of the freeze has resumed in small numbers, but the program is not running for the broader Afghan caseload. We hope to see Afghans included in the reportedly forthcoming “emergency” Presidential Determination update.

Family reunification. Families separated for years are still separated across all categories, with no relief expected in the near future.

Asylum. Asylum adjudications remain paused for nationals of all travel ban countries, including Afghans, under the USCIS “Global Asylum Hold” now being challenged in Dorcas v. USCIS. The new asylum fee rule takes effect May 29th, 2026. Combined with the surge in ICE enforcement and the elimination of categorical exemptions in Presidential Proclamation 10998, Afghan asylum seekers in the United States face a system that is both more expensive to navigate and more dangerous to engage.

Green cards and adjustment. As far as we can tell, green cards are only being processed for arriving SIVs, not for anyone else. The Dorcas International Institute of Rhode Island v. USCIS case, which challenges the USCIS policies behind this freeze, has a hearing on Thursday, May 21 in front of Chief Judge McConnell. A ruling is expected to follow. See the explainer below.

What Is Dorcas v. USCIS, and Why It Matters for Your Case

If you have an asylum, green card, or work permit application pending with USCIS, this case may affect you directly.

The case. A coalition of immigrant service organizations and labor unions, represented by Democracy Forward, RAICES, Muslim Advocates, the Lawyers’ Committee for Rhode Island, and the South Asian American Justice Collaborative, sued USCIS in the District of Rhode Island on March 5, 2026. They are challenging four policies that, together, have shut down large portions of the legal immigration system for people already living in the United States.

The four policies. The “Global Asylum Hold” indefinitely halts affirmative asylum adjudications. The “Benefits Hold” freezes work permit, green card, and other benefit applications for nationals of countries on the travel ban list, including Afghanistan. The “Comprehensive Re-Review” subjects previously approved benefits to renewed scrutiny. The “Country-Specific Factors Policy” tells officers to weigh country of origin against an applicant in discretionary decisions.

Why it matters for the Afghan community. Three of these four sit directly on top of Afghan cases. Asylum seekers cannot move their cases forward. Green card and work permit applicants are caught in the Benefits Hold because Afghanistan is on the travel ban list. Afghans already granted status are exposed to the Comprehensive Re-Review. If the court strikes down any or all of these policies, the affected processing should resume.

Where it stands. Briefing closed on May 8. The court has set a hearing for Thursday, May 21 before Chief Judge John J. McConnell, Jr. A ruling is expected to follow.

What to do now. Do not withdraw a pending application based on the current freeze. If you have an active asylum, green card, or work authorization case, talk to a credentialed immigration attorney about preserving your filing date. The case caption for your attorney is Dorcas International Institute of Rhode Island v. USCIS, 1:26-cv-00132 (D.R.I.). We will update the moment Chief Judge McConnell rules.

Bad Information Persists

The case processing freeze has produced a second crisis alongside the policy one. People with no real knowledge of how these systems work, no accountability to the community, and no access to the government they claim to represent are making decisions on behalf of vulnerable people who are looking to them for help. The damage is not theoretical. It is families spending money they do not have, skipping legal consultations that could save them, and walking into appointments without understanding the risk that denials carry for future visa consideration.

One example. In recent days, Saber Nasiri has told Afghan audiences that “lawyers are butchers and shouldn’t be trusted,” that case processing is moving forward and people should trust him on it, and that Afghans should keep traveling to their visa interviews. Read those claims against the State Department’s May 13 report. Zero SIVs issued in 2026. Telling Afghan families to distrust qualified legal counsel in a year of expanded ICE enforcement and a new asylum fee rule is dangerous on its own. Telling them to keep traveling to interviews without warning them their applications will not produce a visa is the same trap the State Department is setting, repackaged in friendlier language. This is not Nasiri’s first time doing this. During the CARE years, he was running the same playbook. We called him out then. He quietly went away for a time. He is back at it now.

Nasiri is not the only person spreading this kind of misinformation. He is indicative of a problem. The Afghan community has actual authoritative voices, coalition partners, credentialed attorneys, named officials, and case managers with track records anyone can verify. All of us, advocates, veterans, community leaders, journalists, and everyone with a platform, have an obligation to make sure what we share is accurate. If you do not know, say so. If you are not sure, ask someone who does. If you have a microphone, use it carefully.

If you are an Afghan ally or family member, do not take case advice from social media influencers. Talk to a credentialed immigration attorney. Use the AfghanEvac partner network. Consult the State Department’s official channels at AfghanSIVapplication@state.gov.

The U.S. government does not charge fees for SIV or Chief of Mission approval, does not contact applicants through messaging apps, and has not authorized any private individual to communicate status on its behalf.

If you have lost money or personal information to a scammer, report it to the FTC at reportfraud.ftc.gov.

The Ebola Outbreak in the Democratic Republic of the Congo

On Sunday, May 17, the World Health Organization declared the Ebola outbreak in the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Uganda a public health emergency of international concern. As of the WHO declaration, the outbreak had produced 246 suspected cases and 80 suspected deaths in the DRC’s Ituri province, with 9 laboratory-confirmed cases and additional confirmed cases reported in Goma and in Kampala, Uganda. The strain is Bundibugyo, for which there is no approved vaccine or therapeutic. Prior Bundibugyo outbreaks have killed around 40 percent of those infected.

This is the country to which, three weeks ago, senior State Department officials were proposing to send the 1,100 Afghan allies at Camp As Sayliyah, including more than 400 children and approximately 150 immediate family members of active-duty U.S. service members.

We said in April that the DRC plan was unsafe, coercive, operationally unserious, and morally indefensible. The Ebola declaration is not the reason it was wrong. It is one more reason it was wrong, and it removes any remaining ambiguity about the consequences of that proposal had it gone forward. Vetted Afghan allies, women, children, interpreters, and commandos would have been placed into a country in active conflict with Rwanda, hosting more than 600,000 existing refugees it cannot support, and now facing a regional Ebola outbreak.

The administration should formally rescind the DRC scenario, publicly confirm it is off the table, and brief Congress on what comes next.

Read the BBC Report

Congressional Hearing Postponed

The congressional hearing which was scheduled for this week has been postponed. We will publish the new date as soon as it is set but we’ve heard either June 24th or sometime in September.

Senator Shaheen Calls on State to Admit CAS Residents

Senator Jeanne Shaheen, Ranking Member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, sent a letter to Secretary Rubio May 7th urging the administration to admit the vetted Afghan allies at Camp As Sayliyah to the United States under USRAP or humanitarian parole rather than continue the third-country relocation search. Her letter is consistent with, and builds on, the 29-senator letter Senator Blumenthal led after the April 25 virtual congressional delegation to CAS.

This is the Ranking Member of SFRC, with the full weight of that institutional position, telling the Secretary of State that the answer to CAS is admission to the United States. There is no third-country search that gets this right. Congo has now demonstrated that beyond any reasonable doubt.

If your senator or representative has not yet weighed in, ask them to. Specifically ask them to join Senator Shaheen and the 29 senators on Senator Blumenthal’s letter in publicly supporting U.S. admission for vetted CAS residents.

Read the Letter

Pipeline snapshot, carried forward. Roughly 260,000 Afghan allies in processing across 90 countries. Roughly 178,000 with Chief of Mission approval. Roughly 1,100 at CAS. 5,970 SIV visas remaining in the annual allocation per the State Department’s May 13 report. These numbers are what is at stake.

In the Press

• The End of Refugee Resettlement — The New Yorker

• U.S. State Department: No SIV visas issued to Afghans in 2026 — 8AM Media

• Ebola outbreak declared global public health emergency in Democratic Republic of Congo and Uganda — BBC News

• ‘I’m on panic mode,’ says health official as Ebola outbreak declared global public health emergency in Democratic Republic of Congo and Uganda — Sky News

• WHO declares global health emergency over Ebola outbreak in Congo and Uganda — NBC News

• World Health Organization declares Ebola outbreak in Congo a global health emergency — NPR

• World Health Organization declares Ebola outbreak in Congo a global health emergency — KPBS

• WHO declares Ebola outbreak in Congo, Uganda an emergency of international concern — CBC News

• WHO declares Ebola outbreak in Congo and Uganda a global health emergency — PBS NewsHour

• Can new Pakistan-Afghanistan tensions lead to another border clash? — Al Jazeera

• Why Are the Afghan Taliban and Pakistan in an ‘Open War’? — Council on Foreign Relations

• Ebola outbreak 2026: Q&A with experts — Imperial College London

• Africa CDC Calls for Urgent Regional Coordination Following Ebola Virus Disease Outbreak in Ituri Province, DRC, and Imported Ebola Bundibugyo Case Reported by Uganda — Africa CDC

The State Department’s own numbers, published this week, confirm what Afghan applicants have been living for five months. Zero visas issued.

The most rigorously vetted legal immigration pathway in modern U.S. history wound down without a vote, without a debate, and without honor.

A second proposal to send the people still owed safe passage to a country now facing an Ebola public health emergency has, by Sunday’s WHO declaration, become indefensible on grounds no one in this administration can dispute.

The path forward is not complicated. Admit vetted Afghan allies to the United States. Honor the SIV statute that still exists. Restore the adjudications USCIS has frozen.

We are furious. We are focused. We are not going anywhere.

The pressure is working. The window is open. Here is where things stand.

Action This Week

• Sign the CAS open letter at afghanevac.org/sign. Over 1,000 Americans have already signed.

• Amplify Judge Chutkan’s enforcement order. The order is on the public docket here. Post it, send it, cite it.

• Share Zahra’s story in The Independent. A 15-year-old at CAS recorded a video message to the First Lady. She shouldn’t have had to. Read and share.

  Donate to AfghanEvac

Judge Chutkan Orders SIV Compliance

On May 8, in Afghan and Iraqi Allies v. Rubio, Judge Tanya Chutkan signed an enforcement order finding the State Department has “woefully failed” to meet its obligations under the Revised Adjudication Plan. The court ordered monthly Chief of Mission processing benchmarks, 1,000 cases in June, 2,000 in July, 3,000 in August and September, and at least 4,000 every month thereafter until the backlog is cleared. The Department must file a public compliance notice on the docket every month and, if it misses a benchmark, explain why.

Why it matters

A federal judge has now publicly found the Department’s conduct is a compliance failure, not a discretionary choice. The benchmarks are not strict mandates, the order uses “endeavor” language, and the travel ban still automatically denies visas after CoM approval. But the order forces the Department to put its numbers on the public record, every month, where reporters, Congress, and class counsel can read them. That is real accountability infrastructure where there was none.

Read the Order

USCIS Sending Unexpected “Action Taken” Notices to Already-Approved Afghans

Afghans in touch with our teams, and reports filtering in through partner organizations across the coalition, point to a wave of unexpected messages from USCIS in recent days. The messages appear as notifications inside recipients’ USCIS online accounts. They read along the lines of “we have taken an action in your case” and indicate the case is still being processed, even where adjustment of status (green card) and other immigration benefits applications were approved months or years ago. In at least one reported instance, an applicant’s case status reverted to a prior pending status for roughly 24 to 36 hours before being restored. USCIS has acknowledged the issue and said it is under investigation. No public guidance has been issued to affected applicants.

Why it matters

If approved cases can quietly flip back to “pending” without explanation, no Afghan with status in the United States can trust that the approval they hold today will be the approval they hold tomorrow. Even if the trigger is technical, the pattern sits on top of the USCIS adjudication freeze on travel-ban-country nationals, the proposed retroactive refugee reinterview program, and the broader policy of subjecting already-vetted Afghans to second and third reviews. Until USCIS publishes guidance, Afghans who receive one of these messages should not act on it unilaterally. Document the notification, including timestamps and screenshots. Talk to a qualified immigration attorney before responding. Stay in touch with your resettlement agency. We will publish guidance as soon as USCIS does, and we will keep escalating in the meantime.

The Open Letter Has Crossed 1,000 Signatures

The open letter to Secretaries Mullin and Rubio has crossed 1,000 signatories, including General Stanley McChrystal, retired ambassadors, veterans, faith leaders, military families, and refugee resettlement organizations. Senator Blumenthal led 28 of his Senate colleagues to send the administration a parallel letter calling the DRC plan “one of the most cruel and imprudent betrayals in our nation’s history.” Coalition volunteers and AfghanEvac staff hand-delivered the letter to 50 congressional offices this week and posted from the drop-offs across our channels.

Why it matters

The letter is a public record the administration cannot say it never received. It asks for action already within executive authority, including admitting approved refugees, ensuring safe conditions at CAS, resuming SIV and refugee processing, and briefing Congress on the legal basis for continued detention. Every additional signature widens the record. If you have not signed, sign. If your organization has not signed, get it on the list.

We sent the original letter last week and I assured the leaders who received it that we would be sure to update them as the letter grows.

Read and Sign

We broke the story of the letter on Anderson Cooper 360.

A Mother’s Day Note

This is the fifth Mother’s Day since the fall of Kabul. Afghan moms in our community have not seen their children in four or five years. Afghan children at CAS have not seen their grandmothers. There are families with mom in Kabul, dad in Kansas, and the kids split between them. None of this is accidental. Each separation is the result of a U.S. policy choice that has not been unmade.

Why it matters

The largest evacuation in American history is unfinished, and the people paying for that unfinished work are mothers and their kids. To every Afghan mom apart from her children today, we see you. We are not quitting until these families are whole.

Zahra Should Not Have Had to Be the Face

Zahra is 15. She has spent most of the last two years at CAS, where there is no school for teenage girls and where missile debris has fallen close enough to terrify her 11-year-old brother. This week, The Independent ran her video message to the First Lady. Senator Blumenthal amplified it on her birthday. Anderson Cooper and Scripps covered the broader CAS situation. International coverage hit four continents and seven languages.

Why it matters

It is good that her story broke through. It is not good that her story had to. A 15-year-old in the legal custody of the United States should not have had to record a public appeal to be treated as a person. The work is not to make her famous. The work is to bring her home.

Read her story

Qatar Sets a September Deadline. Malaysia Is on the Table. DRC Is Still in Play.

On May 8, diplomatic documents released by the State Department confirmed that Qatar has asked the United States to relocate all CAS residents out of Doha by September 2026, and to refrain from sending any additional Afghans to Qatari territory. Separately, we are hearing Malaysia is being discussed as a destination for a small subset of CAS residents, likely women. The DRC remains under active consideration. Do not believe anyone who tells you the DRC is off the table until that statement comes officially from the State Department. Anonymous sourcing and well-intentioned reassurance are not the same as a public Department commitment.

Why it matters

Roughly 900 of the 1,100 people at CAS are already approved for U.S. admission. Approximately 150 are immediate family of active-duty U.S. service members. More than 440 are children. Qatar’s September window now sits over all of this as a hard timeline. The right destination for vetted, approved Afghan allies in U.S. custody is the United States. Every other conversation is a workaround.

Until State publicly closes the DRC option, the right posture is unchanged. Press. Amplify. Sign. Call.

Europe Is Quietly Engaging the Taliban

The same week the U.S. is trying to manufacture a refusal from CAS residents, our European partners are walking into the same trap from the opposite direction. On May 1, the German investigative program ZDF Magazin Royale, exposed a series of meetings between officials at Germany’s Federal Office for Migration and Refugees and individuals identified as Taliban representatives, held in Bonn and at Berlin Brandenburg Airport. The purpose, according to the reporting, was to coordinate deportation documentation and identify Afghan nationals for return. German Interior Minister Alexander Dobrindt has publicly committed to continuing deportation flights to Afghanistan on an ongoing basis, including, where necessary, through direct communication with the Taliban.

Germany is not alone. Twenty European countries, including Belgium, Austria, the Netherlands, Denmark, Greece, and Norway, have formally pressed the European Commission to negotiate a returns arrangement with Kabul. An EU special envoy visited the Taliban in April. Brussels is preparing to host a Taliban technical delegation before the summer. The European Commissioner for Migration, Magnus Brunner, has publicly said that engagement with the Taliban “is not an option” Europe can avoid. Negotiations like this lend public credence to the idea that return is acceptable for those fleeing the extremist Taliban regime.

Member of European Parliament Hannah Neumann warned this week that each coordinated return “gives the Taliban more power instead of weakening them.”

Why it matters

The same logic the Trump administration is using to push Afghans out of CAS, pretending Afghanistan is “safe enough” for return, is influencing Brussels to potentially justify deportations into Taliban hands. Every European deportation flight handed off to Taliban officials normalizes the regime as Afghanistan’s de facto government and forecloses a destination of last resort for Afghans fleeing harm. Non-refoulement is not a regional principle. It is a principle of international law, and right now it is being eroded on both sides of the Atlantic, by governments that all signed the same treaties.

This is bigger than any one country’s policy. It is a coordinated retreat from a baseline obligation, and AfghanEvac will be saying so publicly to our European counterparts and to our coalition partners working this same fight in Europe.

We will be engaging on this and look forward to keeping you looped on the issue.

All Souls Church

I had the honor of speaking at All Souls Church in Washington, DC this weekend on faith, civic obligation, and what we owe those who stood with us when standing with us was the most dangerous thing they could do.

Shoutout to Samad and Carrie, who showed up at All Souls to support our efforts there.

Pipeline Snapshot

Roughly 260,000 Afghan allies in processing across 90 countries. Roughly 178,000 with Chief of Mission approval. Roughly 1,100 at CAS. Roughly 5,900 SIV visas remaining in the annual allocation. Last week’s numbers. They will be next week’s numbers if nothing changes. That is the point.

In the Press
CAS, DRC, and the open letter

• They were hunted by the Taliban for helping the US. Now Trump wants to send these families to the DRC — The Guardian

• Afghan girl issues emotional appeal to Melania Trump after more than a year and a half in U.S. camp — The Independent

• Trump admin considering resettling Afghans to the DRC — CNN Anderson Cooper 360

• Advocates slam Trump plan to send wartime Afghan allies to Congo — KPBS / Scripps

• Afghans promised a home in U.S. may face repatriation, and the Taliban — Washington Post / Detroit News syndication

• Qatar has asked the United States to relocate Afghan refugees by September — Hasht-e Subh

• US considering sending stranded Afghans in Qatar to the Congo, advocacy group says — Middle East Eye

• Ranking Member Shaheen presses State Department to resettle Afghan allies in the United States — Senate Foreign Relations Committee

Europe and the Taliban

• Germany: More deportations to Afghanistan raise criticism over collaboration with Taliban — InfoMigrants

• Germany holds secret talks with Taliban amid controversial Afghan deportations — AtlasPress / ZDF Magazin Royale

• Brussels prepares to engage with Taliban on Afghan deportations — Brussels Signal

• EU considers talks with Taliban in Brussels over Afghan returns — Belga News Agency

• MEP Neumann warns deportations to Afghanistan could strengthen Taliban — Future Afghanistan

Inside Afghanistan and across the region

• Afghanistan risks losing 25,000 women teachers and health workers — UN News

• Speaking up for girls’ education carries heavy risks in Afghanistan — Inter Press Service

• Pakistan: Surge in forced returns of Afghan refugees — Human Rights Watch

• Over 9,000 Afghans return from Pakistan in two days as deportation drive intensifies — KabulNow

• Pakistan must immediately halt deportation of Afghan refugees — Refugees International

Every outcome above is the result of a choice someone with authority is making, and every one of them can be unmade by someone with the same authority choosing differently. The court forced one such choice into the open this week. A thousand Americans forced another. Twenty-nine senators forced a third. A teenager in Doha forced a fourth.

The promise was made by Americans. The work of keeping it is American work. On this day-after-Mother’s Day, with families still apart and a refusal plan still on the table, we will keep doing that work in every room where it matters.

