Monday Morning Update -- November 24, 2025

USRAP guests leave CAS, Pakistan update, SIV program application deadline looming, Capitol Hill visits, process updates.

Happy Thanksgiving week. As promised, we have a portion of today’s update focused on Pakistan. But first we have a rundown of AfghanEvac’s meetings on the Hill early last week, including a chance encounter with an Afghan seeking assistance from his Senator to be reunited with his family. We also have some legal updates that we hope people take a moment to read, understand, and share. Finally, on Sunday it appears at least one family in the USRAP pipeline departed CAS.

Immediate action you can take

• Make sure to share with your networks the information about the upcoming application deadline for the SIV program. You can repost our LinkedIn, X, or Facebook posts.

• Make sure to contact your members of congress and tell them how important it is that the NDAA include the Enduring Welcome Act AND that they act to ensure the reportedly forthcoming USCIS policy that would essentially apply the travel ban to people already in the U.S. and seeking green cards does not go into effect.

• Donate to AfghanEvac. You can also purchase items from our online store, all proceeds help us keep our mission moving.

Capitol Hill Visits

At the beginning of last week, I was in D.C. with AfghanEvac Chief of Staff Jessica Bradley Rushing for a non-Afghanistan related event. We used our downtime to make the rounds on Capitol Hill to touch base with some of the lawmakers who have been active on this issue. We spoke with both Members and/or staff in a variety of offices from both sides of the aisle, including Representatives Mast, Meeks, Lawler, Keating, Peters, Nunn, and Moulton, and Senators Mullin, Hirono, Young, and Coons.

AfghanEvac on the Hill

Overwhelmingly, we heard strong support for our Afghan allies. What we did not hear from some was a willingness (or in some cases, an ability) to assertively push back directly on the policy choices that are now blocking continued relocation and resettlement. The decision to keep P1/P2 and other refugee pathways frozen, the refusal to restart relocation flights even for SIV holders, and the halt in family reunifications, including for the families of active-duty U.S. service members, are all decisions coming from the White House.

If these critical issues are going to move, it will require allies of the Administration who stand with Afghan partners to actively press the White House to break through the bottlenecks they have created. Our allies need more than words right now; they need action.

One particular incident from this last D.C. trip is worth noting on its own, however. As I was walking to a meeting in a Senate office, I was flagged down by an Afghan man calling my name. He had driven to D.C. from Ft Wayne, Indiana — a ten hour drive, one-way — because he has been seeking reunification with his wife and children since he arrived here during the NEO in 2021, but four years later, his family remains left behind.

This gentleman has an approved asylum case, but does not yet have a green card; he has been waiting for it to be approved for at least a year. He has an approved I-730 FTJ-A (Follow-to-Join Asylum) case. His wife and children are in Pakistan hoping to be allowed to come here and reunite, but the Travel Ban enacted this past summer is being interpreted by State Department officials as applicable to FTJ-A cases, and they are therefore stuck, still, despite having followed immigration law and having approved cases. He had come to D.C. in a desperate attempt to seek assistance from his Senators. When he saw me in the hallway, he recognized me and came running, looking for support, advice, and any shred of hope that he might be reunited with his wife and kids.

Unfortunately, due to the current state of our immigration system, the best I could do walk him over to connect with the staff in the D.C. office so that someone would follow up. We made clear the various policies impacting him and I requested that the Senator contact President Trump directly to explain the impacts of these policies on the families of our wartime allies. This is just one of many similar incidents, but the common theme anytime this happens is that our Afghan allies have followed the rules we set out for them and still their cases don’t move quickly enough, or sometimes at all; and they need more and better communication to understand their cases, but the U.S. government has simply stopped providing that information in most instances. We can and must do better to support those who stood by us.

Administration Ignores Legal Requirement to Consult with Congress on Refugee Admissions

The Refugee Act of 1980 requires that, prior to releasing the Presidential Determination setting the cap on the number of refugees to be admitted to the U.S. in the forthcoming year, the Administration consult with Congress on what that determination will be. This past month, the Trump Administration released its Presidential Determination, the lowest number in U.S. history, without having consulted with Congress, in violation of that legal requirement.

This past week, seemingly in an attempt to circumvent that violation, the Administration sent Deputy Secretary of State Christopher Landau and Deputy Secretary of Homeland Security Troy Edgar, to meet with Congress.

However, that meetings, took place AFTER the PD was released and also failed to meet the standard set forth in the law that a “Cabinet-level official” lead those consultations. This Administration continues to put at risk the lives of at-risk refugees globally by ignoring our own immigration laws, in addition to setting the refugee cap at its lowest level by far, leaving more than 100,000 vetted refugees, including our Afghan allies, in limbo around the world.

Read our statement on these continued violations of the law protecting refugees, as well as the statement from our partners at RCUSA.

USRAP Exceptions

It appears that there have been at least some exceptions to the USRAP pause (EO14163) because a handful of people departed CAS for the United States over the weekend, including some unaccompanied minors. We are so delighted that those families are being reunified. We are also confused about what the criteria is for these exceptions.

We spoke with some Afghans there who are quite upset and would very much like to talk to journalists and Congress about this. If you’d like to hear from them, please reach out.

