AfghanEvac Weekly Update | May 4, 2026
A Senate letter, a UNICEF report card on Taliban rule, a new asylum fee with a removal trigger, and a Thursday courtroom we are not letting sit empty
A heavy week, even by recent standards.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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Thank you very much for your continued efforts and support, and for all the individuals and organizations that have not forgotten Afghanistan’s allies and patiently continue to stand up for us.
I wish you all the very best.