We are furious. We are focused. And we are not going anywhere.

The administration’s plan to relocate Camp As Sayliyah residents to the Democratic Republic of the Congo broke into the open, drew a sharp Senate rebuke, and lit up coverage on four continents and in seven langauges.

DHS published an interim final rule that turns a missed asylum fee into a deportation proceeding.

UNICEF put numbers on what Taliban rule has cost Afghan women and girls.

A federal court is being asked to scrub from the public record evidence that the administration has built a parallel refugee pathway for white Afrikaners.

And on Thursday, Judge Tanya Chutkan will hear from the parties in the SIV class action again.

Here is where things stand and what we are asking you to do this week.

Action This Week

Sign the CAS open letter by end of day today. The letter opposes the administration’s plan to relocate Camp As Sayliyah residents to the Democratic Republic of the Congo. We have already crossed 420 signatures. We will launch the letter publicly this week, and every signer will receive a social media toolkit to help amplify it. Watch your inbox.

Sign the letter

Show up Thursday, May 7, in Washington. Coordinated courtroom presence in Afghan and Iraqi Allies v. Rubio before Judge Tanya Chutkan. Battle Buddies will be on hand. Happy hour to follow.

Show up

Read the asylum fee explainer and prepare a public comment. DHS published its interim final rule on April 29. It takes effect May 29. Comments close June 29.

Read and share

The DRC Plan

The administration is moving forward with negotiations to relocate the roughly 1,100 Afghans at Camp As Sayliyah, more than 400 of them children and approximately 150 immediate family members of active-duty U.S. service members, to the Democratic Republic of the Congo. The State Department has not denied the plan. Pressed last week, the President said, “I don’t know. I have to check that.”

This is the population the United States vetted, evacuated, and approved for resettlement. They were promised twenty-one days at CAS. Many have been there for years. The March 31 closure deadline came and went. Now they are being offered two options: return to Afghanistan, where the Taliban maintains a presence in Doha and has visited the camp, or accept transfer to a country in active armed conflict, hosting more than 600,000 refugees of its own and ranked by the UN as one of the world’s largest displacement crises.

This is not a third-country solution. It is a refusal engineered by named officials, including the State Department’s Andrew Veprek and Christian Ehrhardt, who have spent the past several months finding ways to push Afghan allies back to Taliban-controlled Afghanistan, where they face persecution, imprisonment, and in many documented cases, death. As we put it to NBC News this week, you do not solve the world’s number one refugee crisis by dumping it into the world’s number two.

Here is what we are also hearing. The pressure is working. The Senate letter, the wave of international coverage, and the public record we have built together over the past two weeks are forcing the administration to reopen the question. Other countries are now reportedly under consideration. That is not a victory. It is a window. And it stays open only as long as we keep the pressure on. Our open letter is how we keep the pressure on.

The open letter has crossed 420 signatures and the window stays open through end of day today Monday, May 4. We will launch the letter publicly this week, and every signer will receive a social media toolkit to help amplify it. If you have not signed, sign. If your organization has not signed, get it on the list before the deadline.

Sign the open letter

29 Senators Put the White House on Notice

Following a successful Congressional Delegation to visit with CAS residents, Senator Richard Blumenthal led 28 other Senators to send the administration a letter calling the DRC proposal “one of the most cruel and imprudent betrayals in our nation’s history.” Senator Tim Kaine put the strategic stakes plainly. “Going back on our word will only make it harder for us to build the kinds of partnerships we may need to advance our national security in the future.”

Why this matters. The letter puts the administration’s plan on the congressional record before any deal is signed and gives reporters, advocates, and other lawmakers a clean reference point to act on. Eight signatures is a floor, not a ceiling. Thank these senators publicly. Call your own.

Read the Senate Letter

Show up in DC this week

Thursday’s hearing is the next checkpoint in Afghan and Iraqi Allies v. Rubio, the long-running class action holding the State Department to a court-ordered SIV adjudication plan. In February, Judge Tanya Chutkan ordered the administration to resume Chief of Mission processing for class members despite the travel ban, writing that officials had “no authority, statutory or otherwise” to suspend processes Congress had required them to expedite. Compliance has been uneven. CoM stages remain slow, and the broader pipeline remains effectively frozen.

Why this matters. Showing up sends a signal to the bench, to opposing counsel, and to the press that the people behind this docket are not abstractions on a calendar.

This is not a protest, it’s about showing up in solidarity. Standing silently and bearing witness.

We will be in the room. If you can be, join us.

Sign up and Show up

UNICEF Quantifies What the Taliban Has Cost Afghan Women and Girls

UNICEF released “The Cost of Inaction on Girls’ Education and Women’s Labour Force Participation in Afghanistan” on Monday, April 27. The numbers are stark. Afghanistan is on track to lose more than 25,000 female teachers and health workers by 2030, roughly 20,000 teachers and 5,400 healthcare workers. More than one million girls have been excluded from secondary education since the 2021 ban. That figure is projected to double by 2030. Female civil service representation has fallen from 21 percent to 17.7 percent in two years. The British Foreign Office endorsed the findings the same day.

Why this matters. The data directly rebuts any official narrative that conditions in Afghanistan have improved enough to justify forced returns. The administration cannot square the DRC plan, the TPS termination, or the suspended SIV pipeline with what UNICEF has now put on the record.

Read the report

The New Asylum Fee Rule Is a Removal Trigger

DHS published an interim final rule on April 29 implementing the asylum-related fee provisions of the H.R.1 reconciliation law, the One Big Beautiful Bill Act. It takes effect May 29. Public comments are open until June 29 under DHS Docket No. USCIS-2026-0133.

The headline change is not the dollar amount. It is the consequence. If an asylum applicant fails to pay the new Annual Asylum Fee within thirty days of notification, USCIS will reject the pending I-589 application. For applicants without other lawful status, USCIS will then initiate removal. Tied work authorization is denied or revoked. The rule also caps TPS work authorization at one year regardless of the underlying TPS designation, and it lets USCIS keep the I-589 filing fee even when it rejects an application as improperly filed.

Why this matters. This rule converts a missed payment into a deportation proceeding, and strips work authorization from the very mechanism that lets asylum seekers pay. A fee on asylum is not a budget tool. It is a barrier, and in this design, it is also a trigger. We have published a full explainer with comment-filing instructions. Read it. Submit. Have your organization submit.

Read the explainer

Boston Naturalization Lawsuit Filed

On April 28, fourteen green card holders from Haiti, Venezuela, and Côte d’Ivoire sued the administration in federal court in Boston, alleging that USCIS unlawfully delayed their naturalization ceremonies, including pulling people out of line at Faneuil Hall in December moments before they were to take the oath. The plaintiffs are nationals of countries on the 39-country travel ban list, the same list that includes Afghanistan.

Why this matters. The legal theory, that USCIS is violating the Fifth Amendment by making naturalization decisions based on national origin, has direct implications for Afghan applicants whose cases have been suspended for the same reason. Watch this docket.

Read more

Upcoming SIV deadline

If you have a pending Chief of Mission (COM) application under the Afghan SIV program, or you are working with someone who does, all supporting documentation, including any additional materials the Department has requested, must be submitted by June 5, 2026. This deadline applies to COM approval only. It does not apply to visa processing steps that come after COM approval or to appeals.

You should treat this as a hard deadline. Additional details are available on the State Department website.

Visit the State website

Organizational News

As we move towards expanding AfghanEvac's work in advocating for our allies, I'm proud to announce Jonathan Liu as the Battle Buddies Program Manager. Jonathan has been part of the AfghanEvac coalition since its inception, having previously managed USAID programs in multiple countries and served as a Marine Corps officer in Afghanistan. Most recently he has been involved in immigration advocacy and response efforts in San Diego.

As program manager, Jonathan will be the primary point of contact for volunteers and our Afghan allies as we look to build up and scale AfghanEvac's Battle Buddies footprint across the country.

CAS open letter sign-ons have crossed 420 and the window stays open through end of day Monday. We will launch the letter publicly this week, and every signer will receive a social media toolkit. Watch your email for more.

Pipeline snapshot, carried forward. Roughly 260,000 Afghan allies in processing across 90 countries. Roughly 178,000 with Chief of Mission approval (35,000 principal applicants). Roughly 1,100 at CAS. Roughly 5,900 SIV visas remaining in the annual allocation. These are last week’s numbers. They will be next week’s numbers if nothing changes. That is the point.

Media Roundup

The DRC story drove the heaviest coverage of any single AfghanEvac issue this year. Below is a snapshot of original reporting, op-eds, and international coverage from the past week.

Original reporting on the DRC plan

• NBC News, “Trump may send Afghan allies who were promised new lives in the U.S. to Congo instead, advocacy group says“

• Middle East Eye, “US considering sending stranded Afghans in Qatar to the Congo, advocacy group says“

• PBS NewsHour, “State Department proposes sending Afghans who helped U.S. war effort to Congo“

• Hoodline, “Trump May Send Afghan Allies To Congo, Veterans Cry Betrayal“

Op-eds and analysis

• Trudy Rubin, Philadelphia Inquirer, “Trump administration wants to give Afghans who helped U.S. forces a choice between death and disaster“ (Apr 26). Syndicated through the week to the Yakima Herald, the Times Union (Albany, NY), the Skagit Valley Herald (Mount Vernon, WA), the Republican Herald (Pottsville, PA), the Citizens’ Voice (Wilkes-Barre, PA), and the Standard Speaker

• Lauren Wolfe, “Sent to Congo. Left With No Safe Choice.“ Chills Substack (Apr 28)

• BusinessGhana, “A calculated abandonment: The Afghan-DRC relocation plan and what it reveals“

• Sun Journal (Maine), “Treatment of Afghan refugees is despicable“ (letter to the editor)

International coverage

• Khaama Press, “Congo Relocation Not a Solution, Risks Forced Return to Afghanistan, AfghanEvac Says“

• Muslim Network TV, “Afghanistan urges migrants in Qatar to return as US Congo plan backfires“

• Deutsche Welle, “The Afghan refugees who may be sent to Central Africa“ (video, May 1)

• Amu TV, “US senators seek halt to any plan to send Afghan refugees to Congo“

• Afghanistan International, “Afghan Allies in Qatar Face Stark Choice as US Resettlement Path Narrows“

NPR national piece, syndicated to public radio

NPR’s reporting on the broader DRC-as-deportation-destination story, “We don’t know what will happen to us: U.S. deportees in limbo in DRC,” was carried by 35+ NPR affiliates, including KPBS, WAMC, WUNC, WYPR, WOSU, WUSF, KJZZ, KBIA, WSKG, WCBU, WPSU, Utah Public Radio, Jefferson Public Radio, Interlochen Public Radio, Prairie Public, and others.

Spanish-language coverage

• La Opinión Los Angeles, “Rinden honor a inmigrantes muertos”

Regional context

• Reuters, “Afghan Refugees Stranded at Pakistan Border Amid Renewed Fighting“

• Human Rights Watch, “Pakistan: Surge in Forced Returns of Afghan Refugees“

The DRC proposal, the new asylum fee, the choked SIV pipeline, the camps emptying at the Pakistan border, and the Taliban’s expanding war on Afghan women and girls are not separate stories. They are the same story, told from five angles. Every outcome above is the result of a choice someone with authority is making, and every one of them can be unmade by someone with the same authority choosing differently. Our job is to make sure those people feel us in every room where those choices are made.

We are furious. We are focused. And we are not going anywhere.

On Saturday, with about 24 hours of notice, AfghanEvac convened a virtual congressional delegation to Camp As Sayliyah. About 60 residents joined the call. Senator Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut and Senator Peter Welch of Vermont joined the delegation. So did senior staff representing Representative Gregory Meeks, the Ranking Member of the House Foreign Affairs Committee. We invited offices in both parties.

The State Department has not been briefing residents with any useful information, even as press reports describe a plan that would relocate them to the Democratic Republic of the Congo. So we showed up.

This was a big week

• A New York Times investigation made the DRC plan public, and the press blitz that followed put it in front of the country.

• Members of Congress heard, in their own voices, from interpreters, special operations partners, family members of U.S. service members, and an incredibly brave 14-year-old girl.

• The D.C. Circuit struck down the administration’s Day 1 proclamation eliminating asylum at the southern border.

• Rihan, the Connecticut high school senior we wrote about last week, is home.

This week’s update is heavy. Every section has earned its place and we spend a lot of real estate on the DRC deal.

Action Items

Join the AfghanEvac coalition briefing on the CAS / DRC situation TODAY. Monday, April 27, 10:00 AM Pacific / 1:00 PM Eastern. We will walk through what we know, what is moving in Congress, and where partners can plug in.

Register Now

Call your senators and your representative. The CAS population should be brought to the United States under existing law. The DRC is in active conflict and an active humanitarian emergency. It is not a destination. Capitol switchboard: 202-224-3121.

Donate today. Battle Buddies, ongoing efforts to help Afghans around the world, press, and congressional engagement all run on people who give what they can.

Donate to AfghanEvac

Watch and share Zahra's message. Zahra is 14 years old. She has been at Camp As Sayliyah for more than a year and a half. She has been out of school for four years. This morning, she recorded a message for First Lady Melania Trump and asked us to share it. Tag the First Lady. Tag your senators. Help her voice carry.

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Upcoming deadlines worth flagging

If you have a pending Chief of Mission (COM) application under the Afghan SIV program, or you are working with someone who does, all supporting documentation, including any additional materials the Department has requested, must be submitted by June 5, 2026. This deadline applies to COM approval only. It does not apply to visa processing steps that come after COM approval or to appeals.

You should treat this as a hard deadline. Additional details are available on the State Department website.

Visit the State website

The DRC plan, and why it falls apart on contact

On Tuesday, the New York Times broke that the State Department is in talks to relocate the roughly 1,100 Afghans at Camp As Sayliyah, including more than 400 children, to the Democratic Republic of the Congo. The administration is calling it a “durable solution.” It is not. It is a refusal plan dressed up as resettlement, with a return to Taliban-controlled Afghanistan as the implied alternative.

These are people the United States moved into its own custody, through a system the United States designed, authorized, and runs. Many have already been vetted and approved for entry. Many others are pending, not denied. Among them are 100 to 150 individuals with direct ties to active-duty American service members. Sending them to a country in active conflict, in the middle of one of the world’s worst humanitarian crises, is not a policy. It is abandonment, executed by spreadsheet.

We are reporting what we’ve heard from officials, and we are driving the advocacy on it because the plan is outrageous, the residents are real, and the stakes are not abstract. This week, our team has been on CNN’s Anderson Cooper 360°, the PBS NewsHour, KPBS, ABC News, MS NOW’s The Weekend, and across the international press.

Four lines we are saying everywhere, and that we ask you to say with us.

• This is not a resettlement plan. It is a refusal plan.

• The contractor argument is an accountability dodge. The United States owns this.

• “Failed vetting” is being used inaccurately. Some cases are still pending, not denied.

• This is not about capacity. It is about policy choice.

We have shared a unified set of talking points across the coalition, briefed members of Congress in both parties, and are working with bipartisan partners in the House on a legislative pathway to bring the CAS population to the United States under existing authorities. We are also asking veterans, national security leaders, and every member of Congress who has previously stood up for Afghan allies to do so again now, on the record.

The deal is still moving. So is our effort to stop it.

Read our CAS Explainer

Shout out to Rep. Jason Crow for his vocal opposition to this plan.

A virtual congressional delegation to Camp As Sayliyah

I led the call on Saturday. Roughly 60 residents joined, with live Dari and Pashto interpretation. The delegation was joined by Senator Blumenthal, Senator Welch, and senior House Foreign Affairs Committee staff representing Ranking Member Gregory Meeks. We invited offices in both parties. The session came together in under 24 hours, in response to acute fear at the camp following the press reports.

The signal to residents was clear. Each of the three congressional voices on the call stated that Afghan wartime allies have strong bipartisan support in Congress, and that members in both parties oppose the proposed relocation to the DRC.

What residents shared, with names protected, is what every member of Congress should hear before another decision gets made.

• An Afghan interpreter who served alongside U.S. forces, kidnapped and tortured by the Taliban before he was evacuated, asking why he is still in a camp.

• A former Afghan special operations commander who served alongside U.S. forces for thirteen years.

• A 14-year-old girl named Zahra sat on a Zoom call on Saturday and told two United States senators that she does not want to be sent to the DRC. The next day, she recorded a message for the First Lady and asked us to share it.

• An Afghan woman who had approved refugee status and a flight, both cancelled in January 2025 after she had completed every step of the process.

• A U.S. Army specialist whose family is at the camp, asking senators to act.

• An Army veteran, now a Denver police officer, whose sister and her four children remain at CAS, describing the trauma the children carry after years of war.

• A Syrian national, the longest-tenured resident of the camp, abandoned by State.

• And a former U.S. Marine who served in the DRC, who told residents and senators directly that the place the administration wants to send them is not safe.

Residents also reported that three babies have been born prematurely at the camp in the last six to seven months, attributed to acute and unrelenting stress. All three of those babies have died.

These are the voices the United States made promises to. They are not abstractions. They are not lines on a briefing slide. They are the people on the other end of the policy choice the administration is making right now.

The session was recorded with consent and identifying information protected. Faces will be blurred. We will share the recording with congressional offices that confirm in writing that it stays within the office, and we will work with credentialed press on short, anonymized clips with resident consent.

What we are asking offices to do this week is simple.

• Public statements opposing the DRC proposal, particularly from members with military, veteran, or national security portfolios.

• Letters to Secretary Rubio and the White House requesting a pause and a clear path forward.

• Legislation that does three things at once: provides Temporary Protected Status for Afghans in the United States, provides protection for Afghans at CAS, and requires reporting from the administration on the status of SIV, P1/P2, and family reunification populations. We are already working with several offices on that legislation. If your office wants to be looped in, reply to this update and we will connect you.

• Member-level outreach to State requesting a substantive briefing for affected offices.

This was the latest in a series of efforts to make sure decision-makers hear directly from the Afghans the United States left behind. It will not be the last.

Zahra has something to say

Zahra is 14 years old. She has been out of school for four years and has lived at Camp As Sayliyah for more than a year and a half. She is taking medication to cope with her circumstances.

This weekend, she spoke directly with United States senators. Then she recorded a message to First Lady Melania Trump.

In her words: “I do not ask for anything big. Only a peaceful life, a chance to get a better education, and a brighter future.”

Share her message. Tag the First Lady. Tag your elected officials. A 14-year-old has put her name and her voice forward. The least we can do is make sure she is heard.

Facebook | Instagram | TikTok | X | Truth Social

If the website is public notice, so are the names on it

The State Department has expressed frustration that we are naming the officials responsible for these decisions.

Public servants make public policy. Accountability comes with that responsibility.

Andrew Veprek, Assistant Secretary for Population, Refugees, and Migration, oversees the systems affecting Afghan SIVs and refugee pathways. He runs PRM. The Special Immigrant Visa program, the dismantling of it, and the U.S. Refugee Admissions Program pipelines including P-1 and P-2 all sit inside his portfolio. The choices that are stopping the SIV program from running are being made on his watch.

Christian Ehrhardt, a Deputy Assistant Secretary, has been directly involved in efforts to relocate the CAS population outside the United States. He has been traveling internationally, working on the effort to relocate the population at Camp As Sayliyah anywhere but the United States. The DRC proposal is in his lane.