Travel Ban Litigation Update

Diversity Visa recipients in Thein v Trump filed an appeal to continue the fight against the travel ban. U.S. District Court Judge Sparkle L Sooknanan had previously ordered that the State Department’s “No-Visa Policy” is likely to be unlawful and exceeding the President’s executive powers, but did not enjoin the entry suspension in her order. Plaintiffs, represented by Red Eagle Law, L.C., are now challenging that decision under the nondelegation doctrine and that the seemingly unlimited power handed to the President in regards to immigration is unconstitutional.

We know of three additional lawsuits, of which one is on behalf of Asylee FTJ’s brought by plaintiffs represented through IRAP, and two on behalf of family preference applicants brought by plaintiffs represented through Red Eagle Law. These are currently pending government responses in different courts.

SIV/IV Interview Process: Civil Documents with prior/current residence in Pakistan

Earlier this year, the State Department updated its policy for Police Certificates from Pakistan. Once considered unreliable, the current position is that Police Certificates from Pakistan are a requirement for the immigration process. More info here.

For Afghans, this means that they’re required to submit a Police Certificate from Pakistan if

• They are over 16 years old and currently reside in Pakistan, and have done so for 6 months or more.

• They have resided in Pakistan for 12 months or more at any point in time after turning 16 years old.

Police Certificates from Afghanistan are still not required. For any other country, we recommend checking country-specific instructions.

Pakistan Update

Tens of thousands of Afghans have sought refuge in Pakistan over the course of the last few years (and beyond), and many individuals in the U.S. immigration pipeline remain there, hoping to complete their consular or refugee processing. We want to provide some historical context that we believe is critical for folks to understand about WHY so many Afghans, particularly in the refugee track, have self-relocated to Pakistan to pursue case processing, why that process was and still is moving very slowly, and how our relationship with the government of Pakistan has evolved and changed on this issue over time.

As a baseline, it’s important to understand that in order to be considered for a refugee referral, individuals must be outside of the home country from which they are seeking refuge. Meaning that an Afghan cannot complete their refugee processing IN Afghanistan, but rather must be in a third country. After the fall of Kabul, the U.S. government actually began processing Afghan refugee referrals for Afghans who were still in Afghanistan and part of the Enduring Welcome pipeline

However, U.S. government messaging to individuals in the refugee track continued to state that individuals must travel to a third country to complete their processing well into 2023 – despite that not being factually accurate. Because of that messaging, thousands of Afghan refugees traveled to Pakistan in the hopes of completing their processing there as it is geographically and relationally the easiest country to travel to and live in for most Afghans.

Unfortunately the U.S. government did not initially have the capability to process refugee cases at the necessary scale in Pakistan. Efforts were undertaken to work with the Pakistani government to open a refugee processing site in/near Islamabad throughout 2022 and 2023, but meaningful progress was not made until late in 2023. At that point, there were well over 10,000 Enduring Welcome-eligible Afghans seeking refugee processing in Pakistan. Once the increased scale was achieved, refugee cases there began processing quickly – but then we hit another obstacle: U.S. resettlement agencies were not able to provide assurances (meaning identify and assign locations with housing and support) for the approved cases quickly enough, creating another bottleneck. In 2024, thousands of approved Afghan refugees remained stuck in Pakistan awaiting assurances – so essentially the only thing standing between those individuals and immediate travel to the U.S. was a lack of available housing and support via the resettlement agencies.

While all of this was taking place, the Pakistani government also began taking steps to begin to deport displaced Afghans within Pakistan. In late 2023 and into 2024, these efforts resulted in the forced repatriation of hundreds of thousands of Afghans, many of whom had fled to Pakistan well before the Taliban takeover of Afghanistan in 2021. The U.S. government worked with the Pakistanis to create exceptions for Afghans in the Enduring Welcome pipeline. While these protections were not foolproof, in large part Afghans who were awaiting U.S. resettlement via CARE and Enduring Welcome were able to remain in Pakistan while they awaited completion of their cases.

Also concurrently, the U.S. government relocated some Afghans in the pipeline overland to Pakistan and provided them with lodging while they awaited case processing. To our knowledge, all of those individuals have been removed from government lodging and are no longer being provided with protection from deportation from the U.S. government.

Today, SIVs are still processing, however slowly, at the Embassy in Islamabad. Tens of thousands of Afghans in the refugee pipeline remain in limbo due to the suspension of the USRAP, many of whom have approved refugee cases and are only awaiting the ability to travel. The U.S. government has stopped providing lodging or any other kind of protection to those Afghans in our pipeline, despite having relocated or encouraged to relocate thousands of those individuals.

For AfghanEvac’s part, we have directly engaged the government of Pakistan through letters, face-to-face meetings at the Embassy with their Ambassador to the United States, and public engagement. We are proud to have made a small impact on getting the RSC approved and started, and to have pushed back on Pakistani efforts to repatriate Afghans in the Enduring Welcome pipeline.

In the news

• Afghan relatives in holding pattern – World News Group

• Kabul-Islamabad’s rising tensions fuel crackdown on Afghan migrants in Pakistan — The Economic Times

• Iowa Must Welcome Refugees — The Gazette

• Trump administration tightens green card process for travel ban countries — The American Bazaar

• Afghan asylum seeker who fought the Taliban now held by ICE in Missouri — The Beacon News

This week was a long update, but an important one. As many of us celebrate Thanksgiving here in the U.S., we at AfghanEvac want to note our gratitude and thanks to the many individuals here and around the world still working to support our Afghan allies and keep the promises we made to them. Thank you for your continued engagement, advocacy, and care.