AfghanEvac Weekly Update -- July 13, 2026
Three members of Congress said it on the record, a nonsense reply from USCIS, and the sudden loss of a Republican champion for Afghans
Three sitting members of Congress spent an hour this weekend hearing directly from Camp As Sayliyah, on the record, and committed to demanding answers from Secretary Rubio. Two Cabinet secretaries, meanwhile, went five months without answering a single letter about Afghan allies, and we lost one of the few Republicans who never needed convincing that any of this mattered.
Start with what you can do, then read on.
ACTION THIS WEEK
Watch Wednesday’s hearing on whether the USCIS adjudication pause returns. July 15, 2:00 PM ET / 1:00 PM CT / 11:00 AM PT.
If you're an employer, resettlement agency, or legal services provider, circulate our Work Authorization Explainer. Too many employers still don't know that refugees and people granted asylum are already authorized to work.
Comment on the proposed EAD rule before August 4. Docket USCIS-2026-0067. afghanevac.org/ead-rule-change
Enroll in Battle Buddies or donate to keep a volunteer in the room at every hearing we can reach.
Take V-PRIC for a spin. Ask our new AI enabled visa pathways tool about your situation or the situation of those you’re helping.
THREE MEMBERS OF CONGRESS HEAR DIRECTLY FROM CAS RESIDENTS
Rep. Scott Peters (Co-Chair of the Special Operations Forces Caucus) led a virtual town hall this past Saturday, joined by Rep. Lou Correa and Sen. Richard Blumenthal, putting three sitting members of Congress in live, direct conversation with residents of Camp As Sayliyah (CAS).
It was AfghanEvac’s second such session, after an April call with Sen. Blumenthal and Sen. Peter Welch. Residents described children who have not attended school in years, a camp clinic that cannot meet basic medical needs, and makeshift bunkers built after missile debris fell into housing areas earlier this year.
All three members spoke on the record. “I share my colleagues’ outrage and embarrassment that our country is not keeping our promises,” said Rep. Peters. “I have been absolutely riveted by these stories. They are heartbreaking, absolutely, frankly, repugnant to my sense of justice and fairness. I don’t recognize America in the denial of promises and the breaking of our word to these family members,” said Sen. Blumenthal, who committed to introducing a written demand in the Senate and recruiting cosigners. “We cannot break this promise to our fellow allies who fought alongside, who died alongside, American soldiers,” said Rep. Correa, who pledged to co-author legislation and support a public campaign to keep the issue in front of Congress. We will be sending this out to press this morning.
Why it matters. The camp is still slated to close September 30th and little, if any, progress has been made to get these folks to safety. Hours after the town hall, missiles flying into Doha from Iran were intercepted above the camp.
We took Nazeer Paktiawal's case straight to Congress, and by Friday they answered
AfghanEvac hosted a virtual press conference this week with Naseer Paktiawal, Nazeer’s brother. Naseer and Shawn sat down together in Texas, surrounded by Afghans at Lucky’s restaurant, while Senator Richard Blumenthal and Representative Julie Johnson joined remotely and spoke on the record about the case. Nazeer served with U.S. Army Special Forces in Afghanistan, then sought asylum here. ICE detained him outside his Richardson, Texas home on March 13 as he got his six children ready for school, and he was dead within 24 hours.
Over 100 days later, his family, now including Naseer, who is helping raise all six of Nazeer’s children, still does not have the full facts.
By Friday, Blumenthal and Johnson followed through. They wrote directly to DHS Secretary Markwayne Mullin, naming the specific person blocking release of the autopsy: Yousuf Khan, Assistant Field Office Director for ICE Enforcement and Removal Operations in Dallas, and Mullin’s own subordinate.
The Dallas County Criminal District Attorney’s office confirmed in a June 24 letter to the Texas Attorney General that it is withholding the autopsy specifically because Mr. Khan’s office objects, citing a pending federal investigation. Out of more than 50 deaths in ICE custody this administration, Nazeer’s is the first ruled an accident, and Naseer carried that fight to CNN’s Jake Tapper this week as well.
Why it matters. AfghanEvac is not waiting on DHS’s timeline. We are sharing this letter and keeping the story in front of Congress and the press until it is answered. We are doing this because highlighting the real human impact of these policies is a core priority for our organization.