This month I sat in court for a case in which Mr. Veprek submitted a sworn declaration. The Department’s position in that filing is that Afghans scheduled for visa interviews abroad do not need to be told individually that their interviews will produce automatic 212(f) denials, because the underlying policy is published on the State Department website. If State posts it on the website, the argument goes, State has told the public.

By that same logic, the State Department’s website identifies Andrew Veprek as the Assistant Secretary running PRM and Christian Ehrhardt as a Deputy Assistant Secretary in his shop.

That is the State Department telling the public, in writing, who is responsible for the decisions about Afghan refugees, SIV applicants, and the residents at Camp As Sayliyah. Naming them in this update is not exposure. It is consistency with the standard the Department itself just argued in federal court.

If you think the policies coming out of PRM right now are wrong, say so, in public, by name. We will keep doing the same.

Please feel free to share the post below.

How this story moved this week

A policy this consequential should not be made quietly, and this week it was not. From the moment the New York Times broke the story on Tuesday, the coalition had a coordinated press posture, and the reporting traveled. In print, on television, on radio, in the United States and overseas. Several of the residents whose voices need to be heard had a microphone put in front of them this week, and the country saw what is at stake.

Television and radio.

I appeared on CNN, PBS Newshour, MSNOW, Scripps News, and a litany of other outlets. Some of the clips below.

Sean Jamshidi, our AfghanEvac team member whose family remains at Camp As Sayliyah, appeared on:

Print and digital.

• Trump administration may send Afghans who aided US forces to Congo The New York Times

• US weighs plan to send Afghans who helped with war effort from Qatar to a third country The Associated Press

• Advocates slam Trump plan to send wartime Afghan allies to Congo KPBS

• Trump Talks on Sending Afghans to Congo Draw Bipartisan Ire The New York Times

Podcasts

If this story has not yet landed in your network, this is your chance. Pick a piece, share it, tell three people. The reporters who showed up for this story did the work. Help that work travel.

Federal appeals court strikes down Trump’s Day 1 asylum proclamation

On Friday, the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled in RAICES v. Mullin that the President’s Day 1 proclamation shutting down asylum at the southern border is unlawful. The court rejected the administration’s claim that a 212(f) proclamation could authorize the executive branch to summarily deport people who cross the border without giving them the chance to seek the protection Congress has guaranteed. The proclamation cited a fictional “invasion” as its pretext.

This ruling matters far beyond the southern border. The same legal architecture the administration has used to override statute, invent emergencies, and shut off lawful pathways for the world’s most-vetted population is what the court rejected here. Even with sweeping rhetoric and a friendly executive, the law still binds. Compliance is the next question, and we are watching. Credit and gratitude to the legal teams at the ACLU, NIJC, CGRS, the Texas Civil Rights Project, the ACLU of D.C., and the ACLU of Texas, and to the organizational plaintiffs RAICES, Las Americas, and the Florence Project.

Rihan is home

Last week we wrote that Rihan, the 19-year-old Connecticut high school senior detained by ICE earlier this month, was still in custody. He is home now. An immigration judge ordered him released on April 20. DHS did not oppose. Bond was set at the minimum.

Rihan is going back to finish his senior year. His family, who served alongside U.S. forces in Afghanistan, is together. That is a win. It is also the second time in two years this family has been detained while following the law, and the system that did that to them has not changed.

Read our Statement

In the Press

• Trump administration may send Afghans who aided US forces to Congo The New York Times

• Why would anyone trust us? Shawn VanDiver on Anderson Cooper 360° CNN

• State Department proposes sending Afghans who helped U.S. war effort to Congo PBS NewsHour

• Advocates slam Trump plan to send wartime Afghan allies to Congo KPBS

• Trump administration may send Afghans who aided US forces to Congo ABC News

• Trump administration wants to give Afghans who helped U.S. forces a choice between death and disaster The Philadelphia Inquirer

• Afghans Who Helped US Forces Say They’re Being Pushed Back to the Taliban GV Wire

• US weighs relocating Afghan refugees from Qatar to Congo or returning them home Muslim Network TV

• US Afghan allies in Qatar face deportation risk amid policy debate Diya TV

• U.S. explores relocation of 1,100 Afghan allies to DR Congo Daryo

• Former Afghan interpreter freed from ICE custody in San Diego MSN

In memoriam, Lionel Rosenblatt

Lionel Rosenblatt died on April 11. He was 82.

If the work AfghanEvac does has a patron saint inside the U.S. Foreign Service, it is him. In 1975, as Saigon was about to fall, Rosenblatt was a State Department officer who watched Ambassador Graham Martin and Secretary Kissinger refuse to authorize evacuations for the Vietnamese who had worked alongside the United States. So he and a colleague, Craig Johnstone, took personal leave, flew to Saigon on their own dime, and started getting people out anyway. They were called back to Washington to be reprimanded. They were not disciplined. Roughly a hundred Vietnamese got out because two American diplomats decided that the people the United States had asked to risk their lives were not going to be left behind.

He spent the next 25 years making sure that was a system, not an exception. Refugee Coordinator at the U.S. Embassy in Bangkok from 1976 to 1981, where he pushed the Thai government for protection and pushed Washington for admissions, and where he and his team helped resettle Vietnamese boat people, Cambodians fleeing the Khmer Rouge, and Hmong who had fought for the United States in Laos. President of Refugees International from 1990 to 2001, where he turned a small advocacy shop into a force that traveled to Bosnia, Rwanda, and a dozen other places to make sure the people the world wanted to forget were named, counted, and pushed to the front of the line.

He once said of the Hmong, “It was always a mystery to me why they were good enough to fight for us but not good enough to consider for resettlement.”

We are running that same sentence today, about Afghans. The names have changed. The bureaucratic excuses have changed. The fundamental moral question has not. Lionel Rosenblatt answered it the right way, on his own time, with his own credibility on the line, and the people he saved are still alive, and so are their children, and so are their grandchildren.

Rest in peace, Lionel. We will keep the seat warm.

Read more about Lionel

For five years, the residents at Camp As Sayliyah have been talked about, talked over, and talked around.

Saturday, they were heard. By United States senators. By senior staff working for a House committee with jurisdiction over American foreign policy. By each other. By the people most affected by the choice the administration is making right now.

The State Department is calling this a “durable solution.” A 14-year-old girl who has lived under American protection for years sat on a Zoom call on Saturday and told a United States senator she does not want to be sent to the DRC. She knows what this is. So do we.

America made a promise to these families. The people who made the promise are still here. So are we.

We are furious. We are focused. And we are not going anywhere.

It is the most important thing any of us can do. Not posting. Not venting. Not waiting for someone else to fix it. Showing up, in a courtroom, at a hearing, on a phone call, in a family’s living room on one of the worst days of their lives.

This week, a lot of people showed up.

• Two federal judges showed up for the plaintiffs challenging the USCIS benefits pause and issued the first real rulings against it.

• A bipartisan House majority showed up to extend TPS for Haiti.

• Our Battle Buddies volunteers showed up in New York to build in-roads with people showing up every single day in the courts there.

• I showed up at Zia’s house to sit with a family whose son is still in ICE custody.

• Ellen Smith at Keeping Our Promise showed up with me on WXXI.

• The lawyers at AILA, IRAP, and Red Eagle Law showed up in briefs, on dockets, and in front of judges.

This week’s is a long one, but it’s all important.

Here’s what we’re seeing, what it means, and how you can show up too.

Action Items

Donate today. Battle Buddies, litigation support, pipeline case management, press, and congressional engagement all run on people who give what they can.

Donate to AfghanEvac

Share Rihan’s story. He is a Connecticut high school senior who wants to be a cardiologist. The more people who know his story, the harder it becomes to disappear him.

Read the story

Remind your networks there is no back door. Every Afghan national is currently subject to the travel ban, regardless of status or pathway. Everyone. Anyone promising a shortcut, a connected attorney, or a special channel at State is either misinformed or exploiting desperate families. Help us shut that down.

Share this explainer

Visa interviews are scheduled. Denials are guaranteed.

This is the most important operational item in this week’s update.

Afghan nationals, and nationals of other travel-ban countries, are being scheduled for visa interviews abroad that will produce automatic denials under section 212(f) of the Immigration and Nationality Act. Applicants are not told at the time of scheduling that denial is guaranteed. They are given no guidance on what happens next. They are being asked to make complex, expensive, and often dangerous journeys to interviews that cannot produce a viable outcome. And a visa denial on a permanent record is not neutral. It can affect future applications, complicate waivers, and follow a person through the system for years.

We support the guidance from immigration attorneys at AILA and IRAP. AfghanEvac does not provide legal advice, and I am not an attorney, but the lawyers closest to these cases are raising a serious flag and you should listen to them.

• They are recommending that clients from travel-ban countries postpone but keep active their scheduled interviews abroad, rather than travel to a predictable denial.

• For applicants inside the United States, the posture is the opposite: show up, stay visible.

Anyone navigating an interview under current restrictions should consult a qualified immigration attorney before making travel decisions.

Watch this week: an interim final rule on refugee reinterviews may be imminent

We are hearing the administration may issue an interim final rule this week on the refugee reinterview program first announced through internal USCIS guidance earlier this year. The program, sometimes referenced as Operation PARRIS, targets the roughly 200,000 refugees admitted between January 21, 2021 and February 20, 2025, and would require many of them to sit for new interviews while their pending green card applications stay on hold.

The shift from internal directive to interim final rule matters. An IFR takes effect immediately, without the public notice and comment period a normal rulemaking requires. The administration does not have to hear from refugees, refugee-serving agencies, or the public before the rule binds them. That is not how you regulate 200,000 lawfully admitted refugees. It is how you get ahead of the legal challenges you know are coming.

A large share of Afghans admitted during that window, including thousands resettled through Operation Allies Welcome and the USRAP pipeline, fall inside this reinterview universe. Many are still waiting on green cards already delayed by the USCIS benefits pause. Adding a reinterview requirement on top of that pause does not strengthen vetting. It creates a second stall, applied retroactively, to people who already cleared the most rigorous security checks of any immigration population in the United States. Refugees International called the plan “vindictive, harmful, and wasteful.” That framing holds.

If the rule drops this week, we will publish a separate analysis. For now: if you are a refugee admitted during the 2021 to 2025 window, keep your address current with USCIS, stay connected to your resettlement agency, and talk to a qualified immigration attorney about what to do if you receive a notice. For why “more vetting” is pretext, not policy, see our Vetting explainer.

Strategic Litigation Wins We’re Tracking

Since December, USCIS has been sitting on green card, work permit, and naturalization applications filed by people from 39 travel-ban countries, including Afghanistan. Files that should have been moving have just been frozen. This week, two federal courts said that can’t keep happening to the people in front of them.

Doe v. Trump (Massachusetts). On Friday, a federal judge ordered USCIS to stop applying the freeze to the plaintiffs in the case, a group that includes Afghans with pending green cards and work permits. It’s a pause on the pause while the case gets briefed. It doesn’t unfreeze every Afghan file in the USCIS queue, but it stops the bleeding for the families who sued.

Behdin v. Edlow (Northern California). A magistrate judge enjoined the Pause as to plaintiffs with pending I-765 employment authorization applications and ordered USCIS to adjudicate their applications within 180 days from the receipt date of each individual application. Red Eagle Law, which has been running some of the most aggressive litigation against the pause, is counsel on this one.

Why this matters. These are narrow rulings. They do not automatically help every Afghan with a stalled case. But until this week, the USCIS pause was moving with zero judicial friction. Two federal courts, in two different districts, have now said plainly that the agency cannot freeze people indefinitely based on national origin. That changes the ground for the next round of cases.

Compliance is the next fight. The government has a track record of slow-walking court orders in immigration cases, and we will be watching. The most current, careful tracking of this litigation is being done by Press Unpause. They showed up to track the cases no one else was tracking, and if you want to follow this in real time, they’re the ones to follow.

Camp As Sayliyah: pressure to self-deport, flights to Kabul, and rumors that will not die

The State Department’s self-imposed March 31 deadline to empty Camp As Sayliyah came and went nearly three weeks ago with no public accounting and no consequence. What is happening instead is worse than a missed deadline.

Residents tell us the camp is actively pressuring people to self-deport to Afghanistan. Around 200 people have now registered for “voluntary return” to Kabul, with flights from Doha expected to begin at the start of next month. And the financial offers being made to get people onto those flights are going down, not up. When residents asked for the return payments to be increased, State Department leadership instead reportedly cut the amounts from $4,500 to $4,100, and from $1,200 to $900. That is not a negotiation. That is coercion applied to people who already fled the country these flights are headed back to.

Meanwhile, many countries have been floated as third-country destinations for those who will not return to Kabul. One of the craziest names circulating has been the Democratic Republic of the Congo, which is itself in the middle of an active conflict and a severe refugee crisis. We stand against any solution that puts people in harm’s way or violates international protection norms and law, full stop. The principle of non-refoulement, the obligation not to send people back into danger, is not a technicality to be worked around. It is the line. Sending people to Kabul crosses it. Sending them to a war zone with no durable protection crosses it.

At least 150 of those still at CAS are immediate family members of U.S. service members. The United States moved these people to that base. The United States owes them a destination that is durable, safe, and consistent with the law. Not a one-way flight to the country they fled with less money than they were originally offered. Congress and the public need to see any real proposal before any family boards a flight, and they need to see the full picture of how people are being pressured to leave. We will be watching, and we will name what we see.

Do not deliver to military bases if you lack durable status

Attorneys in San Diego have documented dozens of arrests at the gates of Camp Pendleton. Drivers working for Uber, Lyft, DoorDash, Grubhub, and Roadie, who are lawfully authorized to work but do not hold green cards or citizenship, are being flagged by military police at the gate and handed to ICE.

This is part of a larger pattern. NOTUS reported this week that the administration has repurposed at least six unrelated federal programs, including State Department resources for countering election interference, senior FEMA positions, and the DHS Countering Weapons of Mass Destruction Office, to support ICE operations. A former DHS official called it “the biggest reorienting of federal resources toward a single end since 9/11.” These gate-side arrests are not isolated incidents. They are operational reality. If you do not have durable status, avoid military installations right now.

Pakistan is pushing people back, and the U.S. broke the deal that held them safe

Since the Torkham border reopened on March 31, Pakistan has sharply accelerated its forced deportation of Afghan refugees under its Illegal Foreigners Repatriation Plan. More than 146,000 Afghans have been deported from Pakistan in 2026 alone, on top of more than a million forcibly returned in 2025. That includes people holding Proof of Registration cards and Afghan Citizen Cards, not just the undocumented. Refugees International called on Pakistan last week to halt the deportations and described the campaign as a direct violation of non-refoulement, the same principle that should be guiding U.S. decisions about where to send people from CAS.

This did not have to happen. In the fall of 2023, after sustained diplomatic engagement, the United States and Pakistan reached a practical understanding. Pakistan agreed not to harass a defined population of Afghans in U.S. immigration pathways, including USRAP P1/P2 refugees, SIV applicants, and humanitarian parole seekers. The United States, in turn, committed to actually processing them. For a time, the arrangement worked. Arrests declined. Deportations slowed. Embassy letters were honored.

In January 2025, the Trump administration halted refugee processing and broke the U.S. end of that deal. Pakistan resumed harassment, detention, and deportation of U.S.-linked Afghans almost immediately. Afghan SIV and P1/P2 applicants in Pakistan, people the U.S. government itself had identified, documented, and in many cases physically relocated into U.S.-sustained housing, are now being swept into the deportation machine. No One Left Behind reported seven principal applicants deported from their safe houses as of January 2026. The squeeze does not stop when U.S. processing stops. It intensifies, because the people in the pipeline have nowhere else to go.

And the country they are being pushed back into is not stable. The UN reported this week that more than 94,000 Afghans have been newly displaced inside eastern Afghanistan by escalating clashes between Pakistani forces and the Taliban, with cross-border shelling and airstrikes hitting Khost, Kunar, Nangarhar, Paktia, and Nuristan. The path home, for most of these families, leads straight through an active conflict zone and back into danger.

We cannot solve the Pakistan deportation problem from Washington, but we can stop making it worse. Resume processing. Honor the embassy letters the U.S. government issued. Recognize that foreseeable harm is not acceptable harm.

Read our Pakistan Explainer

The House showed up for Haiti. Afghan advocacy will need the same muscle.

The House passed H.R. 1689 via discharge petition on April 16, extending Temporary Protected Status for Haiti by three years. All Democrats and 10 Republicans voted yes. The bill still needs the Senate and the president, and neither is likely at this moment. But the House vote showed that a bipartisan majority can be assembled when people show up for a population under threat.

Afghan TPS, additional SIV visas, and the Enduring Welcome Act could all use the same muscle. AILA, CWS, Global Refuge, and Refugee Council USA organized hard for this discharge petition vote. That is the playbook. Tell your representatives you saw it. And let’s get this party started.

Coalition partners showing up: Afghan women’s education

Some of the most important work happening in this fight is being done by coalition partners many readers haven’t met. The Afghan Scout Relief Fund, run by Steve Gates, is one of them. Their work focuses on getting Afghan girls and young women out of Afghanistan, where women are now banned from secondary and higher education entirely, and into schools in the United States. It is direct, unglamorous, and exactly the kind of effort that complements what the rest of the coalition is doing on the policy and litigation side.

Their work is not directly connected to the wartime allies mission that anchors most of what we do. We stand up for any Afghan who now has a relationship with America, and that includes the students ASRF is fighting for. AfghanEvac stands with our coalition partners and with every Afghan woman and girl whose future is on the line.

ASRF is moving on two tracks right now, and both deserve visibility.

The first is H.R. 7669, the Rejecting the Erasure of Afghan Women and Girls Act, a bipartisan bill led by Rep. Sydney Kamlager-Dove that would require the State Department to formally assess and report on Taliban policies toward Afghan women and girls. The bill cleared House Foreign Affairs in March with members from both parties voting yes. It is exactly the kind of measure that should not be controversial. It is also exactly the kind of measure that goes nowhere without coalition pressure pushing it all the way through the House and the Senate.

The second is a congressional sign-on letter sponsored by Rep. Don Bacon calling for case-by-case student visa exemptions for Afghan women and protection of Optional Practical Training (OPT) status for those already studying in the United States. ASRF has been driving this effort and is working to get additional congressional signatories over the next month. If you are on the Hill, ask your member to sign. If you are an advocate, ask your delegation what they are doing about it.

This is what showing up looks like at the coalition level. Direct service partners and policy partners working in parallel, with a bill in one hand and a letter in the other.

Great work, Steve and Aydin.

Rihan is still in custody

Rihan is 19, a high school senior in Connecticut, and he wants to be a cardiologist. His father Zia, an Afghan interpreter whose case helped inspire Battle Buddies to expand beyond the courtroom, was detained for three months last year. This week agents took his son. A judge blocked his transfer out of Connecticut. ICE moved him to Massachusetts anyway.

I went to see the family this week. Sat with them and their loved ones. There was nothing useful I could say that they didn’t already know. That wasn’t the point. Rihan’s green card application is pending. Detaining the same family twice, while they follow the law, is not enforcement. It is arbitrary and unjust. Senator Blumenthal called it appalling. Governor Lamont called it intimidation. Cheshire’s superintendent called it a miscarriage of justice. They are right.

Learn more

Organizational News

Battle Buddies. Our veterans deployed around the country this week to stand alongside Afghan allies in immigration proceedings. That is showing up in its purest form, literally putting yourself in the room so someone facing deportation isn’t facing it alone. When Battle Buddies volunteers are present, the no-detention record holds. If you have an upcoming immigration appointment, sign up today.

Sign up now

Visiting Zia’s family. I spent time this week with Zia, his family, and the attorneys working Rihan’s case. There is no substitute for showing up in person when a family is in the middle of something like this.

