AfghanEvac Weekly Update | April 27, 2026
When the State Department went quiet, we brought Congress to the camp.
This week, Afghan families at Camp As Sayliyah were heard directly by members of Congress.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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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.
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.
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.
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