Last Tuesday, this administration put two Afghans on a plane to Virginia. On Wednesday, it told Congress it does not trust the vetting that cleared every other Afghan but them. That is the week in one sentence, and it is the whole case: the door opens when they decide it should.
At home, Medicaid ends Thursday for Afghan parolees, asylees, and refugees without green cards. Abroad, 1,039 people at Camp As Sayliyah are two days from a closure date nobody has explained to them, and the President signs the refugee number by Wednesday. A lot of you have written to ask how two people got in while you wait. It is unfair, and I cover it below.
My birthday is Wednesday and I want you to show up.
Start with the ways you can take action, then read on.
Everything we publish lives at afghanevac.org, and we keep it current. Our press archive, our searchable reports and litigation database The Ledger, our resources for families and advocates, our explainers, and our action center are free and open to anyone. If this was forwarded to you, subscribe and get it Monday mornings.
ACTION THIS WEEK
Share our Medicaid guide before Thursday. Federal Medicaid and CHIP funding ends October 1 for Afghan parolees, asylees, and refugees without green cards. English, Dari, Pashto, and regional resources at afghanevac.org/obbb.
Write Congress on the refugee number at afghanevac.org/count-them-in. More than 3,000 letters since September 8. The President signs by Wednesday, and the document Congress saw does not name Afghan allies.
If you have a relationship inside this administration, put it on the line this week. Two Afghans got a yes on Tuesday because someone made a call. Make yours. Ask for the same yes for every eligible Afghan ally, and be willing to lose the friendship over it.
Fund the work at afghanevac.org/donate. So far this year: 10,771 messages to Congress and federal agencies, fifteen town halls on three continents, more than a thousand public comments, a Supreme Court amicus brief, and 300-plus news stories. None of it is government funded. October brings the refugee determination, the camp deadline, and the Medicaid cliff.
My birthday is Wednesday. Make noise for Afghans, give if you can, and work with somebody you normally would not.
THURSDAY, THE DOCTOR GOES AWAY
On Thursday, October 1, federal Medicaid and CHIP funding ends for Afghan parolees, asylees, and refugees who do not hold a green card. Congress wrote that cutoff into last year’s reconciliation law, the One Big Beautiful Bill Act. The administration is enforcing it against the same families it has spent twenty months refusing to adjudicate. Most of the Afghans losing coverage this week are eligible for a green card. They do not have one because the government chose not to issue it, and the only reason green cards are moving at all is that Democracy Forward took USCIS to court in Dorcas and won.
Here is what families need to know. Applying for a green card does not restore benefits eligibility. Only an approved green card clears the hurdle. Afghan and Iraqi SIV holders keep their Medicaid eligibility and are exempt from the five-year waiting period that most lawful permanent residents face, so if you hold an SIV and a termination notice arrives, that notice may be wrong. Appeal it before coverage ends, and call your resettlement agency and your local benefits office about deadlines, state options, and free clinics. Emergency Medicaid continues for everyone. Our full breakdown, translated resources, regional guides, and state-by-state coverage table are at afghanevac.org/obbb, and every graphic is free for partners at go.afghanevac.org/obbb-graphics.
One development to watch. In Wednesday’s refugee consultation, USCIS Director Joseph Edlow told members that the pause on green cards for refugees has been lifted. Nobody has confirmed whether that includes Afghan refugees already in the United States. We have asked. If it does, thousands of families are one adjudication away from keeping their coverage, and the agency should say so out loud.
Why it matters A government that will not process case benefits and then cuts off access to medical support is not neutral. It is choosing. The fix is in its hands: adjudicate the applications, and confirm in writing that Afghans are covered by the lift.
THE TPS BILL WAITS ON AN ELECTION
Cosponsor counts on the Afghanistan TPS Act did not move this week. H.R. 9899 sits at eight, S. 5308 at three. Here is the honest read: nothing moves before November. After the midterm elections, the window opens, and we intend to run through it. We need Congress to be as motivated as all of us, so they need to hear from you.
We need your support to keep pushing on this and every other project we have. The Promises Aren’t Temporary shirt does dual duty: it shows you care about this and helps us fund our work. Buy one, wear it to your member’s town hall, and keep asking them to cosponsor at afghanevac.org/tps.
WHERE DOES YOUR CASE STAND?
Our updated case guide maps who holds your case, what may be stopping it, and what you can do next. It covers SIVs, refugee admissions, asylum, humanitarian parole, family cases, and border entries, inside and outside the United States. It is not legal advice. It is a map. Share it: afghanevac.org/case-guide.
ZERO. AGAIN.