Elena’s Light. We were glad to participate in Elena’s Light’s programming this week. Fereshteh Ganjavi and her team in New Haven do extraordinary direct-service work with Afghan refugee women and children. They show up day in and day out, in ways most of us never see.

Learn about Elena's Light

WXXI Connections with Ellen Smith. I joined Ellen Smith of Keeping Our Promise on WXXI’s Connections this week to talk about where the SIV program actually stands. Ellen shows up for Afghan families in Rochester every single day. Her perspective is worth your time.

Listen here

The Bush Institute launches the United States Afghan Women’s Coalition. The George W. Bush Institute formally launched the Coalition this week, building on two decades of work through the U.S.-Afghan Women’s Council. They’ve been showing up for Afghan women for twenty years. This is them showing up again.

Learn more

In the Press

• Afghan high school senior detained by ICE after father was also detained NBC News

• Trump administration still blocking Special Immigrant Visas, AfghanEvac says WXXI Connections

• ICE has arrested dozens of delivery drivers at the gates of a San Diego military base Capital & Main

• US explores third-country resettlement for stranded Afghan allies in Qatar Ariana News

Showing up is the love language of advocacy and it looks different in different rooms.

It looks like a judge in Boston reading a motion carefully and ruling on Friday afternoon.

It looks like a magistrate in San Jose bifurcating relief because she took the time to understand the filings.

It looks like 225 House members from both parties voting for Haitian families they will never meet.

It looks like a veteran in a courtroom in Queens standing next to an ally they served with.

It looks like Ellen Smith in a radio studio in Rochester, and Fereshteh Ganjavi in a classroom in New Haven, and Steve and Aydin Gates moving a letter through Congress for Afghan women who deserve a chance at the education their country has stolen from them.

It looks like Press Unpause updating a docket tracker at midnight because someone has to.

It looks like the advocates, families, and attorneys in Pakistan who keep waiting, keep documenting, and keep holding the United States to the promise it made them, even after the United States walked away.

It looks like you, reading this, and deciding what to do next.

Every outcome I wrote about this week is the result of a choice someone with authority is making, and every one of them can be unmade by someone with the same authority choosing differently. Our job is to make sure the people with that authority feel us in every room where those choices are made. That is how this ends well.

Keep showing up. We will too.

We are furious. We are focused. And we are not going anywhere.

Share

Go Deeper

If this update raised questions you want to pull on, our explainer library breaks down the policy and legal picture in more detail.

• Pakistan Explainer — how the U.S.-Pakistan arrangement held, then collapsed

• Camp As Sayliyah Explainer — who is there, how they got there, and what they are owed

• SIV Wind-Down Plan — the leaked State Department plan to end the program

• SIV Current State — where processing actually stands today

• Travel Ban — how the Travel Ban proclamation sweeps in every Afghan national

• AfghanEvac Issues Primer — the full picture since January 2025

Full library at afghanevac.org/explainers.

Previous Updates

• Apr 13, A court declaration, a leaked plan, a direction confirmed

• Apr 9, Special Edition, State Department’s SIV Wind-Down Plan

• Apr 6, Three court cases, one broken timeline

• Mar 30, Missiles edge closer to CAS

• Mar 23, What a week

• Mar 16, An Afghan Ally Dies in U.S. Custody

• Mar 9, Voices from Camp As Sayliyah

• Mar 2, Missile debris at a U.S.-managed transit camp

• Feb 23, Global Update, refugee enforcement, SIV deadlines

• Feb 19, Special Edition, DHS Memo Expands Detention Authority

• Feb 17, Scale of crisis, hearings, diplomacy

• Feb 9, The facts behind the headlines

• Feb 2, Another hearing, a reminder on discipline

A declaration filed in federal court by a senior State Department official confirmed a couple of weeks ago what Afghan allies have known for months: the SIV system was deliberately paused, staffing was cut, and the people running it did not know how long any of it would last.

A congressional planning document shows a wind-down plan that can no longer deliver on its own assumptions.

The administration is quietly negotiating to send Afghan allies from Qatar to sub-Saharan Africa and Southeast Asia.

And since October, the United States has admitted three Afghan refugees.

Three.

Here’s what we know, what it means, and what you can do.

Action Items

Sign up for Battle Buddies and show up in court

This effort is about presence. Veterans and supporters standing alongside Afghan allies facing immigration proceedings, sending a clear message that they are not alone.

Sign Up

Share the Wall Street Journal story

This story captures what is at stake right now and helps bring broader attention to what Afghan families are facing.

Read and Share the Story

ICE arrests the teenage son of an Afghan interpreter it already detained once

Zia, an Afghan interpreter who worked alongside American forces and whose case was one of the inspirations for our Battle Buddies program, was arrested at a routine green card appointment last summer and spent nearly three months in ICE custody before being released. This week, agents arrested his nearly 19-year-old son.

Rihan, a Connecticut high school student with a pending green card application, was arrested April 6. A judge blocked his transfer from an ICE facility in Connecticut. Agents moved him to Massachusetts anyway.

Read our Statement

Visa processing and what we’re seeing

The challenges in visa processing are no longer limited to delays. They are structural.

According to a declaration submitted by Assistant Secretary Andrew Veprek in federal court, the Department of State paused both visa issuance and key stages of SIV processing following a November 2025 policy decision tied to security concerns. The Department has indicated that interview scheduling may increase this year. That statistic does not tell the full story.

Here is what is actually happening:

• Applicants are not being told, at the time of scheduling, that attending their interview will result in a guaranteed denial under section 212(f) of the Immigration and Nationality Act due to current travel restrictions

• There is no guidance for what happens after that denial, and no clear path forward while travel restrictions remain in place

• The system is asking people to make complex, often dangerous journeys to interviews that cannot currently produce a viable outcome

Immigration attorneys are advising Afghan nationals and others from travel-banned countries not to schedule visa interviews at this time. AfghanEvac does not provide legal advice. If you or someone you know is navigating this situation, please consult a qualified immigration attorney.

Staffing reductions have compounded the problem. The Afghan SIV unit was cut substantially before recent rebuilding efforts began. Current hiring is not expansion. It is recovery from a degraded baseline. Even under optimistic projections, the Department estimates it may take years to work through the backlog.

This is not about process. It is about outcome. And right now, the system cannot deliver one.We put together a social media thread about this last Thursday.

What the Veprek declaration tells us

The declaration provides a rare, on-the-record look at how recent decisions were made and what they mean in practice.

A few things are clear:

• The pause in visa issuance and COM processing was implemented quickly, before the Department had a clear understanding of how long it would last or how it would affect performance timelines

• Key decisions were made without first seeking court approval, despite existing legal obligations

• The system is now operating under constraints that make it difficult, if not impossible, to meet previously established benchmarks

This matters because it confirms what many have been experiencing: the system is not just delayed, it has been disrupted in ways that will take significant time to unwind.

Read the Declaration

A leaked plan to wind down the SIV program

On Thursday, we published a special update breaking down a previously undisclosed plan required by Congress to wind down the Afghan SIV program.

Read the Special Edition

The plan makes something clear: it was designed to finish processing all eligible Afghan allies, not to cut the program short. It assumes continued operations under Enduring Welcome, sufficient staffing, and additional visas from Congress.

Those assumptions no longer hold.

In our special edition, we walk through what the plan says, what it depends on, and how recent decisions have put it at risk.

The gap between that plan and the current trajectory will determine whether thousands of Afghan allies are brought to safety, or left behind.

Read the Plan

Listening Session with Representative Vindman

This week, we participated in a listening session with Representative Eugene Vindman, bringing together Afghan allies, veterans, and advocates to share what the current system looks like in practice. At his request, I moderated the conversation, helping ensure that the voices of those directly affected were heard clearly and directly

We heard firsthand what the consequences of recent decisions look like.

One Afghan ally who served as locally employed staff at Embassy Kabul shared his story. He was evacuated during the withdrawal and went on to work at CARE, helping other Afghans navigate the Enduring Welcome pipeline. His asylum case has been approved, but he still has not received a green card. His work authorization expires in May, and with USCIS not processing green cards for Afghans, he does not know what comes next.

Another voice in the room was familiar. Ehsan, a Marine and longtime member of this community, spoke about his brother who remains stuck at Camp As Sayliyah. His story underscored a reality too often overlooked: for many veterans, this is not an abstract policy issue. Their families are still directly affected.

We also heard from an Afghan with a pending asylum claim that has stalled without explanation. Because of the pause in adjudications and recent policy changes, he is unable to access food assistance, secure stable work, or take the basic steps needed to rebuild his life. The system is not just slow, it is leaving people without options.

These are not isolated stories. They reflect a broader pattern.

We are grateful to Imam Sherif from Masjid Aliya for providing the space and to Representative Vindman for bringing people together to listen, engage, and ask hard questions. As a refugee himself, he made clear that he understands what is at stake and has shown a clear commitment to standing with those who stood with us, both Afghan and Ukrainian allies alike.

We were also joined by longtime AfghanEvac partners, including Samad, whose continued leadership and presence in moments like this make a difference.

Listening matters. But what comes next matters more.

The challenges raised in that room are not new, and the consequences of inaction are already being felt.

Update on Camp As Sayliyah

Nearly two weeks after the March 31 deadline passed, Afghan families at Camp As Sayliyah remain in limbo, with no clear timeline for movement and no consistent communication about what comes next.

These are families under U.S. authority who were told to expect progress. Instead, they are navigating uncertainty without reliable information or a defined path forward.

This is not just a missed deadline. It is part of a broader pattern.

When timelines shift without explanation and decisions are delayed without clarity, it erodes trust and makes it harder for families to plan, prepare, or feel secure.

And increasingly, it raises a harder question: is the system struggling to move forward, or is it being allowed to stall?

Read the Wall Street Journal

Speaking truth to power

Last week, longtime AfghanEvac team member Pete Lucier published a powerful op-ed in The Washington Post that cut through the noise and made something very simple clear: leadership is not about what you say, it’s about what you do when it matters.

That message is only more relevant now.

In the days since, we’ve seen continued delays, growing confusion around visa processing, and new information that raises serious questions about the direction of this effort. The gap between rhetoric and reality is no longer theoretical. It is playing out in real time.

Pete’s piece lays down a marker. It reflects what veterans, advocates, and Afghan families are already saying: promises were made, and those promises require follow-through.

Secretary Mullin has been clear in his words. He has spoken forcefully about standing with Afghan allies.

Now comes the harder part.

We hope he hears this message, not as criticism, but as a call to lead. Because at this stage, alignment between words and actions is not optional. It is the difference between a system that works and one that leaves people behind.

Read and Share Pete's OpEd

Battle Buddies in New York

This week, veterans will show up in New York as part of our Battle Buddies initiative, standing alongside Afghan allies navigating immigration proceedings.

This is what accountability looks like on the ground.

Not statements. Not positioning. Presence.

Veterans who served alongside Afghan partners are making it clear that these relationships did not end in 2021. They continue now, in courtrooms, in communities, and in the choices we make about whether to stand with those who stood with us.

This effort will continue to expand. And it will require more people willing to step forward.

Sign up to be a Battle Buddy Today

In the Press

Trump Team Pushes to Relocate Afghans in Limbo on U.S. Mideast Base — Wall Street Journal

Afghanistan and Pakistan agree to explore a solution after weeks of fighting and hundreds of deaths — Associated Press

US resumes processing Afghan visas that will result in denials, says rights group — Middle East Eye

ICE released an Afghan interpreter after three months in detention. Now officers have arrested his teenage son — The Independent

US has let in 4,499 refugees since October - all but three were South African — BBC News

This moment is no longer defined by uncertainty alone. It is defined by direction.

We are seeing how decisions made over the past several months are shaping outcomes now, slowing processing, narrowing pathways, and leaving families in prolonged limbo.

None of this is inevitable.

These are choices. And different choices remain possible.

We are continuing to push, with Congress, with the administration, in court, and alongside partners here and abroad.

Stay engaged. Keep asking questions. Keep showing up.

Because what happens next will depend on whether people are willing to insist that commitments are not just remembered, but honored.

Across the courts, the camps, the budget, and now in public debate, the same pattern is emerging: decisions are being made that slow progress, reduce clarity, and leave Afghan allies carrying the consequences.

In one case, a judge ordered the government to act. In another, the court said it could not intervene. In a third, the government is being called out for failing to follow a clear directive.

At the same time, deadlines passed without explanation, a new budget signaled reduced investment, and voices from within this community are speaking plainly about the gap between rhetoric and responsibility.

These are not isolated issues. They are connected.

Here’s what happened this week and what it means.

Action Items

Submit a public comment on proposed EAD changes before April 8.

Take Action

Share Pete Lucier’s op-ed on why leadership from Secretary Mullin matters right now

Share this OpEd

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This morning, longtime AfghanEvac team member Pete Lucier published a powerful op-ed in The Washington Post calling out the gap between rhetoric and responsibility when it comes to Afghan allies.

Pete draws a clear line between rhetoric and responsibility. It’s easy to speak forcefully about standing with Afghan allies when you’re in the Senate. But now, Secretary Markwayne Mullin is in a position to make decisions and own the consequences.

That’s what this moment requires. Not statements. Not positioning. Action.

For Afghans, this is about whether the commitments made in public are carried through in practice. Whether leadership means something when it counts.

Secretary Mullin: you’ve talked tough, but talk is cheap. Will your actions back up your words?

Read Pete's OpEd

Deadline Approaching – Comments on EAD Changes

The administration is considering changes to Employment Authorization Documents that could impact how quickly and reliably people receive or renew their work permits. Public comments close April 8, and the rule could shape processing timelines, renewals, and stability for people already here.

For Afghans, this is about basic stability. Work authorization is the difference between independence and vulnerability. Delays or uncertainty can mean lost jobs, missed rent, and families pushed into crisis. If we want people to rebuild their lives, we have to make it possible for them to work.

Learn More

Update on Camp As Sayliyah

A self-imposed March 31 deadline for movement out of Camp As Sayliyah came and went last week. Families at the camp were holding onto that date, and the Department was aware of it, but it passed without clear communication or updated guidance.

In response, we issued a public statement calling out the missed deadline and the lack of urgency and communication with families on the ground.

Read our Statement

At the same time, we sent a detailed letter to congressional offices outlining what happened, why it happened, and what needs to come next, including the need for sustained oversight and accountability from both Congress and the administration.

Read our Letter to Congress

That letter made clear what many already know: this was not an unavoidable outcome. A deadline was announced without a plan, and more than 1,100 Afghan allies and their families remain in limbo under U.S. authority.

We are continuing to track developments closely. Current indications suggest movement may not occur until May or June, though that remains uncertain.

For Afghans at CAS, this is about more than timing. It is about trust and predictability. These are families who believed they were on a defined path forward. When deadlines pass without explanation, it reinforces a pattern of uncertainty that makes it harder for people to plan, prepare, or feel secure. At a minimum, people deserve clear communication about what to expect and when.

Sileiri Doe v. DHS (CBP One Parole Termination Case)

A federal judge ruled that DHS acted unlawfully when it terminated parole for individuals who entered the United States through the CBP One process. The court found that while the government has broad discretion over parole decisions, it cannot terminate parole without first making the required determination that the purpose of parole has been fulfilled and without following its own procedures.

As a result, the court vacated the terminations and ordered the government to restore individuals to the parole status they held before the April 2025 termination notices.

This issue hits especially close to the Afghan community. Many Afghans, facing years of delays and uncertainty in Enduring Welcome, made the difficult decision to come through the southern border. AfghanEvac did not encourage that path, but others did, and the U.S. government itself pointed to CBP One as a lawful way to enter and seek protection.

Now, many of those same individuals have been targeted by ICE, with the current administration retroactively labeling them “illegal” despite following the process that was put in front of them.

This ruling matters because it draws a clear line. The government can change policy, but it cannot ignore the law or skip required steps to get there. For Afghans who relied on a pathway the U.S. government itself created, this is a meaningful check on arbitrary action and a reminder that due process still applies.

Read the Court Order

A.M.S. v. Edlow (Humanitarian Parole Case)

In a separate case, a federal judge dismissed a lawsuit brought by Afghan families seeking faster processing of humanitarian parole applications. The court ruled that it does not have jurisdiction to review how the government prioritizes or delays these cases, because parole decisions are discretionary.

The case involved Afghan applicants in hiding, facing Taliban threats, whose applications have been pending for years.

For Afghans, this is a difficult but important reality. Unlike the SIV program, humanitarian parole does not come with enforceable timelines. The court made clear that even severe delays, even in dangerous conditions, are not something it can step in to fix under current law.

That means these cases will not be solved in court. They will be solved, if at all, through policy changes, advocacy, and sustained pressure on decision-makers.

Read the Court Order

Afghan & Iraqi Allies v. Rubio (SIV Case)

There were no new orders issued this week, but the court held a status conference that underscored a growing problem: the government is not complying with a clear February order.

That order was not ambiguous. The court directed the government to resume visa processing and move cases forward. Instead, the State Department has continued to stall, offering incomplete answers, unclear plans, and at times appearing unprepared to execute on the court’s directive.

At the hearing, the judge signaled increasing frustration and warned that the government appears to be out of compliance. The concern is no longer just delay, it is whether the government is taking the order seriously at all.

And the government’s own reporting helps explain why.

In its most recent progress report covering December through early March, the State Department acknowledged that it failed to meet key performance standards across multiple stages of the SIV process. Cases at the Chief of Mission stage are now averaging 669 days, with zero applications processed within the required 120-day timeframe.

At the interview stage, only 2 percent of cases were scheduled within the required timeframe, and average scheduling delays stretched well beyond stated targets.

These are not marginal misses. They are systemic failures to meet the timelines the government itself agreed to.

Assistant Secretary for PRM Andrew Veprek attended the hearing but was unable to provide clear answers on several key issues.

A few notable takeaways:

• Individuals denied visa interviews due to the travel ban are being told their cases are closed and would need to restart

• The government does not yet know what that restart process would look like

• When asked how applicants are informed they will be denied due to the travel ban, the answer was: “through the website”

• The Department stated it is hiring 65 new staff into the Afghan Special Immigrant Visa Unit (ASIV)

  • However, this comes after the unit was significantly reduced, with more than 65 positions lost

  • In practical terms, this is not expansion. It is a partial rebuild from a degraded baseline

That last point matters. You cannot slow a system, reduce capacity, and then present partial rehiring as progress.

That last point is worth sitting with.

Applicants are not being told at scheduling that they will be denied. They are finding out through a website, after navigating a complex and often dangerous process to get to an interview.

That is not transparency. It is avoidance.

The work driving accountability here is extraordinary. The team at IRAP has been relentless, strategic, and deeply committed to their clients, forcing the government to answer hard questions it would clearly prefer to avoid. This case has moved forward because of their leadership, their preparation, and their willingness to keep pressing when progress stalled.

We partnered with IRAP this week to share a short video update breaking down what happened in court and what it means going forward.

Watch the Video

There are also fundamental questions that remain unanswered:

• Why was the Assistant Secretary for Population, Refugees, and Migration sent to represent the Department on this issue, when the SIV program is managed by the South and Central Asia Bureau and Consular Affairs?

• Why is the Department not executing against its own wind-down plan, briefed to Congress in 2024, which was designed to responsibly complete the program?

• Instead, why has the Department taken actions that disrupted operations and are now extending the time required to meet congressional mandates?

For Afghans, the stakes are immediate. A federal court has ordered movement. Instead, families are seeing continued delays, unclear processes, and no reliable timeline. When the government slow-rolls compliance with a lawful order, it is not just bureaucracy, it is a choice that keeps people in danger longer than necessary.