Five months, no answer, and a response that cited the wrong program
On February 18, AfghanEvac wrote to Secretaries Rubio and Hegseth, then-Secretary Noem, and USCIS Director Edlow, asking for a written update on the long-overdue Comprehensive Review of Afghanistan Policy, an explanation for how the administration keeps changing policy while that review remains unfinished, and a meeting with the Afghan allies, veterans, and families living with the consequences. Rubio and Hegseth never responded, not once, in 141 days.
Director Edlow finally replied on July 9, on behalf of the entire Department of Homeland Security, offering no timeline, no explanation, and no meeting, and pointing us to a general inbox instead. His substantive defense rested on two men who entered the country in 2021 under Operation Allies Welcome, not Enduring Welcome, the stronger vetting system this administration has actually restricted, so citing them answers a question nobody asked.
On July 10, AfghanEvac sent a second letter that did not let this go. It noted that Secretary Mullin personally attempted an unauthorized rescue mission into Afghanistan in 2021 and once called Afghan allies “abandoned” on his own Senate letterhead, that Secretary Rubio urged expanded evacuation for Afghan intelligence partners as a senator, and that Secretary Hegseth trained Afghan forces in Kabul for eight months. The letter also revealed that DHS’s own Center for Prevention Programs and Partnerships, the office built to catch someone radicalizing after arrival, lost roughly three-quarters of its staff in 2025, and that DHS cut $18.5 million in violence-prevention grants the same year.
Why it matters. AfghanEvac requested from Secretaries Rubio, Hegseth, and Mullin by July 31 a response in their own names, with a real timeline, a real meeting, and a real accounting of what DHS cut and why. None of this is an accident. It is a choice, and it is still theirs to unmake.
We lost Senator Lindsey Graham
Senator Lindsey Graham (R-SC) died this weekend at 71, after a brief and sudden illness. He deployed repeatedly to Iraq and Afghanistan as a senior legal advisor to the U.S. Air Force and earned a Bronze Star, and that firsthand experience made him one of the Senate’s most consistent advocates for the Afghans who stood beside American troops. He was the Republican lead on the Afghan Adjustment Act, he knew many of our allies by name, and he wore an AfghanEvac lapel pin at public appearances because he believed this was never supposed to be a partisan cause.
Our thoughts are with his family, his staff, and the people of South Carolina. We intend to finish what he considered unfinished.
Pakistan’s mass-arrest order takes hold
Pakistan’s Ministry of Interior ordered every province and the Islamabad Capital Territory to begin arresting any Afghan national without a valid visa starting July 10, with district-level enforcement reports due back to Islamabad the next day. The crackdown is now underway. Nearly 270,000 Afghans have already been deported from Pakistan and Iran this year, according to UNHCR, and this directive removes any ambiguity about what happens next to those still there.
Why it matters. Afghan allies with pending SIV or refugee cases who are waiting inside Pakistan are not protected by their place in the pipeline. Under Secretary Blinken, the State Department pressed Islamabad directly on the treatment of pipeline Afghans. Under Secretary Rubio, it has not. That is a choice, and the people paying for it have nowhere else to wait.
Houston’s ICE shooting becomes a fight over who gets to investigate
An ICE officer fatally shot Lorenzo Salgado Araujo, a father of three, during an enforcement operation in Houston on July 7. DHS says Salgado Araujo rammed an ICE vehicle and ignored commands; three men detained during the incident told an attorney that account is false, and that ICE agents were never in danger. Harris County District Attorney Sean Teare says federal investigators are sidelining local officials from the probe. The officers involved were not wearing body cameras.
Why it matters. Afghan allies live inside the same enforcement system as everyone else. A shooting that federal investigators control from end to end, with no independent local review and no body camera footage, is the same structural problem behind Paktiawal’s case: the agency doing the enforcing is also the agency deciding what the public gets to know about it.
A federal judge calls the government’s case “frankly preposterous,” and Wednesday’s hearing decides whether Dorcas holds
It has been more than a month since the federal court in Rhode Island vacated the USCIS adjudication pause in Dorcas International Institute of Rhode Island v. USCIS. USCIS has complied, adjudications have resumed, and hundreds of previously frozen work permits and green cards have been approved. The government has appealed and asked the court to stay its own ruling while that appeal proceeds, which could let USCIS reinstate the pause immediately. The court hears arguments this Wednesday, July 15, at 2:00 PM ET.