On September 22 the government filed its progress report in Afghan and Iraqi Allies v. Rubio, the SIV class action. It covers June 4 through September 2, 2026. The number of SIVs issued to Afghan class members in that period is zero. Cases stuck at Chief of Mission review averaged 666 days pending. Six posts, Abu Dhabi, Baghdad, Doha, Kuwait, Muscat, and Riyadh, still had not resumed routine visa operations. The rest of the numbers are on the card above. The D.C. Circuit hears arguments in the appeal on November 6.
Why it matters These are the government’s own numbers, filed under a court order. Nobody has to characterize them. A program Congress designed to move in nine months has stopped issuing visas to the people it was built for. That is not a backlog. It is a deliberate policy choke point.
STATE PUT SIVs IN THE PUBLIC CHARGE REVIEW
A filing in Medani v. Trump on September 22 disclosed State Department cables that expressly include Special Immigrant Visas in a new system of enhanced vetting and public charge review, and it describes a post-eligibility review that can end with an issued visa being spoiled or revoked. Afghan SIV applicants are exempt from the public charge ground of inadmissibility by statute. Congress wrote that exemption on purpose, because these are people who earned their visas by serving alongside American troops.
Why it matters You do not means-test a promise. Our explainer and statement are at afghanevac.org/siv-public-charge.
BATTLE BUDDIES
On Tuesday, a Battle Buddy sat with the family of Nazeer Paktiawal, the Special Forces partner who died in ICE custody in March, at their USCIS appointment in Farmers Branch, Texas. Other deployments this week went the same way: a veteran in the room, a family that did not face the government alone. The no-detention record where a Battle Buddy is present still stands.
October is already filling up. Hearings and appointments are on the calendar in Virginia, Seattle, Baltimore, San Francisco, San Diego, and Annandale. We need more volunteers. If you are a veteran, frontline civilian, or evacuation volunteer, please sign up at afghanevac.org/battle-buddies.
NINE MONTHS IN
Here is what this community has done together since January. You sent 10,771 messages to Congress and federal agencies through nine campaigns, reaching all 100 senators and 389 House offices, split almost evenly between the parties: 245 Republicans, 241 Democrats, 3 independents. You filed 1,026 public comments against rules that would strip work permits from Afghan allies and decide asylum cases on paper. Nearly 750 of you registered for our town halls, and more than 1,500 came through the doors, at fifteen events on three continents, in English, Dari, and Pashto. More than 3,800 of you wrote to us directly about your cases, and we answered. And together we kept Afghan allies in the news more than 300 times this year. None of it is finished, and none of it happens without you. That is what afghanevac.org/donate pays for.
A ROOM FULL OF THE FUTURE
On Saturday night, Daphne and I were at UCLA for the banquet closing the 11th Annual Afghan-American Conference, hosted by the Afghan-American Community Organization. Three days of Afghan-American students, professionals, artists, and organizers talking about what comes next for their community, in a week when the rest of the news was about people being kept out of it. Thank you to Spojmie Nasiri and the whole AACO team for having us. Rooms like that one are why we do this.
ABROAD
TWO DAYS, 1,039 PEOPLE, AND NOT ONE SENTENCE
Camp As Sayliyah is supposed to close Wednesday with 1,039 Afghan allies and family members still inside, 72 percent of them women and children, including 150 immediate family members of active-duty or recently separated U.S. service members. Every one of them was vetted by U.S. officials before they traveled, after they arrived, or both. We fully expect the deadline to be extended; the contractors who run the camp have been asked to plan for a longer timeframe with roughly the same population.
The residents have not been told. Not that an extension is coming, not what happens if it does not, not where they would go. People inside the camp are afraid they will be taken in the night and sent back to Afghanistan. Whether or not that fear is founded, the government has done nothing to put it to rest. And this week, in the refugee consultation with Congress, Secretary Markwayne Mullin and USCIS Director Joseph Edlow made clear they have no intention of admitting these allies to the United States. The residents know that too.
Mental health and wellness in the camp are decidedly in decline. Senior camp staff describe widespread depression and psychological distress among residents, including children, after years of limbo with no information. Last week was a hard one inside the camp and residents reached out to ask us to speak about what they are living through and how desperate they are for information, so we did. The remedy is information and a decision, and both sit with the State Department and the White House.
On Friday, RFE/RL told the story of Sean Jamshidi, a former Marine who flew to Doha and was refused access to his own brother, who is a former security officer at the U.S. consulate in Herat and survived the 2013 truck bombing that killed eight Afghan guards. Sean’s brother is inside the camp. The State Department told RFE/RL it “continues to work toward a positive resolution.” It has said that for twenty months.
Why it matters America made a promise and then moved every single person there to a U.S. base in Qatar. Now they want to abandon them there. We cannot let this happen in silence.