White House FY27 Budget Request

The White House released its FY27 budget request, and it signals a clear shift away from sustained investment in the systems that support Afghan allies.

The proposal includes reductions or eliminations tied to refugee admissions, relocation infrastructure, and integration support, alongside broader cuts to foreign assistance that have historically underpinned relocation efforts. Taken together, these changes would reduce capacity at every stage of the process, from movement out of third countries to resettlement in the United States.

We’ve broken down the key provisions and what they mean.

Read our FY27 Budget Breakdown

This comes at a moment when the system is already under strain, and when the government is already failing to meet court-ordered obligations. Processing delays are growing, relocation pathways are narrowing, and families are facing increasing uncertainty both abroad and in the United States.

For Afghans, this is not abstract. Budgets are policy. These decisions will determine whether cases move faster or slower, whether pathways remain open or close, and whether families who have already arrived can stabilize and rebuild. If enacted as proposed, this budget would make an already fragile system more constrained, not more functional.

Expanding Global Partnerships

This week, we co-hosted an event in London alongside partners including the Afghan Development Academy and the Afghan British Council, as part of our ongoing effort to expand coordination beyond the United States.

The convening brought together leaders, advocates, and stakeholders working across relocation, resettlement, and long-term integration, with a focus on strengthening collaboration and identifying practical solutions across borders.

For Afghans, this matters because the challenge is no longer confined to any one country. Pathways, protections, and outcomes are increasingly shaped by decisions made across multiple governments. Expanding this work internationally helps ensure that Afghan families have more options, more coordination, and a stronger network of support wherever they are.

Coalition Letter to Cabinet Officials on Afghan Policy Changes

This week, we joined a broad coalition of veterans, faith groups, refugee organizations, and Afghan American leaders in signing a letter to senior cabinet officials raising urgent concerns about recent policy changes affecting Afghan allies.

The letter calls out the real-world impact of these decisions: halted pathways, increased uncertainty for families, and growing risk for those both in the United States and still waiting abroad. It also urges the administration to restore clarity, protect existing pathways, and ensure that policy decisions align with our commitments.

Read the Letter

For Afghans, this reflects something important. This is not one organization raising concerns. It is a unified, bipartisan coalition, including veterans who served alongside Afghan partners, making clear that the current trajectory is not acceptable. That kind of alignment matters, and it increases pressure for change.

In the Press

• Markwayne Mullin supported Afghan allies. Now he can prove he meant it. — Washington Post

• Federal judge rules DHS illegally stripped immigration status from thousands who entered through CBP One App – NPR

• Thousands of San Diego County residents impacted by CalFresh Changes – Yahoo News

• ‘We don’t have enough food’: Providers brace for thousands of San Diegans to lose SNAP benefits – San Diego Union Tribune

• AfghanEvac Warns Trump Budget Could Shut Legal Pathways for Afghan Refugees – Khaama Press

This moment is not defined by a single decision. It is defined by direction, and by whether those in power are willing to meet it.

The courts are drawing lines, sometimes enforcing them, sometimes stepping back. The administration is making choices about capacity, urgency, and transparency. Congress is being asked, again, to do its job.

And increasingly, people are saying out loud what has been building for months: this is a moment for accountability.

For Afghan families, this is not abstract. It is about whether the promises made to them still mean something.

We are not stepping back. We are pressing forward, in court, with Congress, with the administration, and alongside partners here and abroad.

Stay engaged. Keep asking questions. Keep pushing.

Because what happens next will depend on whether people are willing to demand that words turn into action.

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Take Action NOW

• Read the latest reporting from NBC News about Camp As Sayliyah. Share our Instagram post from this morning on the topic.

• Donate to AfghanEvac so we can continue our work.

• Share one of these posts on your social media, drafts below:

  • Did you know that there are 1100 Afghan allies, mostly women and children, stuck on a U.S. run base in Qatar? Read the latest update from #AfghanEvac at afghanevac.substack.com

  • Afghans in California: Did you know that CalFresh benefits are changing on April 1 due to the One Big Beautiful Bill? AfghanEvac is tracking the latest updates and you can read the State of California’s Frequently Asked Questions at https://www.cdss.ca.gov/benefits-services/food-nutrition-services/calfresh/frequently-asked-questions

Markwayne Mullin Takes Office as Secretary of Homeland Security

Senator Markwayne Mullin has been confirmed and sworn in as the new Secretary of Homeland Security, replacing Kristi Noem, following a 54–45 Senate vote. He takes over at a volatile moment, with DHS operating amid a funding standoff and ongoing immigration policy shifts central to the administration’s agenda. Mullin, a close Trump ally, will oversee ICE, CBP, FEMA, and the broader immigration enforcement system, placing him at the center of decisions affecting Afghan allies, asylum policy, and domestic enforcement priorities.

Early signals suggest a focus on operational efficiency and alignment with the administration’s broader immigration posture, though details on policy changes remain limited. For AfghanEvac stakeholders, the key question is not just leadership style, but whether DHS under Mullin will continue tightening enforcement and restricting pathways, or create space for pragmatic solutions on cases involving vetted Afghan allies already in the system.

Our Statement

Nazeer’s Death and What It Represents
Reporting continues on the death of Nazeer, an Afghan ally who supported U.S. efforts and later died in ICE custody in Texas. His story is not an isolated incident. It reflects the growing risks Afghan allies face as pathways stall, protections erode, and individuals who followed the rules find themselves caught in a system that is increasingly difficult to navigate. Nazeer’s death is a stark reminder that delays, uncertainty, and policy breakdowns have real human consequences.

We will update the AfghanEvac community once autopsy results are released and his official cause of death has been determined.

We are grateful to journalist Beth Bailey for her dogged, consistent reporting on stories like Nazeer’s and for continuing to shine a light on the lived experiences of Afghan allies and volunteers across the AfghanEvac movement. These stories are often overlooked, but they matter deeply. They force accountability, they document reality, and they ensure that people like Nazeer are not forgotten.

Read Beth's latest in Reason

For Afghans in California – April 1 CalFresh Changes

Starting April 1, California will implement federal changes tied to the “One Big Beautiful Bill” that significantly restrict CalFresh eligibility for immigrants.

According to the state, most lawfully present immigrants, including refugees, asylees, parolees, and some Afghan nationals, will no longer qualify for CalFresh unless they have adjusted to lawful permanent resident (green card) status. These changes are being applied at the state level based on federal law, and current recipients may see impacts at their next renewal rather than immediately.

Read California's FAQ

At the same time, federal guidance remains inconsistent, and longstanding law still protects certain humanitarian groups, including Afghan SIV holders, from waiting periods once they are lawful permanent residents. The result is widespread confusion among caseworkers and families, and a real risk that eligible individuals may be wrongly denied benefits.

Bottom line: some Afghans, especially parolees or those without green cards, are at risk of losing CalFresh after April 1, while others should remain eligible, but may need to advocate for themselves as the system adjusts.

AfghanEvac is engaging the State of California to clarify who is and isn’t eligible, so please stay tuned to our social media or next week’s update for more information.

Camp As Sayliyah Update
More than 1,100 Afghan allies and family members remain at Camp As Sayliyah in Qatar, a site never meant to be permanent. These individuals were vetted and placed into U.S. pathways, including SIV, refugee, and family reunification, before being moved there by the U.S. government. In January, the State Department told both Congress and residents that the camp would close by March 31. Families have held onto that date as a promise of movement and resolution.

Today, with less than 24 hours to go, residents still have no information about where they are going or when. At the same time, missiles are landing closer to the camp, with credible reports of impacts nearby.

These families are now effectively trapped, not by their own choices, but by a failure to execute a plan. This is no longer a policy debate. It is a matter of safety. The deadline may have been arbitrary when it was set, but the current security environment has made it urgent. And yet, there is still no clear path forward. Closing Camp As Sayliyah without a defined, functioning alternative risks turning what was meant to be a temporary waypoint into a prolonged and dangerous crisis.

Recent reporting highlights growing fear among residents that they could be sent to third countries or left without durable status, while returning to Afghanistan is not a viable option due to Taliban control and credible threats tied to their past work with the United States.

We are hearing indications that residents may receive updates from the State Department this week. We hope that signals real progress and not simply movement without resolution. Success here is not just getting people out of the camp. It means safety, dignity, legal clarity, and honoring commitments across all three pathways, SIVs, refugees, and family reunification. Anything less risks becoming a failure to follow through on U.S. promises. We have outlined what success looks like in a recent statement and social thread, and we will continue pushing for outcomes that meet that standard.

Bipartisan Support Remains

At the most recent House Foreign Affairs Committee markup on legislation focused on Afghan women and girls (legislation supported by our AfghanEvac Coalition team), members from both parties reaffirmed bipartisan commitment to Afghan allies. Notably, Rep. Darrell Issa emphasized that Congress must prioritize restarting pathways for those who supported U.S. missions, signaling recognition across party lines that current policies are falling short.

That alignment matters. While the bill itself focuses on human rights, the conversation made clear there is growing bipartisan awareness that SIV processing, refugee admissions, and family reunification must be restored. Congressional pressure will be essential to ensuring the United States follows through on its commitments and does not leave Afghan allies behind.

Asylum Policy Update
Recent reporting indicates the administration is scaling back parts of its recent asylum crackdown following the National Guard shooting, but the rollback is limited. Nationals from countries not subject to the current travel ban will continue to have access to asylum processing, even as broader restrictions remain in place.

For Afghans, the impact is different. Because Afghanistan is included in the travel ban, Afghan nationals remain disproportionately affected by the crackdown, with continued barriers to accessing asylum and other protections. Bottom line: while some pathways are reopening for others, Afghans are still facing a more restrictive and uncertain system at a moment when access to protection is critical.

Community Update: A Dangerous Moment

Recent reporting highlights the case of Bajun Mavalwalla, a U.S. Army veteran who served in Afghanistan and is now facing federal conspiracy charges tied to his participation in an ICE protest. He is one of several individuals charged under statutes that carry significant prison time, in what legal observers describe as an escalation in how protest-related cases are being handled.

This moment should give all of us pause. Many of the same people who fought alongside Afghan allies, and who continue working to support them today, are now operating in an environment that feels increasingly uncertain and, at times, punitive. Regardless of politics, the stakes are clear: when those closest to the mission begin to face legal risk simply for showing up, it signals a shift that should concern anyone committed to the safety of Afghan allies and the integrity of the promises made to them.

While not involved with the coalition directly, Bajun was involved with the broader AfghanEvac movement. He is someone who has worked to help Afghan families navigate pathways to safety.

Watch the story on PBS

Current State

For those wondering the current state of pathways, we’ve created the graphic below. You are welcome to share on social media.

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In the Press

• US moved over 1,000 refugees to Doha base. War has brought it into crosshairs — ABC News

• Left in limbo, Afghans who served with U.S. forces fear Trump could send them back to the Taliban — NBC News

• How an Afghan man who aided U.S. military forces died in ICE custody in Texas — Houston Public Radio

• Hundreds of Afghan refugees stranded at Doha camp under Iran missile threat — Khaama Press

• Internal memos hint at Mullin’s first changes as DHS secretary — Washington Post

• Army veteran faces conspiracy charges after participating in anti-ICE protest — PBS News

• An Afghan Ally Was Arrested by ICE. Less Than 24 Hours Later, He Was Dead. — Reason Magazine

• I Worked in Operation Allies Welcome. Americans Must Not Betray Our Afghan Allies— Liberal Currents

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A Note to Those Still Doing the Work

To those across government who are still working, often quietly, to help Afghan allies: we see you. We know you are navigating restrictive policies, limited tools, and difficult constraints, and still choosing to push cases forward, answer questions, and do what you can to help. That work matters more than you may hear, and it is not going unnoticed.

We also want to be clear about where our frustration lies. It is not with you. It is with political leadership that is choosing policies that cause harm, stall pathways, and break commitments made by the United States to those who stood with us. When this moment passes, we will remember who showed up, who tried to make the system work, and who fought to uphold the values we claim as a country. We respect you, we appreciate you, and we are grateful for your continued efforts.

What happens next will not be determined by any single policy or decision, but by whether there is sustained pressure to align action with commitment.

The tools to get this right still exist.

The question is whether they will be used to preserve pathways, protect families, and follow through on promises made to Afghan allies. We will continue to push for that outcome, clearly, consistently, and with urgency.

In this week’s update, we’ll cover the stories above as well as some of the policy work that AfghanEvac is helping to drive. But first, please check out our Action Items this week.

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Action Items

Watch and share: This nearly 10-minute segment aired on ABC News during primetime on Friday. The more people who see it, the harder it becomes to ignore what’s happening.

Wear the mission: Our store is open. You can show the world you’re part of this movement, while directly supporting the work to get Afghan allies to safety.

Use your voice: Reach out to your members of Congress and urge them to support continued pathways for Afghan allies, including additional SIV visas and safe relocation options. This issue remains bipartisan, and constituent voices matter right now.

Donate Today

Update on Nazeer’s Death

Mohammad Nazeer Paktiawal, a 41-year-old Afghan ally and father of six, died less than 24 hours after being taken into ICE custody in Texas, prompting growing calls for answers from his family, advocates, and members of Congress. Nazeer had worked alongside U.S. forces and was evacuated to the United States in 2021, with a pending asylum case at the time of his arrest.

His body has now been returned to Afghanistan for burial. The autopsy has been completed, with results expected later this week, which will be critical to understanding the cause of death and determining accountability. As his family continues to seek answers, this case is raising broader concerns about the treatment of Afghan allies in U.S. custody and the need for transparency moving forward.

We will not let his death be in vain.

Read the latest on Nazeer's Death

CAS Update

We are continuing to track developments closely and advocate for Afghan families at Camp As Sayliyah, both privately and publicly.

Our advocacy is working. We are seeing signs of movement, and there is increased urgency across stakeholders to move the approximately 1,100 residents at CAS, most of whom are women and children, to safer conditions. Significant work is underway, and we recognize the sustained efforts of State Department staff and others working toward solutions.

Progress is being driven in no small part by the advocacy and courage of Afghans at CAS, especially young people, who have helped ensure their situation remains visible and cannot be ignored.

From our perspective, success looks like:

• Safety: Families, especially children, out of areas at risk of missile fire

• Dignity and stability: Freedom of movement and immediate work authorization in any country to which they are relocated and / or resettled

• Clarity of status: Durable options for those with denials, continued pathways for those pursuing U.S. relocation

• Honoring commitments: Relocation to a third country does not replace promises made to Afghan allies

• Opportunity to thrive: Safe environments with economic opportunity and community

• Clarity of communications: Leave nothing to be inferred. Communicate completely.

  Read our Statement

We are not part of third-country negotiations, but we remain actively engaged and will continue pushing for outcomes that meet these standards.

Reducing uncertainty remains central to our work. This week, we shared a memo with the State Department outlining key questions we are hearing directly from Afghans at CAS regarding movement, timelines, and next steps, and we will continue pressing for clear answers.

Read the Memo

Impact of Regional Conflict on Afghan Allies

The escalating war in Iran is deepening risks for Afghan allies across the region, with no clear path to de-escalation in the near term. Ongoing strikes on energy infrastructure and continued retaliation are driving broader regional instability, disrupting transit routes, and increasing economic pressure on host countries already supporting large Afghan populations.

For Afghans in Iran, conditions are rapidly deteriorating. UNHCR reports surging demand for assistance, overwhelmed support systems, and growing barriers to healthcare and basic services, while more than 300,000 Afghans have already been forced to return from Iran and Pakistan this year under worsening conditions. As conflict expands and pathways tighten, thousands of vetted Afghan allies face the real risk of being stranded in increasingly unstable and hostile environments.

Read the latest UNHCR Report

Afghanistan - Pakistan Conflict

Fighting between Afghanistan and Pakistan has escalated sharply in recent weeks into sustained cross-border strikes, driven largely by Pakistan’s claims that the Taliban is harboring militants targeting its territory, which Kabul denies.

The most alarming development was a Pakistani airstrike in Kabul that struck the Omid drug rehabilitation center, reportedly killing more than 400 people and injuring hundreds more, making it the deadliest single incident in the current conflict. Pakistan says it targeted militant infrastructure, but Afghan officials, witnesses, and independent analysts indicate the strike hit or severely impacted a civilian medical facility, prompting international calls for an investigation.

The conflict, now approaching open warfare, has already displaced tens of thousands and raised serious concerns about regional instability, with limited, temporary pauses like the recent Eid ceasefire offering only brief relief.

Policy Updates

Last week, a bipartisan group of members, led by Rep. Jason Crow, penned a letter to House appropriators urging the inclusion of 20,000 additional Afghan Special Immigrant Visas in the FY27 budget, reinforcing America’s commitment to our wartime allies. AfghanEvac and others worked with the lead office to support outreach, helping drive engagement across every single congressional office and ultimately securing signatures from nearly a quarter of the House. At a time of deep division, this level of bipartisan support makes clear that standing by Afghan allies remains a shared American priority.

Trip to Berlin

Our recent trip to Berlin focused on strengthening coordination with key international partners and reinforcing the urgency of sustaining relocation pathways for Afghan allies. Across meetings with government officials, NGOs, and coalition partners, there was clear alignment on both the moral obligation and strategic importance of continuing this work, even as global attention shifts and competing crises emerge.

We also used the trip to highlight current challenges, including pipeline disruptions, regional instability, and the growing population of vulnerable Afghans in third countries. The conversations in Berlin underscored that while progress is still possible, it will require continued international cooperation, clearer policy direction, and sustained pressure to ensure that commitments to Afghan allies are upheld.

Community, Resilience, and the Work Ahead

I had the opportunity to join the San Diego Hazara community this weekend for their Eid and Nowruz celebration, and it was a powerful reminder of what this work is really about. I met so many individuals who have been supported by AfghanEvac, and many more still searching for answers for loved ones waiting to begin their new lives in the United States.

From a ServiceNow expert, to a house painter, to a pilot whose wife was recently able to relocate, to Afghan women leaders and local San Diego supporters, the room reflected both the resilience of the Afghan community and the broad coalition standing behind them. It underscored, once again, that this effort is not just about policy, it is about people, families, and the futures they are working toward.

In the Press

• Afghan evacuees in limbo in Qatar camp accuse US of betrayal – BBC News

• US moved over 1,000 refugees to a base in Doha, now it’s a target — ABC News

• How an Afghan man who aided U.S. military forces died in ICE custody in Texas — Houston Public Media

• Family of Afghan man who died in ICE detention says he was ‘a hero for American people’ – The Independent

• Son and brother of Afghan man who died in ICE custody demand answers: “I want to know why he died” – CBS News

• Afghan who worked with US military dies in ICE custody: Advocacy group — The Hill

• The fight to control the narrative in the Afghan-Pakistan conflict – BBC News

• Caught Between Two Conflicts, Afghans Flee Iran — New York Times

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This moment demands clarity, urgency, and follow-through. The United States has the tools, the partnerships, and the bipartisan support to meet this challenge, but only if we choose to act with purpose. Afghan allies have held up their end of the promise. Now it is on all of us, across government, civil society, and the coalition that has carried this effort forward, to ensure we do the same.

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Both situations raise serious questions about how the United States treats the people who stood alongside us.

Action items

• Share coverage of Mohommad Nazeer Paktyawal’s death so more people understand what happened

  • The Independent

  • Reuters

  • Texas Tribune

  • Dallas Morning News

• Read and share our fact sheet about his death in ICE custody.

