Camp As Sayliyah was due to close today. It will not.
Secretary Rubio is extending the camp for nine months, and over 1,000 vetted Afghans who spent the last week wondering whether they were about to be put on a plane to Kabul or to Congo are, for now, safe where they are. We asked for this. So did you, more than 3,500 times over the last three weeks. Take the win, then read on, because the next 24 hours matter more than the last nine months.
What the extension does, and what it does not
Why this week is the best shot we have had since January 2025
What we are asking the President to do before he signs
Start with the ways you can take action, then read on.
ACTION NOW
Tell the President and Congress to count them in. The FY2027 Presidential Determination on Refugee Admissions is expected to be signed tomorrow. Send a letter in under two minutes at afghanevac.org/count-them-in. Every letter that lands before the signature matters more than any letter after.
Share the AP story. Trump is set to extend the Qatar camp housing more than 1,000 Afghans who helped the US war effort. Post it, forward it, and tag your members of Congress.
Ask your members of Congress to say it publicly. A statement, a post, or a short video welcoming the extension and calling for CAS residents, U.S. military families, and family reunification cases to be included in the Presidential Determination. We are tracking who stands up this week.
Read and share the OIG breakdown. The latest DHS Inspector General report confirmed the vetting of Afghan allies worked. Our explainer is at afghanevac.org/oig-asylum. Use it the next time someone says otherwise.
Donate. The virtual delegations, the polling, the Hill campaign, and the reporters we brief every week are funded by readers. afghanevac.org/donate
CAS STAYS OPEN. NOW FINISH THE JOB.
Secretary Rubio is signing a diplomatic note to Qatar extending operations at Camp As Sayliyah for nine months, according to two U.S. officials who spoke to the Associated Press. The camp had been due to close today, at the end of the fiscal year, with no announced plan for the people inside it. The State Department told the AP it will “continue to work to identify options for voluntary resettlement of all Camp As-Sayliyah residents.” AfghanEvac is grateful to Secretary Rubio and to the Government of Qatar for making the right call.
The people this decision protects are not abstractions. There are over 1,000 Afghans at CAS. Seventy-two percent are women and children. At least 150 are the spouses, children, or parents of active duty or recently separated U.S. service members. Every one of them was screened by the U.S. government before travel, after arrival, or both, and every one of them was flown to Qatar on a U.S. government aircraft. Those who did not clear were denied and removed, which is what a working vetting system looks like. The people who remain are the ones the United States itself approved. Until January 20, 2025, the flight from CAS to America came within weeks. Then the administration chose to stop the flights, and the camp became a waiting room with no exit.
This did not happen by accident. Two virtual congressional delegations put members and staff face to face with residents. Twenty-three members of the House and Senate, led by Rep. Scott Peters, wrote to Secretaries Rubio and Mullin yesterday asking them to prioritize military families and family reunification cases beginning with CAS, and to name Afghan allies in the FY2027 Presidential Determination. More than 3,500 Count Them In letters reached the Hill in three weeks. Reporters kept the camp in the story. Veterans kept showing up. That is why the camp is open this morning instead of empty.
Here is what the extension does not do. It does not bring anyone home. It buys nine months, and nine months is only a win if the government uses them. The path is not complicated: put the CAS cases on the front burner now, redo the medical exams that have expired and finish whatever processing remains, for everyone who is eligible to come. Do the same for the nearly 3,000 U.S. military family members waiting around the world and for Afghan family reunification cases. For the residents whose cases were denied, work safe third-country placements where the Afghans the United States took out of Afghanistan have a real chance to prosper. Not Afghanistan. Not Congo. We are hopeful this gets resolved with people at the forefront, and we would like to see it start immediately.
THE VETTING QUESTION IS ANSWERED
State’s comment to the AP repeated the claim that CAS is a legacy of an effort “to move as many Afghans to America as possible without properly vetting them.” The government’s own inspectors disagree. The latest DHS Office of Inspector General report, released September 23, found errors in asylum paperwork from Operation Allies Welcome, and it also confirmed what every prior OIG review found: the security vetting of Afghan allies did its job.
Why it matters The only stated reason for keeping vetted people out of the country has been the vetting. That argument is now closed by the administration’s own watchdog, on the same week the President decides who is in the refugee admissions determination.
THE PRESIDENTIAL DETERMINATION IS THE WHOLE GAME
The FY2027 Presidential Determination on Refugee Admissions is expected to be signed tomorrow. The advance language we have seen sets a 17,500 ceiling and does not name Afghans. On September 22, two Afghans arrived in the United States through the U.S. Refugee Admissions Program on an exception to policy, bringing total Afghan refugee arrivals since October 2025 to five. The Peters letter uses that arrival as proof the mechanism works when leaders choose to use it, and asks the Departments to use it at scale rather than one case at a time.
Why it matters Everything the extension bought is spent or saved in this one document. If CAS residents, military families, and family reunification cases are in it, nine months becomes a schedule. If they are not, it becomes another waiting room.
THANK YOU TO QATAR, AGAIN
Qatar has hosted this camp for over 5 years, through a missile interception over the base in July and through months of public speculation about where its residents would be sent. The Government of Qatar agreed to nine more months. That is not nothing, and it should be said plainly: an ally kept faith with people the United States has not yet decided to keep faith with.
Why it matters The third-country conversation has always been the wrong conversation. The country these people were promised is the United States.
IN THE NEWS
Trump is set to extend the Qatar camp housing more than 1,000 Afghans who helped the US war effort -- AP
For twenty months, the question at Camp As Sayliyah has been whether the United States would abandon people it vetted, flew to a U.S. base, and promised a future. This week the answer was no, or at least not yet. That is a choice, and it was made because thousands of people refused to let the other choice be made quietly. The same people can make the next choice too. The President signs tomorrow. Count them in.
We are grateful. We are focused. And we are not going anywhere.