The Trump administration is rolling back programs that were created to assist more than 250,000 Afghans with planned resettlement in the United States, according to interviews with current and former State Department officials and documents obtained by The Washington Post.
Afghans promised a home in U.S. may face repatriation — and the Taliban
Afghans who helped American forces are stuck in limbo as the Trump administration cuts the State Department office for Afghan relocation.
July 22, 2025 The Washington Post
They are among hundreds of thousands of Afghans waiting in limbo — in Afghanistan and 90 other countries — who were promised the possibility of a new life in the United States after they worked with U.S. forces, including as drivers or interpreters, often risking their lives, Americans who served alongside them say.
Many now fear they will be sent back to Afghanistan, where they could face retribution from the ruling Taliban. Such repatriation efforts are already in motion in the United Arab Emirates, according to cables obtained by The Post, one of which was first reported by
Since President Donald Trump’s return to office, refugee processing and government funding for Afghans’ flights to the U.S. have been halted under two executive orders. And this month’s round of State Department layoffs dismantled the office dedicated to helping Afghans relocate, officials said.
Going back to Afghanistan would be “my own death sentence,” said one Afghan in the UAE. Like other Afghans interviewed, he spoke on the condition of anonymity for fear of Taliban retaliation. “I am not insisting that I must be taken to the United States. My only wish is, please do not hand me over to my executioners.”
“Wherever they end up, they end up” is the administration’s view, said one official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe internal deliberations. “They are now another country’s problem.”
Asked for comment, the White House denied that the Trump administration does not care about the fate of Afghans who assisted U.S. troops. Over the weekend, Trump posted on Truth Social that he would “try to save” Afghans in the UAE facing repatriation.
A senior administration official, speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss internal policy decisions, said the changes to Afghan refugee processing are meant to ensure that the U.S. welcomes only those the government sees as deserving. The official noted that processing of the Afghan Special Immigrant Visa — or SIV — continues at a rate of 900 decisions a week.
SIVs are meant to help Afghans who faced especially serious threats because of their work with the United States. As of May 20, SIV applicants represented about 167,000 of the more than 250,000 Afghans eligible for U.S. resettlement, according to documents reviewed by The Post. In order to come to the U.S., many of them would require the material and logistical support that the State Department office now being dismantled has provided in the past, including flights.
The State Department issued a statement saying that SIV processing continues and that reorganizations had rendered the agency “more efficient and more focused on an America First foreign policy.”
The White House’s budget proposal for the 2026 fiscal year cuts most positions associated with the SIV program, however. Its work could take a major blow on Oct. 1, the budget changes suggest. Asked about this, the senior administration official said SIV case processing would continue.
Repatriation to Afghanistan
During two decades of U.S. military involvement in Afghanistan, troops relied on Afghan allies as interpreters, soldiers, doctors and civil society workers, among other roles. In 2006, the U.S. established a legal pathway to relocate Afghans.
Since the Taliban’s full return to power in 2021, about 195,000 Afghans have been resettled in the U.S., said Jessica Bradley Rushing, who was the deputy director for communications and engagement for the State Department’s Office of the Coordinator for Afghan Relocation Efforts, or CARE, until she was laid off this month.
When Trump returned to office, there were more than 250,000 Afghans spread across 90 countries eligible for resettlement, Bradley Rushing said. An internal State Department assessment, dated May 20, listed 269,124 Afghans in that category.
A cable sent to Secretary of State Marco Rubio from the U.S. Embassy in Abu Dhabi in May said that 39 Afghan evacuees in Emirates Humanitarian City, a housing compound on the outskirts of Dubai, would be deported by the UAE because it had become apparent that they would be denied a legal pathway to the United States. A cable sent to Rubio on July 10 from the same embassy said the UAE had begun “returning Afghan evacuees … to Afghanistan,” starting with two families who had asked to go because they were “tired of waiting.” The remaining 25 would be repatriated by July 20, the cable said.
The Afghan in the UAE, who had previously worked with the U.S. government, said they and others from the compound were taken to the airport Saturday, only for their flight to be canceled without any reason given. The United Nations’ special rapporteur on Afghanistan, Richard Bennett, had issued a statement Friday decrying the deportations.