• Read and share our fact sheet about the situation at Camp As Sayliyah

• Donate to AfghanEvac so we can keep driving the conversation about our wartime allies at home and abroad.

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Death of Afghan Wartime Ally in ICE Custody

Over the weekend we learned that Mohommad Nazeer Paktyawal, an Afghan wartime ally evacuated to the United States in August 2021, died less than 24 hours after being taken into ICE custody in the Dallas area. Paktyawal worked alongside U.S. Army Special Forces beginning in 2005 and was living in Richardson, Texas with his wife and six children while his asylum case remained pending. According to family accounts, he was detained outside his apartment while preparing to take his children to school. He was later admitted to Parkland Hospital around 11:45 p.m. Friday and died Saturday morning. The cause of death remains unknown.

Read our Fact Sheet

ICE has since issued a statement emphasizing past allegations and claiming Paktyawal complained of shortness of breath while in custody before being transported to the hospital. Those claims do not change the central fact: a 41-year-old father of six died less than 24 hours after entering government custody. Much of the timeline remains based on family accounts, and a medical investigation into the cause of death is still pending.

His family deserves answers.

Camp As Sayliyah Update

Conditions at Camp As Sayliyah (CAS) remain deeply concerning as Afghan families continue living in an environment where missiles pass overhead on a near-daily basis.

In recent days, large precast concrete culverts have been installed around the site and are being presented to residents as places they may use for cover during alarms.

Structures like these have been used on U.S. military bases in Iraq and Afghanistan as improvised protection from indirect fire, primarily to reduce exposure to falling debris and fragmentation from distant blasts when people take “duck and cover.”

We understand the installations will be configured with additional barriers at the openings to reduce blast effects, and we have been assured that residents will receive training and familiarization on how to use the structures appropriately. These steps follow sustained advocacy raising concerns about the safety conditions facing families at the site.

Photos and video from CAS show children climbing on these installations, underscoring both the limited protective value of the setup and the broader reality that families, including young children, remain in a location exposed to active missile threats. While these measures may help mitigate certain risks, they do not change the fundamental concern that civilians are living under ongoing danger.

We understand there are active efforts underway at the State Department to move residents out of Camp As Sayliyah as quickly as possible.

Our advocacy remains focused on ensuring families are relocated somewhere genuinely safe and that all individuals who have cleared security vetting and completed the required processing are able to travel to the United States. More information about conditions at CAS is available at afghanevac.org/cas.

You can watch the full clip of our partner Sean talking about his brother, who remains stuck at Camp As Sayliyah, on this weekend’s Sunday morning MS Now

Press

• Afghans stranded for a year by Trump’s refugee freeze now caught in new war – PBS Newshour

• Afghan asylum-seeker dies in ICE custody, US advocacy group says – Reuters

• Afghan who fought with US special forces dies in ICE custody as Trump on track for deadliest year of detention in more than two decades – The Independent

• Afghan man with pending asylum case dies in ICE custody in Dallas — Texas Tribune

• Dad, 41, Who Fought With U.S. Troops Dies Hours After Being Detained by ICE — The Daily Beast

• Afghan War Veteran Dies After One Day in ICE Custody — Newsweek

• Among the people caught in the danger zone from the Iran war – Afghan allies waiting to relocate to the U.S. – MS Now the Weekend

• Politically Speaking: CA is ‘ground zero’ for refugee resettlement efforts amid immigration crackdown – NBC 7 San Diego

• Afghan Allies Stuck in Limbo at Qatar Refugee Camp – Scripps News

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Our wartime allies risked their lives beside American service members. That commitment does not end when the war does.

We owe them safety, dignity, and answers.

We will continue pressing for accountability in Nazeer Paktyawal’s death and for the safe relocation of families still waiting at Camp As Sayliyah.

At the same time, USA Today published a major story detailing the deteriorating conditions facing Afghan allies stranded at the facility. These stories are important because they center the voices of the people most affected by policy decisions and regional conflict.

In this week’s update we share the latest from Camp As Sayliyah, including the growing security risks for families there. We also cover the rapidly escalating Iran conflict and what it means for Afghan evacuees in the region, rising tensions between Afghanistan and Pakistan, new legal developments affecting refugee admissions and immigration policy, reflections following International Women’s Day on the role Afghan women and women across the coalition continue to play in this work, and a Sacramento visit.

But first, your weekly action items

• Contact your representative to let them know about the awful situation at Camp As Sayliyah

• For Afghans: Participate in our Global Roll Call so we can get together when we travel to your region

• For Afghans and Advocates: Let us know if you want to do media / press

  Donate

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Camp As Sayliyah update
Regional conflict is now directly affecting Afghan evacuees at Camp As Sayliyah (CAS) in Doha. Residents have recorded missile intercepts overhead as air defenses respond to attacks across the Gulf. Debris from those interceptions has fallen into the camp, including fragments that have penetrated civilian housing units where Afghan families are living. More than 1,100 Afghan allies and family members remain at CAS under U.S. authority. Approximately 800 are fully vetted refugees who had already been cleared to travel to the United States before relocation programs stalled.

More than half of the residents are women, more than half are children, and roughly 150 are immediate family members of active duty U.S. service members. Families have shared photos and video showing debris inside rooms where children sleep. While there are no confirmed injuries and no indication the camp itself has been deliberately targeted, the reality is clear: Afghan allies are living beneath active missile interceptions while waiting for policy decisions about their future.

Why this matters

• Afghan allies who completed U.S. vetting and were approved for travel should not be living under falling missile debris while being abandoned by the United States of America in the face of no clear relocation plan.

• Camp As Sayliyah residents do not have the hardened shelter protections used by U.S. military personnel in the region.

• The State Department has slated the camp for closure by March 31 and informed residents that relocation is imminent but has not provided details.

  • These details are necessary to prevent further retraumatization and allow families to plan their lives after giving so much in support of American missions.

• AfghanEvac sent a formal letter to Secretary Rubio urging immediate protective measures, clear contingency planning, and expedited relocation to the United States.

The core issue is simple: these families followed the process, passed security screening, and were placed in U.S.-managed transit. The United States retains a duty of care while they remain there.

Beth Bailey covered the issue on the Afghanistan Project Podcast this week.

Our engagement on Camp As Sayliyah

For more than a year, AfghanEvac and coalition partners have raised concerns about Camp As Sayliyah through private channels. That work has included texts, emails, letters, and direct engagement with senior officials across the U.S. government. When those efforts failed to produce urgency, we elevated the issue to Congress and began engaging more publicly.

Last week Senator Chris Coons asked Secretary Kristi Noem about the Afghans at Camp As Sayliyah during a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing. The question was not answered and now Secretary Noem has been moved to a different role. Congressional oversight like this matters. It ensures that the situation facing these families cannot be quietly ignored.

What this advocacy has included

• Private texts, emails, and letters to senior U.S. officials

• Direct outreach to congressional offices when agencies did not respond

• A formal letter to Secretary Rubio urging protective measures and relocation planning

• Supporting residents who asked for help bringing attention to their situation

For years we worked these issues quietly because we were seeing progress. That changed when engagement slowed and movement stopped. When private channels fail, public awareness becomes one of the few tools left to prompt action.

We also want to address something residents have been told directly. Some camp staff have warned that speaking publicly could put families at risk. We have confirmed through multiple channels that responsible advocacy is not placing residents in additional danger. In fact, the attention generated by residents speaking out and media coverage is reaching decision makers and helping drive engagement.

Finally, we want to thank the government and people of Qatar. Qatar has shown extraordinary generosity in hosting Afghan evacuees and supporting relocation operations for years. Even as the region faces missile threats and rising tensions, the Qataris have continued to provide safety and support for the families at Camp As Sayliyah.

Our goal remains simple: protect these families and move them to durable solutions as quickly as possible.

We expect additional media attention and advocacy in the coming days as more allies share their experiences.

Regional Impacts: US-Israel-Iran War
The conflict between the United States, Israel, and Iran has escalated sharply over the past week. U.S. and Israeli forces have carried out extensive airstrikes on Iranian military targets, while Iran has responded with drones and missile attacks against U.S. bases and Gulf partners. The fighting has spread across the region, including strikes in Lebanon and repeated interceptions of missiles and drones by Gulf states. The United States says it is moving toward controlling Iranian airspace, while Iran has shown no indication it plans to surrender or enter negotiations. The growing conflict is also creating risks for civilians and displaced populations across the region, including Afghan evacuees who remain in third countries while awaiting resettlement.

Why this matters

• The war is unfolding in parts of the Middle East where large numbers of vulnerable populations are located, including Afghans waiting for relocation to the United States.

• One of the largest groups of Afghans awaiting onward movement is located at Camp As Sayliyah in Qatar, placing them close to a region experiencing increased military activity and missile threats.

• The longer the conflict continues, the greater the risk to humanitarian operations across the region, increasing the likelihood of both emergency and protracted refugee crises.

• For Afghan allies already in limbo after years of displacement, the conflict adds another layer of uncertainty and potential danger while they still have limited freedom of movement.

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Afghanistan–Pakistan conflict update
Tensions between Pakistan and the Taliban government in Afghanistan are escalating into what Pakistani officials are calling “open war.” Over the past week, Pakistan has carried out more than 50 airstrikes on targets inside Afghanistan, including a recent strike on Bagram Air Base, the former hub of the U.S. war in Afghanistan.

Satellite imagery indicates several buildings at the base, including warehouses and a hangar, were destroyed. Pakistan says the campaign is aimed at militant groups it accuses the Taliban of harboring, particularly the Pakistani Taliban (TTP), which Islamabad blames for attacks that have killed hundreds of Pakistani security personnel. Taliban officials deny supporting those groups but have acknowledged the strikes and warned that Afghanistan will defend itself if attacks continue.

Why this matters

• A widening conflict between Afghanistan and Pakistan risks destabilizing the region just as many Afghan allies are still trying to relocate or reunite with family members.

• Fighting and cross-border strikes make it harder for Afghans to safely leave the country or move through the region while pursuing legal immigration pathways.

• Escalating tensions also increase pressure on neighboring countries that currently host large numbers of Afghan refugees and applicants in transit.

For Afghan allies who supported U.S. missions and are still waiting for relocation or family reunification, regional instability adds yet another layer of uncertainty to an already fragile process.

Pacito v. Trump update
The Ninth Circuit issued a decision in Pacito v. Trump, a major lawsuit challenging the administration’s suspension of the U.S. Refugee Admissions Program (USRAP). The court allowed much of the administration’s policy to stand, meaning the government can continue pausing refugee admissions and refugee case processing while the case moves forward. However, the court also upheld part of the lower court’s order requiring the government to continue providing certain legally required services to refugees who are already in the United States.

Why this matters

• The decision reinforces that the administration likely has broad authority to pause refugee admissions.

• At the same time, courts are signaling that the government still has legal obligations to refugees who have already been admitted.

• For thousands of refugees waiting overseas, including many Afghan allies, the ruling means the refugee pipeline largely remains frozen while the legal fight continues.

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New Lawsuit filed
A broad coalition of immigrant service organizations and labor unions has filed a federal lawsuit challenging several Trump–Vance administration immigration policies they argue discriminate against people based on their country of origin. The policies include a halt to many asylum adjudications, a freeze on immigration benefit applications for individuals from countries covered by the administration’s travel ban, and new guidance allowing immigration officials to weigh nationality when making certain immigration decisions. The lawsuit argues these steps violate federal law and the Constitution by blocking people from accessing legal immigration pathways based largely on where they are from.

Why it matters
If these policies remain in place, they could fundamentally change how the U.S. immigration system operates by allowing nationality to influence immigration decisions and by freezing many legal cases already in progress. Advocates warn the changes could separate families, shut down humanitarian protections, and create new barriers for people trying to follow lawful immigration processes. The case is likely to become an important legal test of how far the administration can go in reshaping immigration policy through executive action.

International Women’s Day reflection
International Women’s Day was observed around the world this weekend, but for many Afghan women the day arrived under some of the harshest restrictions anywhere on earth. Women and girls in Afghanistan remain barred from secondary education and university, restricted from many forms of employment, and increasingly pushed out of public life. These policies have not only erased opportunities, they have attempted to erase visibility and voice. At the same time, Afghan women inside and outside the country continue to organize, advocate, and lead. Many of the most determined voices pushing for lawful pathways, family reunification, and protection for Afghan allies are Afghan women who refuse to allow their communities to disappear into silence.

Why this matters

• Afghan women are not just victims of repression. They are leaders, organizers, and advocates shaping the future of their communities.

• Many Afghan women in the evacuation and resettlement pipeline supported U.S. and coalition missions, worked in civil society, or led local initiatives that advanced democracy and human rights.

• Women across the AfghanEvac coalition, including veterans, lawyers, organizers, caseworkers, and volunteers, have been central to the effort to relocate Afghan allies and sustain momentum over the past four years.

Progress in this work has always depended on women who refused to accept that the story was over. Afghan women fighting for their rights, and women across the coalition fighting alongside them, remain essential to ensuring that promises made during the war are not abandoned in its aftermath.

Sacramento visit
On Sunday we traveled to Sacramento to spend time with members of the Afghan community who are directly affected by many of the issues discussed in this update. We met with families whose loved ones remain stuck at Camp As Sayliyah, as well as former Afghan Air Force pilots who served alongside U.S. forces and are still waiting for family reunification after years of separation. These conversations are a powerful reminder that the policies we discuss in Washington have real consequences for families across the United States who are still trying to bring their relatives to safety.

The visit also included an Iftar organized by an extraordinary Afghan woman who has become a powerhouse leader in the Sacramento community. Khatima Jafar has built networks of support for newly arrived Afghan families while continuing to advocate for those still waiting to reunite with loved ones.

The evening brought together Afghan families to break fast during Ramadan, reflect on the journey that brought so many to California, and recommit to the work of ensuring Afghan allies and their families are not forgotten.

Press

• Afghan allies, stranded at Qatar refugee camp, face ‘hell’ amid Iran war – USA Today

• Afghan girl at CAS on The Lead with Jake Tapper – CNN

• ‘How many American troops should die for this?’: veterans split on war with Iran — The Guardian

• Pakistan Strikes Bagram Air Base, Escalating ‘Open War’ With Taliban – New York Times

• Iran war taxes US diplomatic work and leaves Americans in the Mideast in limbo – Associated Press

• Shawn VanDiver on Afghans at CAS during Iran conflict, etc — The Afghanistan Project Podcast

• Opinion: War with Iran should not begin with Americans left behind – San Diego Union Tribune

• Britain to bar study visas for four nations, halt Afghan work visas — Reuters

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Across these developments one theme remains constant. Afghan allies and their families continue to live with uncertainty created by policy delays, regional conflict, and a global humanitarian system under strain. Yet their voices are being heard, and the community advocating for them continues to grow stronger. From veterans standing up in immigration courts, to Afghan women leading advocacy efforts, to journalists amplifying the realities on the ground, the commitment to keeping promises has not disappeared.

As always, we will continue pushing for practical solutions, lawful pathways, and the safe relocation of the Afghan allies who stood with the United States. Thank you to everyone in this community who continues to speak up, show up, and move this work forward.

That volatility is not abstract for our Afghan friends.

At Camp As Sayliyah in Doha, where more than 1,100 Afghan allies and family members remain under U.S. authority, residents have recorded missile intercepts overhead. Debris from those intercepts has penetrated civilian housing units. Approximately 800 of the residents are fully vetted, approved refugees who were cleared for travel to the United States. More than half are women. More than half are children. Roughly 150 are immediate family members of active duty U.S. military personnel. Families have sent photographs and video showing fragments inside living quarters where children and parents reside.

We have no indication the camp itself has been deliberately targeted, and no confirmed reports of physical injury.

Debris is falling from the sky because regional conflict is expanding, and vulnerable civilians are living beneath it.

At the same time, courts are weighing whether refugees can be detained after lawful admission, veterans are being cited for standing in immigration court hallways, and federal agencies are advancing rule changes that could delay work authorization and narrow appellate review.

As humanitarian priorities contract globally, domestic policy remains stalled for the most vulnerable, and conflict continues to displace millions. Multiple pressures are colliding at once. The consequences are immediate, personal, and measurable.

A message to our Afghan friends

For many of our Afghan friends and partners, this moment feels deeply destabilizing. Families already living in prolonged limbo between Afghanistan, Iran, Pakistan, and third countries are watching new conflicts unfold around them, knowing they have no control over the forces shaping their future. Many have told us they feel unmoored, as if larger geopolitical struggles are once again gambling away the fate of ordinary people. The uncertainty is exhausting, and the sense of powerlessness is real.

What we can say clearly is this: you are not forgotten, you are not invisible, and the work to secure lawful pathways and durable solutions continues, even in difficult moments like this.

Take Action

1. Comment on the EAD rule changes

2. Donate to AfghanEvac

3. Participate in our Global Roll Call

4. Share this update on your social media

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Camp As Sayliyah

More than 1,100 Afghan allies and family members remain at Camp As Sayliyah in Doha under U.S. authority. Approximately 800 are fully vetted, approved refugees who were cleared for travel to the United States. More than half are women. More than half are children. In recent days, residents have recorded missile intercepts overhead, and debris from intercepted strikes has entered civilian housing units. Families have sent photos and video showing fragments inside rooms where children sleep. These families do not have hardened shelter comparable to that used by U.S. personnel in the region.

For Afghans who survived the fall of Kabul and Taliban retaliation, this is re-traumatizing. They followed our process. They completed vetting. They have been trapped in transit since January 2025. Now they are watching active military activity unfold above their living quarters. Approved refugees should not be living under missile debris while waiting on policy decisions.

State has informed residents they must permanently relocate to a third country by March 31, with Malaysia the only country confirmed to have committed to accepting some but not all thus far (according to sources within State Department).

These individuals were vetted and cleared for entry to the United States. Relocating them elsewhere does not discharge the duty of care assumed when the United States moved them into U.S.-managed transit.

We have formally pressed senior State Department leadership to provide hardened protective measures, communicate clear contingency plans, and expedite direct relocation to the United States.

Read our letter to Sec Rubio

Direct Message to CAS Residents

Over the weekend, we issued a direct message to residents in English, Dari, and Pashto. We made clear that we have no reason to believe Camp As Sayliyah itself has been deliberately targeted, and that residents should remain inside buildings to reduce risk. At the same time, we told families plainly that we are pushing State Department officials to take additional steps to protect them and their children.

We are including that message below because transparency matters. When families are living through visible military activity, they deserve clarity, calm communication, and visible advocacy. They deserve to know they are not alone.

BIA filing

A new federal lawsuit challenges recent changes to Board of Immigration Appeals procedures that were implemented through an Interim Final Rule without the standard public notice-and-comment process. The rule restructures how immigration appeals are reviewed by expanding the use of single-member decisions, limiting full panel review, restricting certain procedural tools, and accelerating case processing in ways plaintiffs argue undermine fairness and due process. AfghanEvac member organization HIAS is a plaintiff in the case, joining other legal and advocacy groups in arguing that the rule was unlawfully issued and will harm vulnerable immigrants navigating the appeals process.

Why It Matters

For Afghan allies and other immigrants, the Board of Immigration Appeals is often the last meaningful opportunity to correct legal errors before a deportation becomes final. Weakening safeguards at this stage increases the risk of wrongful removal, prolonged family separation, and irreversible harm. When appellate review is narrowed or rushed, mistakes are more likely to stand. This case is about more than procedure. It is about whether due process and fairness remain foundational principles in the U.S. immigration system.