The government’s case rests on a declaration citing national security concerns across ten countries, three of which, Ethiopia, Liberia, and Pakistan, were never covered by the underlying 39-country hold, and USCIS kept adjudicating those three the entire time. Nearly twenty federal courts have now ruled against these policies, most recently Judge Algenon Marbley of the Southern District of Ohio, who called the government’s national security justification “frankly preposterous” in a July 6 opinion ordering USCIS to resume processing and decide pending work-permit applications within thirty days.
Why it matters. Wednesday’s hearing determines whether a month of real relief keeps going or gets rolled back while the appeal plays out. Keep your comment on the EAD rule moving before August 4 regardless of how it goes.
Mega Masters, by the numbers
Immigration researcher Austin Kocher’s latest data release shows the Executive Office for Immigration Review scheduled just 25 “mega master” hearings, 100 or more people at once, in May. In June, that number jumped to 153. Judges assigned even one mega master this year have seen their average overall docket size double, from about 25 cases to 50.
Why it matters. This is not a scheduling quirk. It is a documented pattern of specific judges and courts being flooded to manufacture removal orders at scale, and Afghan cases move through the same overloaded dockets as everyone else’s.
Battle Buddies
In Connecticut, an Afghan family had a master hearing on the calendar, the father’s memory of his own earlier ICE detention still fresh.
Diana McDonald, a first-time Battle Buddy and Army Afghanistan veteran, showed up for them. Diana and her husband, an Air Force veteran, had supported an Afghan family in the Washington, D.C. area during the fall of Kabul in 2021, a relationship that continues today, and Battle Buddies gave her a way to keep doing that work after moving to Connecticut. “I was touched in a warm, fuzzy American way seeing people from around the world wanting to be here,” she said. “We have our flaws, but seeing people lining up to be here was inspiring.” The family walked out of that courtroom knowing they were not alone.
Why it matters. Showing up for our allies is a continuation of the oath many Battle Buddies already swore. Our track record of 100 percent non-detentions when Battle Buddies are present remains unbroken. Be part of the next story, sign up today.
IN THE NEWS
Stories from the past week.
The Paktiawal Case
An Afghan asylum-seeker died in ICE custody in North Texas. Here’s what to know — Fort Worth Star-Telegram
Death of former Afghan ally while in ICE custody ruled an accident — Texas Tribune
Dallas County blocks release of autopsy report of Afghan asylum seeker who died in ICE custody in March — Houston Public Media
Former Afghan ally who died in ICE custody suffered an allergic reaction, death certificate says — Washington Times
Afghan special forces veteran died in ICE custody after officers denied him an inhaler — Reason
Certificate in ICE custody death contains obvious error, family denied full autopsy — Dallas Observer
ICE Enforcement Under Scrutiny
ICE agent fatally shoots man in Houston during “targeted enforcement operation” — Houston Public Media
Feds sideline Texas officials in probe into ICE shooting, district attorney says — Washington Post
Men who saw deadly Houston shooting say ICE statement is false, attorney says — CNN
Immigration Courts and the USCIS Pause
Data on “Mega Masters” Show EOIR is Targeting Individual Judges and Courts with a Flood of Hearings — Austin Kocher
Federal Judge Orders USCIS to Restart Trump Immigration Freeze Cases — The Coffman Chronicle
Trump immigration freeze hit by new federal court ruling — Newsweek
Pakistan and the Region
Interior ministry issues directive to arrest Afghan nationals without valid visas from July 10 — Dawn
Pakistan begins crackdown on Afghans without valid visas — Pajhwok Afghan News
The Passing of Senator Lindsey Graham
Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, Trump ally, dies at 71 — NPR
Lindsey Graham, longtime South Carolina senator, dies at 71 — Washington Post
Sen. Lindsey Graham dies at 71 after “brief and sudden illness” — NBC News
Three sitting members of Congress spent an hour this weekend listening to Camp As Sayliyah residents describe exactly what a broken promise sounds like, then put their names to a demand for Secretary Rubio.
A family has waited over 100 days to learn how a man who fought beside American Special Forces died in American custody, and two Cabinet secretaries went five months without answering a single letter about any of it.
This week we also lost one of the few people in either party who never needed convincing that any of this mattered. None of it is fate. All of it can be undone.
We are focused. We are relentless. And we are not going anywhere.