TUESDAY THEY SAID YES. WEDNESDAY THEY SAID NO.
On Tuesday morning, September 22, two Afghans landed in Virginia as refugees, admitted under an exception the administration granted on its own authority. We told that story in a special edition. They are the fourth and fifth Afghans admitted as refugees this fiscal year. The first three were unaccompanied children from Camp As Sayliyah. We thanked the President, Secretary Rubio, Secretary Mullin, and Assistant Secretary Andrew Veprek by name, and we meant it.
Some people have asked why we made that public instead of keeping it quiet so the door might stay open. We want to be clear about this. We did not break the story; Afghans did. By the time we published, families in Islamabad, Doha, and Sacramento were already talking about it, because it was surprising and because it looked unfair. Staying quiet would not have kept a secret. It would have left the community with a rumor and no answer. And AfghanEvac began in August 2021 as an effort to bring fairness to a relocation that had none, when who got out depended on who you knew. We are bound by honor to do everything we can to make sure any system this country runs for our allies is fair, and you cannot make a system fair by hiding how it works. A quiet exception is a favor, and favors are not a policy. A public one is a precedent, and a precedent is something we can hold the government to for the next family, and the ten thousand after them. Sunshine is how a promise stops being personal and starts being enforceable.
Since then, my inbox has filled with one question: why them? Families who have waited years, with cases every bit as deserving, want to know why their loved ones are still behind. Here is the honest answer. This family got in on a political hookup. That is not fair, and they did nothing wrong. They followed the rules, waited, and got lucky. Treat them with dignity and respect. The frustration belongs with a system that proved this week it can open the door when it chooses to. To my Afghan friends, you are not wrong to be mad. I am mad too. We are so happy for this family, and we are watching everyone who has the power to make it happen again.
To everyone who cares about this, and especially to those of you who align with this President on most other things: you have the relationships. Use them. Push hard, publicly and behind the scenes, for every eligible Afghan ally to get the same yes. Be willing to blow up a friendship in this government over it. That is what I did with the Biden administration, and it is what honor and integrity demand of us now. To do less, knowing what you know, is an abdication of both.
On Wednesday, the same officials sat down with Congress for the consultation the law requires before the President sets next year’s refugee ceiling. Mullin, Edlow, and Veprek represented the administration. Senators Chuck Grassley, Dick Durbin, Alex Padilla, and John Cornyn were in the room, along with Rep. Jamie Raskin and Rep. Darrell Issa, sitting in for Chairman Jim Jordan. The proposal on the table is a ceiling of 17,500, “primarily” Afrikaners from South Africa, at an estimated cost of $500 million. It does not name Afghan allies. Afghans were discussed at length anyway, including the families at Camp As Sayliyah, because members raised them. When they did, administration officials said repeatedly that they do not trust the vetting done under the previous administration.
That claim does not survive contact with the record. In July 2024 the State Department’s own inspector general found that State “followed its established policies, process, and procedures to screen and vet the Afghan SIV applicants.” In June 2025, under this administration, the Justice Department’s inspector general found the FBI’s screening and vetting of Afghan evacuees generally effective and recommended no changes. And the administration trusted that vetting enough on Tuesday to put two Afghans on a plane. You cannot admit two Afghans on Tuesday and tell Congress on Wednesday that you do not trust the vetting. If there is a specific concern with a case, re-vet the case and decide it. Refusing to trust any of it is not a security policy. It is a reason to say no. One family is an exception, and exceptions do not keep promises. Policies do.
We are grateful to Senator Padilla, Senator Durbin, and Representative Raskin, and to their staffs, for making sure the people who served alongside American troops were part of that conversation. We will thank every member of Congress, in either party, who does the same. The President is expected to sign the final determination by Wednesday, the last day of the fiscal year. When he does, we will hold a press conference on what it means for Afghan allies and U.S. military families.
Rep. Scott Peters is circulating a bicameral letter asking Rubio and Mullin to do again what they did on Tuesday, this time for U.S. military families and for Afghans with immediate family already lawfully here, with a national-interest finding to cover them. Sign-on closes today. If your member has not signed, call the Capitol switchboard at (202) 224-3121 now and ask why not, and copy me on the email to their office so we can link them up.
Why it matters This administration has made it plain that it has no desire to help Afghans. Congress can force their hand. The way to make Tuesday fair is not to wish it had not happened. It is to make it happen ten thousand more times. That is what the Peters letter and the more than 3,000 Count Them In letters are for.