Preliminary Injunction in Minnesota

A federal judge in Minnesota has temporarily stopped the U.S. government from arresting or detaining refugees simply because they have passed the one-year mark in the United States and are still waiting for their green cards. The government had argued that once a refugee reaches one year after lawful admission, officials can detain them if their permanent residency has not yet been approved. The court rejected that reading of the law, saying Congress did not authorize this type of detention and that the new policy breaks with decades of consistent practice. In short, the judge found that refugees who followed the legal process should not face detention just because the government has not finished processing their paperwork.

This ruling currently applies only in Minnesota and is not yet nationwide, but it carries wider importance. Other courts may rely on its reasoning, especially if similar cases are filed in states like California or elsewhere in the Ninth Circuit. If higher courts review the issue, the decision could eventually affect the entire country. For Afghans admitted through the U.S. refugee program, this case sends a clear message: American courts are carefully examining efforts to expand detention authority over lawfully admitted refugees, and at least for now, there are legal limits on how far the government can go.

Volunteers Cited for Loitering

Last week in San Diego, two U.S. military veterans were cited at a federal building while peacefully accompanying immigrants to immigration court. One of the veterans is a longtime AfghanEvac volunteer and serves as one of our Battle Buddies, a program in which veterans stand alongside Afghan wartime allies as they navigate complex legal proceedings. The two were standing in a public hallway outside the ICE check-in area and were not disrupting proceedings or blocking access. Federal officers told them the enforcement action stemmed from a decision by the Department of Homeland Security, in coordination with the General Services Administration, and described it as part of a nationwide directive. The citation was issued under a federal property regulation typically used for building rules.

If federal authorities are now using property regulations to limit public presence around immigration court proceedings, this raises serious concerns about transparency and due process. Immigration courts in the United States have historically been open to public observation as a safeguard of fairness and accountability. Veterans who once served alongside Afghan allies are continuing to stand with them in court so they do not face the system alone. We have formally asked DHS and GSA to clarify whether a nationwide policy restricting public access has been issued and to release any written directive supporting such a change.

Why This Matters

In the United States, immigration court proceedings are generally open to public observation. Public access is an important safeguard that promotes fairness, transparency, and accountability. When members of the public, including veterans, observe proceedings, it helps ensure that individuals navigating the system are treated lawfully and with dignity.

Afghan allies often face complicated legal processes, language barriers, and prolonged uncertainty. The presence of trusted volunteers can provide reassurance and an added layer of transparency. If public access to these spaces is restricted, even indirectly through building regulations, it can have real consequences for due process and public confidence in the system.

Refugee in Buffalo found dead after detention by DHS

Nurul Amin Shah Alam, a 56-year-old Rohingya refugee who was nearly blind and spoke no English, died in Buffalo after U.S. Border Patrol released him at night outside a closed coffee shop miles from his home. DHS publicly claimed agents dropped him at a “warm, safe location” near his residence. Surveillance footage later showed that was false. Video captured a Border Patrol van leaving him at a locked Tim Hortons in freezing conditions, with no phone, no money, and no way to reach his family. His body was found days later.

Why It Matters
This is what happens when systems treat vulnerable refugees as paperwork instead of people. For Afghans and others rebuilding their lives here, safe release, coordination with families, and basic accountability are not administrative details. They are life-or-death safeguards. When agencies misrepresent facts and fail to ensure humane treatment, trust collapses, and lives are put at risk. That is exactly why our work matters.

EAD Rule Change Update

The U.S. Department of Homeland Security has proposed a significant change to how Employment Authorization Documents, or work permits, are issued for people seeking asylum. The proposal would extend the waiting period before someone can apply for a work permit from 180 days to 365 days, lengthen processing times, and allow the government to pause new asylum-based work permit applications entirely when asylum case backlogs exceed a set threshold, which they currently do. The rule would also expand the grounds that make someone ineligible for work authorization. If implemented, many individuals with pending asylum cases, including some Afghan allies, could face prolonged periods without the legal ability to work.

Why This Matters

Work authorization is the foundation of self-sufficiency. It allows Afghan allies and other asylum seekers to support their families, pay rent, buy food, and contribute to their communities. Delaying or denying access to work increases hardship, prolongs instability, and shifts additional burden onto already strained nonprofit and community networks. For Afghans who have already endured years of uncertainty, adding new barriers to lawful employment undermines both integration and dignity.

What You Can Do

This proposed rule is open for public comment before it is finalized. Public input matters. You can submit a formal comment through the Federal Register at the link below and explain how delaying or restricting work authorization would affect Afghan allies, your community, or your organization.

Read our Explainer and Comment

Global Update Recap

Last week we brought together nearly 1,900 participants from 31 countries and 48 U.S. states for our February Global Update. More than 1,000 Afghans with active cases joined from Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Qatar, alongside veterans, immigration attorneys, refugee leaders, journalists, advocates, and representatives from 49 congressional offices. We covered the current status of Special Immigrant Visas, changes to the refugee program, proposed work authorization rules, ongoing litigation, and what we are seeing across multiple countries. We also announced that former UK Cabinet Minister Johnny Mercer has joined AfghanEvac as a Senior Advisor, reinforcing that this is not just an American responsibility, but a shared commitment among allied nations.

Why This Matters

The size and diversity of this briefing make one thing clear: the obligation to Afghan allies is global, and the work is not over. Johnny Mercer’s decision to formally join AfghanEvac underscores that this effort crosses borders and political ideologies. When leaders from different countries and different political traditions align around keeping promises made in war, it strengthens credibility and momentum. As policies shift and uncertainty grows, coordination and clear information matter more than ever. When veterans, lawmakers, advocates, and Afghan families are aligned around the same facts, we are stronger and better positioned to push for lawful, durable solutions.

Watch the full briefing

International Engagement

This week I traveled to London, where I met with NGOs, Afghan community leaders, and international partners, and participated in the Humanitarian Finance Summit. The conversations were sobering. With the United States ending USAID programs and major global partners contracting their humanitarian operations, the impact on vulnerable populations is immediate and severe. Organizations that once provided critical services are scaling back or shutting down entirely, leaving gaps in food assistance, medical care, legal aid, and relocation support. The global humanitarian system is under significant strain, and Afghan families, particularly those still in the region, are feeling the consequences in real time.

Why This Matters

Humanitarian funding is not abstract. When major donors withdraw, instability grows, displacement increases, and lawful relocation pathways become harder to sustain. For Afghan allies still in Afghanistan or in third countries, reduced aid means fewer services, longer waits, and greater vulnerability to exploitation and forced return. Globally, shrinking humanitarian capacity also weakens democratic credibility and cedes influence to actors who do not share our values. The consequences are strategic, not just moral.

Press

• They Fought for the C.I.A. in Afghanistan. In America, They’re Living in Fear – NY Times

• The Trump administration is detaining and questioning refugees already admitted to the US – Associated Press

• Shah Alam’s family speaks of their loss – Investigative Post

• Nurul Amin Shah Alam, Blind Rohingya Refugee Dumped by Border Patrol, Dies in Cold – Mother Jones

• Blind refugee found dead in New York after being released by immigration authorities – BBC

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We are in a period of convergence. Regional instability is rising. Domestic immigration policy is tightening. Humanitarian funding is contracting.

When these forces collide, vulnerable families absorb the shock first.

Missile debris entering civilian housing at a U.S.-managed transit camp is not an abstraction. It is a test of whether duty of care still means something. Court rulings narrowing due process are not technical disputes. They shape whether lawful pathways remain real. Delayed work authorization is not administrative delay. It determines whether families can survive.

Our responsibility does not shift with the policy climate or who sits behind the Resolute desk.

Lawful pathways, durable solutions, and due process are most essential when pressure rises.

We will continue pressing at every level of government. We will continue coordinating internationally. We will continue standing visibly beside Afghan families navigating this uncertainty.

This is a serious moment.

And we are not stepping back.

Donate

If you haven’t yet registered for our Global Update briefing (10am pacific/ 1pm eastern / 10:30pm Kabul), now is the time to do it. We have over 1300 people registered globally and a who’s who lineup of speakers.

For Afghans and volunteers reading this — we are trying to better understand just how far and wide the community goes. AfghanEvac is going global and we want to know where in the world people live. And when we are in the neighborhood, we want to get together. Our Global Roll Call will help us do that.

Take action

• Attend the Global Update – Happening in a little over 4 hours

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Coordinated effort to remove protections for refugees and make it easier to remove people

Over the past several weeks, three separate federal actions have reshaped how refugees are treated after arrival in the United States. Individually, each may appear procedural. Together, they represent a coordinated shift that expands detention authority, broadens removal grounds, and limits meaningful appeals.

• DHS has asked the Attorney General to reinterpret refugee status as conditional after one year, meaning refugees could be treated as if they are reapplying for admission rather than retaining durable status.

• DHS has authorized the arrest and detention of certain refugees who have not adjusted status at the one-year mark, effectively turning what was once an administrative milestone into a potential enforcement checkpoint.

• DOJ has shortened appeal deadlines and expanded summary dismissals at the Board of Immigration Appeals, reducing access to meaningful review before removal becomes final.

The combined effect is structural. The one-year anniversary of arrival now carries heightened legal exposure, expanded detention risk, and fewer procedural safeguards.

These changes do not directly affect Afghan Special Immigrant Visa holders admitted as immigrants. However, they could significantly impact Afghans admitted through the refugee pathway.

This is not simple administrative streamlining. It is a rebalancing of authority toward detention and removal, with fewer opportunities for correction before deportation becomes final. We are monitoring implementation closely and assessing next steps.

At this time, we are operating under the assumption that those who have already completed the necessary steps for adjustment should remain secure and not face detention. That assessment could change. If it does, we will inform you immediately.

New SIV paperwork deadline: June 5, 2026

The State Department has announced via the SIV page and emails to applicants:

Deadline to submit all supporting documentation for your Chief of Mission approval application, including any additional documentation requested by the Department: June 5, 2026. These deadlines do not apply to visa processing steps after receiving COM approval.

Reminder: The deadline to file an application was December 31, 2025. No new applications can be filed, but if you have one in progress you can submit paperwork and must by June 5, 2026.

Full details are available on the State Department SIV page.

https://travel.state.gov/content/travel/en/us-visas/immigrate/special-immg-visa-afghans-employed-us-gov.html

Litigation good news

On February 20, a federal judge in the Northern District of California granted a preliminary injunction in a case brought by Red Eagle Law, finding that the plaintiffs are likely to succeed on all of their claims.

The court ordered USCIS to adjudicate the plaintiffs’ pending work permit and green card applications within 30 days. This is the first ruling to block implementation of the December 2, 2025 and January 1, 2026 USCIS policy memoranda that paused adjudication of immigration benefits for applicants from 39 countries, plus the Palestinian Authority, under the expanded travel ban framework.

Separately, a federal court ruled on Feb 9 that the government must resume processing visa applications for Afghan allies who were unlawfully stalled. The court made clear that agencies cannot simply freeze lawful visa processing without statutory authority. This ruling reinforces a basic but critical principle: executive discretion does not mean indefinite inaction. Afghan allies who followed the rules are entitled to decisions on their cases.

There is a status conference tomorrow (Feb 24) to determine if the government is complying with the order.Learn more from our friends at IRAP, who are leading the effort.

Several lawsuits challenging these USCIS and visa-processing policies have now been filed across the country. We are beginning to see meaningful judicial pushback. We expect continued litigation, and we are watching closely.

Press

• New DHS memo outlines plan to detain refugees for further vetting – Washington Post

• Trump administration broadens ICE powers to detain refugees – The Hill

• Refugees in the U.S. could be arrested under a new immigration memo – NPR

• How Legal Immigration Became a Deportation Trap – The New Yorker

We tried to keep this week short because we are going to be putting out a TON of info at the Global Update. Grab your coffee, clear your calendar, and come be in community with us.

The statute has long required refugees to apply for lawful permanent residence after one year. What is new is the enforcement posture.

The memo characterizes refugee admission as “conditional,” requires refugees who have not adjusted to “return” or be “returned” to DHS custody for inspection, authorizes arrest if they do not voluntarily appear, and permits detention for the duration of the inspection process. It rescinds prior ICE guidance that did not treat failure to adjust alone as a detention trigger.

This reframes what was historically an administrative compliance step into a potential custody event.

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We've got a lot of good info below, but I wanted to share the three important bits right here:

• Read our explainer on the memo

• Sign up for our global update Monday Feb 23, 10am pacific

• Donate to help us keep going

International Coverage

Major outlets are now covering this shift:

• Reuters: https://www.reuters.com/world/us/trump-administration-expands-ice-authority-detain-refugees-2026-02-19/

• Washington Post: https://wapo.st/3MN3tU2

• CBS News: https://www.cbsnews.com/news/trump-administration-gives-ice-broader-powers-to-detain-legal-refugees-citing-security-concerns/

Afghan communities are understandably worried about what this means for them and their families.

Last night, we circulated the full memorandum, our formal statement, a detailed explainer, and an overarching analysis outlining how this change interacts with recent shifts in removal authority and appellate review.

Check it out

What the Memo Does

Under the February 18 memorandum:

• Refugee admission is described as “conditional.”

• Refugees who have not adjusted after one year must return for inspection.

• If they do not voluntarily appear, DHS may arrest and detain them.

• Detention may last for the duration of the inspection process.

• If inadmissibility is found, removal proceedings may begin.

The memo explicitly removes prior internal limitations that generally did not treat failure to adjust status alone as grounds for detention.

This is a meaningful policy shift.

You can check out all of our explainers on our website.

Read the Explainers

A Coordinated Structural Shift

This memorandum does not stand alone.

It is one of three early 2026 federal actions that, taken together, reshape refugee detention, removal authority, and appellate review.

Those actions include:

1. Reframing refugee status at the one-year mark as subject to renewed admissibility review.

2. Converting the one-year adjustment process into a detention checkpoint.

3. Restricting meaningful appellate review before the Board of Immigration Appeals.

Individually, each may appear technical. Together, they expand detention authority, broaden removal grounds, and narrow opportunities for appeal.

This represents a structural rebalancing toward enforcement.

What This Means in Practical Terms

This communication is for informational purposes only and does not constitute legal advice. Individuals should consult qualified immigration counsel or accredited representatives regarding specific cases.

Not every refugee will automatically be detained at the one-year mark.

Risk may be considered lower for individuals who:

• Have filed Form I-485,

• Completed biometrics,

• Responded to Requests for Evidence,

• Attended interviews,

• Maintained updated contact information with USCIS.

The highest exposure appears to be for refugees who:

• Have not filed for adjustment after one year,

• Filed but fell out of compliance,

• Missed required steps or appointments,

• Have unresolved admissibility concerns.

For those in compliance, this remains primarily an administrative process.

For those who have not engaged in the adjustment process, this memo materially increases enforcement risk.

Why This Matters

For decades, refugee resettlement has functioned as a durable protection mechanism. Refugees were admitted lawfully, and while adjustment after one year was required, it was not typically treated as a detention trigger absent separate grounds.

This memo reframes that moment as a potential enforcement checkpoint.

It raises serious questions about reliance, stability, and the durability of refugee admission in the United States.

We are calling for this memorandum to be rescinded.

Special Global Update This Monday at 10:00am Pacific

Before we get deeper into the analysis of the memo, we wanted to flag that AfghanEvac is hosting a special Global Update this Monday February 23, 2026 at 10:00am Pacific.

We will discuss:

• Current state for Afghans in the Enduring Welcome pipeline the United States and abroad.

• The legal implications of the February 18 memorandum

• The broader coordinated policy shifts underway

• Recap of recent congressional hearings and legislation

• Status of litigation

• Practical risk and who should be concerned

• Update on Battle Buddies

• AfghanEvac’s impact report

• What YOU can do to step up and help

Confirmed guest speakers include:

• Beth Oppenheim, HIAS

• Vanessa Dojaquez-Torres, The American Immigration Lawyers Association

• Danilo Zak, Church World Service

• Austin Kocher, Syracuse University

Register today

If you work in relocation, refugee protection, legal services, policy, media, or integration support, you should be on this call.

We also launched a bunch of new explainers and, because of that, launched an overarching explainers page. This page will iterate over time.

Take action

1. We’ve launched a new explainer hub to help you understand what’s happening, and what it means for Afghan allies. Share it widely. Misinformation thrives in silence.

2. Sign up to be a Battle Buddy: afghanevac.org/battle-buddies

3. Buy some AfghanEvac merch and support our work in style.

Operational Snapshot

Approximately 260,000 Afghans remain in the Enduring Welcome pipeline across 90 countries.

• 178,000 have Chief of Mission approval and are awaiting interview, including 35,000 principal applicants plus their family members.

• Tens of thousands remain pending Chief of Mission approval.

• Approximately 60,000 Afghans were referred through USRAP.

• 15,000 are in the family reunification pipeline.

Special Immigrant Visas

SIV visa issuance remains paused. Chief of Mission processing and related application steps are expected to resume.

A federal court has ordered the resumption of SIV application processing, but visa issuances have not resumed. If you have a valid visa in your passport, it is still good.

The application deadline has passed. No new applications may be submitted, but existing cases should continue processing.

If you or a loved one has a scheduled visa interview and is subject to travel restrictions, seek legal counsel immediately. In most cases, attorneys are advising postponement.

Visa Allocation

There are approximately 35,000 Chief of Mission approved principal applicants awaiting interview, but only about 5,900 visas remain available under current statutory caps.

Absent congressional action to increase visa allocation, current numbers will not meet demand.

USRAP P1/P2

The United States Refugee Admissions Program remains suspended for all Afghans. Only the President can reverse this suspension.

Relocation flights are halted, and the State Department has announced no plan to resume operations.

Without legislative action, including passage of the Enduring Welcome Act, large-scale relocation is unlikely to restart.

Two Congressional Hearings

Last week featured two Congressional hearings that related to our shared interests: a HFAC South and Central Asia subcommittee hearing on South Asia and a shadow hearing on Afghan allies. The first was compelled by the second.

The South Asia focused hearing opened with SCA Subcommittee Chairman Bill Huizenga asking when the Afghanistan policy will be available for review.

Ranking Member Sydney Kamlager Dove then asked several questions about Afghan allies, including about the fate of those currently stuck at Camp As Sayliyah.

The shadow hearing was absolutely incredible. The witnesses, all of whom came from the AfghanEvac community, did an extraordinary job. We all owe them a debt of gratitude for their professionalism. I’m going to share a couple important moments from the hearing, but you can check out our YouTube playlist for the full hearing, and testimony from each witness on our YouTube.

View the Playlist

Zia Ghafoori from the Interpreting Freedom Foundation made very clear the impact of the United States government’s rhetoric and policy changes on Afghan families.

Commander Catalina Gasper from Task Force Argo did a great job of laying out why we all do this and when she will consider her mission over. Rep. Kamlager Dove responded, watch below.

Jessica Bradley Rushing from AfghanEvac laid out what the government has done to our allies over the last 12 months.

And Dr. Kyleanne Hunter from IAVA made it clear that veterans across the nation feel a shame worse than they felt in August 2021 because things were getting better before the government deconstructed Enduring Welcome.

We are grateful to Representative Sydney Kamlager-Dove for convening the first hearing of the 119th Congress focused on this issue.

Some in the advocacy community chose not to participate in the shadow hearing out of concern that it might be perceived as partisan. We take a different view. We participate wherever Afghan allies are being discussed. Engagement is not endorsement. Declining to show up does not advance lawful pathways or durable solutions.

Advocacy requires a full toolkit. There are moments for collaboration at the table and moments for outside pressure. Both have their place. Our responsibility is to use every appropriate tool in service of our allies.

Shadow hearings are a longstanding congressional practice designed to elevate issues that may not otherwise receive formal attention. Every congressional office was invited to attend, and we understand the convening team extended similar invitations.

Congressional Engagement

In addition to ensuring every office on the hill knew about the shadow hearing, we engaged with longtime friends of Afghans for updates on the current state and discussions about existing and potential future legislation that would help our allies succeed.

International Engagement

While in DC, I met with leaders from Qatar, Pakistan, Kosovo, and more. We discussed the ongoing injustice faced by our friends. Also, there were numerous discussions during the Munich Security Conference related to these efforts.

Qatar

I met with Qatari officials to discuss a variety of issues, including the fate of our allies at Camp As Sayliyah. We do not have updates on this topic right now but the conversations continue and we are making sure to lift the voices of our allies who are trapped at CAS.

Pakistan

On Monday of last week, I sent this letter to Ambassador Rizwan Sheikh of Pakistan. Later in the week I met with the Deputy Chief of Mission and the Chancery leader from the Embassy in the Untied States and we had a lengthy discussion about the plight of our allies in the region.

There was no concrete progress made but they gave me assurances they would pass on our asks (mercy for the Afghans in Pakistan and some more time for Afghanistan policy to be worked out to those people can ultimately come here, as the U.S. agreed to previously).

Potential major changes to protections for refugees and asylees

You may have seen our explainers on recent changes to the Board of Immigration Appeals (BIA) and the Secretary of Homeland Security’s request to the Attorney General that longtime precedent be overturned regarding refugee protections upon arrival.

What you need to know is that these things taken together are an attempt to streamline the removal of immigrants, Afghans and otherwise. If implemented, these changes would allow DHS to place newly arrived refugees and asylum seekers into expedited removal if they lack permanent status. This would fundamentally alter longstanding protections.

Read the explainers for more info.

https://afghanevac.org/doj-refugee-changes

https://afghanevac.org/bia-rule-explainer

Battle Buddies

Battle Buddies is still going strong. If you have an upcoming court date, please let us know as far in advance as possible so we can assign Battle Buddies or recruit and train new Battle Buddies if they’re not already in the region.

Share your appointment

Press

• Special Immigrant Visa Program Needs Resuscitation, but it’s Not Dead Yet – Reason

• US pays Afghans stranded in Qatar to repatriate, plan labeled ‘betrayal’ – Reuters

• His family fled Afghanistan facing threats for supporting US troops. Now he sits in ICE custody at risk of being sent back – CNN

• The return of millions of Afghans from Pakistan and Iran pushes Afghanistan to the brink, UN warns — Associated Press

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The numbers are real, the consequences are real, and so is our responsibility.

This has never been a partisan cause. It is a matter of honoring commitments, upholding the rule of law, and standing by those who stood with us. We will continue to engage any leader, in any party, who is willing to work toward lawful pathways and durable solutions.

Policy can stall, politics can shift, but our commitment will not.

We will keep showing up, speaking clearly, and pushing until our allies are safe and the United States keeps its word.

This week’s update covers a lot. If you read nothing else, please focus on the shadow hearing, the update about government targeting of volunteers, and the new rule dismantling the Board of Immigration Appeals.

Substance

• New rule in the federal register dismantling BIA

• Washington Post investigation shows volunteers are being targeted

• New York Times story caused confusion and fear

We are sharing new explainers we have put together, addressing two articles from last week that caused understandable concerns, and recapping several things we participated in over the last few days.

But the most important thing this week is the shadow hearing happening on Wednesday February 11th in Washington, DC. Learn more about it below including who the witnesses are, why it matters, and why whatever nonsense you’re hearing about it being partisan is just noise.

Take Action TODAY

• Sign up to attend this week’s hearing in Washington, DC

• Sign up to be a Battle Buddy (we are especially looking for veterans, frontline civilians, and evacuation volunteers in Sacramento, CA and New York, NY).

• Amplify our explainers

• Read James’ appeal to do SOMETHING

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The hearing, and why it matters
On Wednesday, House Foreign Affairs Committee members who are frustrated that they could not secure an official, bipartisan hearing on Afghan allies are holding a shadow hearing.

We strongly encourage you to attend. We have limited funding available for AfghanEvac community members (including our Battle Buddies) who want to be there in person, but you need to let us know today so we can get that arranged.

Show up

We have heard some people describe this as a partisan hearing. We reject that framing because it’s simply not true.

There is nothing partisan about standing with our allies. Showing up is the love language of advocacy.

To be clear:

• Republicans and Democrats are invited to participate.

• The witnesses include Republicans and Democrats.

• None of the witnesses are operating in a partisan capacity.

The witnesses come from across the country, across the evac community, and across the political spectrum.

• Zia Ghafoori (North Carolina)

• Jessica Bradley Rushing (Massachusetts)

• Catalina Gaspar (Texas)

• Dr. Kyleanne Hunter (Oregon)

This is about accountability, moral obligation, and national credibility. This hearing is about creating a public record, forcing clarity, and making it harder for inaction to hide behind process. When official channels refuse to act, showing up becomes the work.

Stakeholders from every part of the political spectrum should do everything they can to pressure Members of Congress from both sides of the aisle to participate.

The state of play
We continue to operate in a largely frozen environment, there is no other way to say it.

Thousands of Afghan allies remain stranded in third countries, particularly Pakistan and in U.S. government custody in Qatar, with deteriorating legal status and increasing risk. There is no quiet restart underway. There is no secret exception process. Anyone telling families otherwise is either mistaken or doing harm.

CARE is dead and Enduring Welcome remains effectively cancelled. Refugee cases are not moving, and we don’t expect them to anytime soon. Family reunification and Follow-to-Join Asylee approvals are not happening. This is not a paperwork issue, a staffing issue, or a lack-of-authority issue. It is a deliberate policy choke point, and families are paying the price.

That reality is grim, but clarity matters. False hope is worse than bad news.

What changed last week
Substance did not move, but pressure did.

Last week’s New York Times story on SIVs created real anxiety, especially among Afghan families. We want to be clear. The article accurately reflects dysfunction and delay, but it does not signal a new policy opening or closure. It is a snapshot of a broken system, not a roadmap forward. We are continuing to engage reporters to make sure Afghan voices and real-world consequences are centered, not buried in bureaucracy.

We are also tracking the government’s appeal of a temporary restraining order related to the detention of Minnesota refugees. This matters far beyond Minnesota. It speaks to a broader posture that should concern anyone who cares about due process and the rule of law.

Details below.

Government Appeals Court Order Blocking Refugee Detentions in Minnesota

Late last week, the federal government asked a judge to lift a temporary restraining order that currently bars the Trump administration from arresting and detaining lawfully admitted refugees in Minnesota under Operation PARRIS. The restraining order, issued by U.S. District Judge John Tunheim, halted the practice after a class action lawsuit (brought by our friends from IRAP) argued that federal agents were targeting refugees who have not yet received permanent resident status, detaining and transporting some to out-of-state facilities without warrants or cause.

The judge’s order also required the immediate release and return of those already detained. The government’s appeal contends federal law requires refugees who have not yet obtained green cards to be returned to federal custody for verification, but Judge Tunheim has signaled skepticism, noting that less coercive measures such as notice to appear could be used instead.

We’ve seen this order in action as several Afghan P1/P2 recipients have gone through the interviews successfully.

Government targeting volunteers helping Afghans
A recent Washington Post investigation describes how the Department of Homeland Security has used administrative subpoenas, which do not require prior approval from a judge, to obtain Americans’ personal data after they engaged in lawful speech related to immigration matters. In the reported case, a U.S. citizen who emailed a DHS prosecutor urging leniency for an Afghan asylum seeker later learned that DHS had subpoenaed his Google account and sent agents to his home, despite no allegation of criminal wrongdoing. Civil liberties groups warn this practice can chill lawful advocacy and volunteer activity.

What this could mean for volunteers in our network
Many people connected to AfghanEvac support Afghan allies through independent volunteer roles with a range of organizations. AfghanEvac often shares information, updates, and resources across this broader community. This reporting is a reminder to stay informed and careful as immigration enforcement tools are used more aggressively, even where individuals are acting lawfully and in good faith.

What to do if you are notified about a subpoena, warrant, or law enforcement contact

• Do not panic, and do not assume you have done anything wrong.

• Do not consent to searches, interviews, or requests for information without speaking to a lawyer.

• Ask for documentation, including a copy of any subpoena or warrant. Note that administrative subpoenas are not issued by judges.

• Do not delete emails, messages, or records once you are notified.

What we’re asking of you
If you receive notice of an administrative subpoena, data request, or law enforcement contact that appears related to your immigration or Afghan ally advocacy, please let us know by emailing contact@afghanevac.org with the subject line “Subpoena received.”
Sharing this information does not imply wrongdoing or liability. It helps us understand what is happening across the community and ensure accurate, timely information sharing. AfghanEvac is not providing legal advice or representation in these situations; this request is solely about situational awareness and community safety.

We will continue to track this issue and share relevant updates as they emerge.

Update on Recent New York Times Coverage

A recent New York Times article about Afghan partner visas has generated understandable concern. The underlying reporting is generally solid, but the headline is misleading, and the piece lacks the nuance necessary for most readers to accurately understand the current state of play. For that reason, we have created a separate explainer to provide clearer context on what has actually changed, what has not, and where viable pathways and pressure points remain.

The article does accurately capture a troubling reality: some lawmakers are currently unwilling to stand publicly and forcefully with our Afghan allies, despite years of bipartisan commitments. That is unacceptable. At the same time, history tells us that positions harden and soften over time. We are confident many of these members will ultimately come back home on this issue. Our work must balance accountability with persistence, holding leaders to their promises while keeping the door open for future collaboration, regardless of whether they have an R or a D after their name.

The story also centers on Zia Ghafoori, who will testify at this week’s hearing. Zia’s story is extraordinary. He served shoulder to shoulder with U.S. forces and was honored twice by President Trump at Medal of Honor ceremonies at the White House. His testimony is a powerful reminder of who these Afghan allies are, and what the United States owes them.

We encourage everyone to read the explainer, stay grounded in the facts, and keep pushing with clarity, discipline, and resolve.

Read the explainer

New DOJ Rule Weakens Immigration Appeals Process

The Department of Justice has issued an interim final rule that significantly weakens the Board of Immigration Appeals, the body responsible for reviewing immigration judge decisions and correcting errors before people are removed from the United States. As outlined in our explainer, the rule sharply shortens appeal deadlines, limits briefing, expands summary dismissals, and allows many cases to become final removal orders without meaningful review. In practice, this strips away a critical due process safeguard, particularly for detained individuals, people without lawyers, and those navigating the system under extreme time and resource constraints.

While the rule applies broadly across the immigration system, it poses real risks for Afghan allies and others with complex cases who rely on appellate review to correct mistakes, incomplete records, or misapplications of the law. By collapsing timelines and reducing oversight, the rule shifts error correction out of the administrative process altogether and increases the likelihood of wrongful removals. We have published a plain-language explainer to help clarify what this rule does, who it affects, and why it matters.

Learn more about the rule

Roundtable with Governor Newsom
We showed up. Last week, we participated in a roundtable with Governor Gavin Newsom and California leaders focused on immigration, enforcement, and humanitarian impacts. Afghan allies were part of that conversation.

After hearing directly from us about the current reality facing these families, the governor immediately began speaking publicly about their plight and the moral obligation to stand by those who stood with us.

We are going to keep showing up at the state and local level, because leadership still matters, and engagement still moves the needle.

Support our work

Late breaking Pakistan developments
We are closely tracking new reporting out of Pakistan indicating plans to deport thousands of Afghan nationals, including nearly 20,000 individuals who are in, or directly connected to, U.S. immigration pathways. These reports raise serious concerns for Afghans who followed U.S. government guidance and are now facing increased risk through no fault of their own.

In response, later today AfghanEvac will be sending a formal letter to the President of Pakistan and the Pakistani Ambassador to the United States, urging restraint and protection for Afghans awaiting U.S. processing. We will also be releasing a new Pakistan explainer that lays out how we got here, who is most at risk, and what this moment means for Afghan allies and for U.S. credibility.

We will share both online and in next week’s update. We strongly encourage everyone to review and amplify once released.

Press

• Feds clash with advocates over Minnesota refugee sweep – Courthouse News

• Gov. Newsom meets with immigration advocates in San Diego – Fox 5 News

• Local leaders meet with Gov. Newsom prior to San Diego-based press conference – ABC News

• How Stephen Miller Stokes Trump’s Boundary-Pushing Impulses – WSJ

• Homeland Security is targeting Americans with this secretive legal weapon – Washington Post

• Government appeals temporary restraining order prohibiting the detention of Minnesota refugees – Minnesota Star Tribune

• MN refugees and immigrants are hiding at home in fear of ICE – Minnesota Star Tribune

• Make it “Something. Not nothing.” — James Seddon Medium

A reminder that we have recently released several new resources to help cut through confusion:

• A plain-language SIV explainer.

• A clear breakdown of the BIA final rule and what it actually does and does not change.

• Analysis of the Heritage report and why its framing is dangerous, misleading, and increasingly influential.

• A (mostly) comprehensive list of the letters we’ve sent to the hill

These tools exist so advocates, lawyers, Hill staff, and community leaders are operating from facts, not fear.

As always, our work continues in a difficult environment, but the path forward is clear. We will keep telling the truth, applying pressure where it is required, and building coalitions broad enough to win lasting solutions.

That means holding leaders accountable when they fall short, welcoming them back when they are ready to lead, and staying focused on the Afghan allies and families who are counting on us to see this through.

Progress rarely comes in straight lines, but it does come from sustained effort and showing up again and again.

Action items

• Sign up to attend a hearing convened by House Foreign Affairs Committee members on Feb 11th to highlight the various injustices our allies have endured

• Read and share these four things

  • AfghanEvac’s rebuttal to the Heritage Foundation Afghan vetting backgrounder

  • Refugees International report on how U.S. aid cuts have intensified the crisis for Afghan women and girls

  • IRAP’s explainer on DHS mass arrests, detention, and revetting

  • Podcast about faith leaders in Memphis standing with Afghans

• Sign up to be a Battle Buddy and stand with Afghan allies when it matters most

• Wear your values. AfghanEvac t-shirts, hoodies, and other gear help keep this work visible and support our efforts

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Important update for Afghans awaiting processing and those supporting them

At this time, all refugee processing and visa issuance for Afghan nationals remains paused, including every stage of the Special Immigrant Visa process. This includes chief of mission review, travel, and downstream processing steps.

This is not legal advice. However, we are seeing legal service providers, including IRAP and others, advise caution and, in many cases, recommend postponing Afghan visa interviews of all types until there is clarity and change in the current policy environment. In the current conditions, moving forward without a viable end-to-end pathway may increase risk rather than resolve it.

We know this is frustrating and painful to hear, particularly for families who have already waited years. Our focus remains on protecting cases from harm, avoiding irreversible missteps, and pushing for conditions where lawful pathways can function again. We will continue to share updates as soon as circumstances change.

Why discipline matters more than ever
Getting someone out of immediate danger in Afghanistan is not enough if it drops them into a new form of limbo. As government-led relocation pathways remain shuttered and there is no longer a functional, friendly government entity actively helping Afghans move safely and legally, the risk of bad advice and half-baked solutions has increased dramatically.

A five-part plan needs to have all five parts. Moving an Afghan to a third country without durable legal status, without a viable resettlement pathway, or without long-term stability is not a solution. It is a pause that often makes the eventual outcome worse.

We are seeing well-intentioned actors encourage moves that lack legal grounding, sustainability, or an end state. In the current environment, those mistakes can close doors permanently. AfghanEvac’s role is not just to help people move, but to help them move correctly, lawfully, and toward a future that actually holds. Precision matters. Sequencing matters. Discipline matters.

Operation PARRIS and Battle Buddies
Operation PARRIS continues to move forward, even as the policy environment grows more hostile. We are continuing to track cases, surface problems, and push for accountability where systems are breaking down.

Accompaniment remains one of the clearest examples of what showing up actually looks like. Through our Battle Buddies program with IAVA, veterans and frontline civilians are accompanying Afghan allies to court hearings and immigration appointments, providing presence, stability, and witnesses in moments that are often designed to isolate and intimidate. This program exists because it is needed, and its impact is real.

Sign up for Battle Buddies

Heritage Foundation backgrounder and AfghanEvac response
Last week, the Heritage Foundation released a document styled as a “Backgrounder” for Members of Congress on Afghan vetting. The premise was familiar and deeply flawed. Rather than educating, the paper recycled long-debunked claims, misrepresented how vetting actually works, and ignored years of bipartisan oversight, litigation, and on-the-ground operational reality.

AfghanEvac issued a detailed rebuttal correcting the record point by point. Afghan allies who entered the United States did so through one of the most exhaustive vetting processes in U.S. history. Suggesting otherwise is not only false, it actively undermines national security by signaling to future partners that U.S. commitments are conditional and politically disposable. This kind of misinformation is already being cited in congressional conversations, which is why pushing back quickly and clearly is essential.

Read our response

Reports worth your time this week
Two additional reports released this week add critical context to the current policy environment.

Refugees International published a comprehensive report on Afghan women and girls documenting how steep U.S. aid cuts in 2025 have intensified the humanitarian crisis by dismantling health, protection, education, and gender-based violence services. The report shows how the withdrawal of aid, layered on top of Taliban repression, has closed clinics, eliminated protection programs, and deepened risks for women and girls across Afghanistan.

Read the Refugees International Report

IRAP released a new explainer on DHS mass arrests, detention, and revetting practices. This resource is particularly important for understanding what Afghans in the United States are facing right now. It lays out what DHS is doing, how it departs from past practice, and why legally present individuals are still being swept into enforcement actions. It is clear, accessible, and grounded in law rather than rhetoric.

Read the IRAP Explainer

Taken together, these three documents paint a coherent picture of a system drifting away from transparency, predictability, and protection for Afghan allies and their families.

Congressional updates and the funding picture
On Capitol Hill, the Senate has passed the minibus funding package. The House has not. As of now, the House remains the primary choke point, and the outcome of these negotiations will have direct implications for Afghan relocation, resettlement capacity, and case processing.

AfghanEvac shared a letter with congressional offices urging them to protect Afghan-related authorities and funding as the bill moves forward. While there are still members who understand the stakes, we continue to see political posturing and avoidance rather than leadership. The consequences of delay are well known. Families remain separated, cases remain frozen, and enforcement pressures increase.

Upcoming House Hearing
Members of the House Foreign Affairs Committee will convene a Shadow Hearing on February 11 at 3:30 PM ET in Room 2168 of the Rayburn House Office Building to examine what has happened to Afghan allies since January 2025. The hearing will focus on halted pathways, family separations, and the broader implications for U.S. credibility and national security. Space is limited and we’d love to see you there. Please sign up if you plan to attend.

Press

• Danish veterans stage protest outside US Embassy – ABC News

• AfghanEvac and Local Staff International Form Global Alliance to Support Afghan Colleagues – Khaama Press

• His Former Company Got Caught Employing Undocumented Workers. Now He’s Profiting Off an Immigrant Detention Camp – ProPublica

• Starmer accuses Trump of diminishing sacrifice of Nato troops in Afghanistan – The Guardian

• ICE’s surveillance app is a techno-authoritarian nightmare – The Guardian

• They were asylum seekers and refugees in Minnesota. Still, ICE detained and flew them to Texas to face deportation – CNN

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This work continues because people refuse to accept misinformation, cruelty, and silence as inevitable. Thank you for staying engaged, for sharing credible information, and for pushing when it would be easier to look away.