THIRD-COUNTRY REMOVALS GO TO THE SUPREME COURT
On September 18 the First Circuit affirmed the district court in D.V.D. v. DHS, leaving in place the finding that people cannot be removed to a third country without notice and a real chance to raise a credible fear claim. The stay in this case dissolved Wednesday night. DHS cancelled a flight carrying 70 people. On Thursday the Solicitor General filed an emergency application at the Supreme Court. Afghans are on those flights. Reason told the story of Farzana, removed to the Central African Republic on August 28 on a flight we believe carried roughly 20 Afghans. We call it what it is: refoulement with a layover.
The machinery behind those flights is the one The Washington Post exposed on September 21, a 15-person Office of Remigration inside the State Department’s refugee bureau, run by Andrew Veprek under Stephen Miller’s direction, with at least $410 million committed to 31 countries and a quarter of a billion of it taken from refugee assistance. We asked Veprek, Christian Ehrhardt, and Tommy Pigott for meetings on September 12. We wrote to Veprek and Ehrhardt again the morning the Post story ran. Nobody has answered.
Why it matters U.S. law and treaty obligations bar returning people to persecution. Sending them to a country where they have no status and no future, knowing they will be pushed home to the Taliban, gets to the same place. The Court now decides whether notice and a hearing are required first.
THE REGION
Nine UN experts, including Special Rapporteur Richard Bennett, reported that 127,344 Afghans crossed back from Pakistan between July 10 and August 27, 14,186 of them forcibly removed. Then the border turned into a battlefield: Pakistani airstrikes hit Kandahar, Paktia, and Khost on Wednesday, and fighting continued into Friday. In Iran, UNHCR counts more than 439,000 Afghans deported this year. The P-1 and P-2 families who write to us every week are living inside those numbers.
In New York, the Taliban were once again denied Afghanistan’s seat at the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA).
Why it matters Every Afghan pushed out of Pakistan or Iran, and every Afghan the Taliban receives at a border crossing, is someone a resettlement pipeline, ours or an ally’s, was built to reach first.
IN THE NEWS
Stories from the past week.
Camp As Sayliyah
Two Afghans arrive
Two Afghans Enter US Under Narrow Immigration Exception, AfghanEvac Says -- Khaama Press
Two Afghan nationals enter U.S. under limited immigration exception, AfghanEvac says -- Atlas Press
Scripps News On The Scene: the TPS Act and #CountThemIn -- Scripps News
The refugee number
Trump administration to welcome up to 17,500 more White South Africans as refugees -- CBS News
Trump administration says most refugees accepted in 2027 will be White South Africans -- CNN
Trump administration tells Congress it will admit 17,500 white South African refugees in 2027 -- Associated Press
Trump pushes to admit 17,500 White Afrikaners from South Africa in 2027 refugee cap -- The Hill
Trump administration again omits refugees fleeing religious persecution from US program -- Religion News Service
HIAS Appalled by Proposed Exclusion of Vulnerable Refugees -- HIAS
Refugee Council USA Denounces Trump Administration’s Racial Animus and Persistent Discriminatory Pattern of Unlawful Actions That Harm Refugees -- Refugee Council USA
Third-country removals
Trump administration appeals to Supreme Court as 3rd-country deportations are thrown into question -- Associated Press
Trump administration urges Supreme Court to revive third-country deportation policy -- CBS News
Stephen Miller’s MAGA Terror Campaign Exposed by Damning New Leaks -- The New Republic
Asylum seekers thought they had a haven in the U.S. Then Trump returned. -- The Washington Post
AP Exclusive: ICE hides locations of thousands of detainees with final removal orders -- Associated Press
Benefits
Medicaid Policy Explainer: Implications for Refugee and Immigrant Communities -- USCRI
SNAP and Medicaid Will Change Dramatically in October: What to Know -- Newsweek
The region
Afghanistan vows to respond after Pakistani air strikes kill four -- Al Jazeera
UNHCR: More than 439,000 Afghans deported from Iran in 2026 -- Amu TV
UNGA week
Superpowers cannot solve world’s problems, UN chief says in final general assembly address -- The Guardian
As World Leaders Gather at the U.N., the Push to Recognize Gender Apartheid Gains Ground -- Ms. Magazine
On Thursday, Afghan families across this country lose their health coverage because the government will not decide cases it has been sitting on for two years. In Doha, 1,039 people are waiting for one sentence from the State Department telling them what happens next. Same problem, two places: the government knows what to do and is choosing not to do it.
We know that because on Tuesday it did. Two Afghans got on a plane and landed here as refugees. That is what it looks like when this administration decides to keep America’s promise. Every other family is one decision away from the same thing, and Congress can force that decision if it hears from enough of us.
So make some noise this week, here and abroad. Give what you can. And set down whatever petty baggage you are carrying that gets in the way of working together for our Afghan friends and allies.
Ewaz Mohammadzai
Tawab khan