In response to questions from The Post, the UAE Foreign Ministry said in a statement Friday that it “reaffirms its support for ongoing U.S. efforts to ensure the safe, dignified, and voluntary return of the remaining individuals to Afghanistan.” The UAE did not respond to a request to clarify whether it planned to begin deportations after receiving notice that the U.S. would not provide visas to the 39 people, as the cables indicate.
The State Department did not respond to a request for comment on whether it approved deportations from the UAE to Afghanistan. The Taliban has said it welcomes the repatriation of Afghans who do not meet criteria to remain abroad.
Some of the 1,500 Afghans housed at a former U.S. base in Qatar were also told they would have to go back to Afghanistan in less than three months, said Shawn VanDiver, president of AfghanEvac, a nonprofit that helps resettle Afghans in the U.S.
“Sending them back would be an egregious violation of their human rights,” he said. “It’s also an egregious violation of humanitarian law.”
Among those waiting in the camp is Rahmatullah, an Afghan who worked for the previous, U.S.-backed government in Afghanistan. He and his wife and six children made their way last summer to Qatar, where they completed two interviews, passed a medical checkup and received cultural training, he said. Eventually, he was told the final step was for the State Department to purchase his family’s plane tickets to the U.S.
But the tickets never came, and the family has been stuck for nearly 300 days. We are “prisoners here,” Rahmatullah said. “We cannot go out. There is not one tree; there is no grass inside the camp. It’s like a limbo. It’s like a desert here.”
Cuts to a key office
Some Afghans waiting to learn their fates were dismayed to learn of the cuts to CARE, the office dedicated to aiding in their resettlement.
The office had roughly 200 domestic employees when Trump was sworn in, said Bradley Rushing, and is now down to fewer than 50, mostly contractors. A half-dozen State officials familiar with the matter confirmed the scale of the cuts. Like other federal workers interviewed for this story, they spoke on the condition of anonymity for fear of reprisal.
A senior White House official said the administration is not shutting down CARE, but transferring its functions to the Office of Afghanistan Affairs. “The reorganization impacted a small number of individuals working on the CARE portfolio,” the official said.
One woman in Afghanistan said cutting CARE imperils her chances of making it to safety in the U.S. Her husband served in the Afghan military, fighting in partnership with U.S. forces. After the Taliban’s return in 2021, it tortured and killed him in retaliation, she said. Since then, the Taliban has visited her home, she added, and also tortured her son.
She and her family qualified and applied for SIVs, she said, and were deemed “interview-ready” to travel to a third country for a visa interview, for which CARE would handle the logistics. But now, CARE is all but gone, she noted.
“We are in this situation because of the U.S.,” she said. “We want them to get us out of this.”
Other Afghans face the same uncertainty. Nasima, who worked for a U.S.-backed nongovernmental organization, fled to Pakistan after the Taliban began targeting her colleagues, she said.
As she waited to hear back on her asylum application, she did her best to adjust to life in Pakistan, where Afghans hiding from the Taliban often face exploitation and mistreatment, according to rights groups.
She worked a $60-a-month job while the rest of her family hid in their apartment. Her children stopped going to school, she said, as her husband struggled with his mental health, no longer able to provide for the family.
Nasima thought the wait would be short, but the last time she heard from U.S. officials was a year ago, she said.
A desperate situation grew worse the night of May 2. As the family slept, Nasima heard a noise from her 6-year-old son, who was snuggled in her arms. When she turned on the light, his pillow was streaked with blood. He had been killed by a bullet through his head, she said. Photos and medical records confirm her account.
Nasima is unsure whether the gunfire was meant for her — revenge from the Taliban network operating in Pakistan. She only knows that the first hospital they tried turned them away for being Afghan, and that their landlord evicted them after the shooting.
And she knows that she is disappointed in Trump. She can’t understand why he wouldn’t help Afghans like her, who gave so much for America.
“We have sacrificed our everything. We have given up our houses, our jobs, our cars, our families, our future,” Nasima said. “People have lost their lives waiting for this process — I have lost my son.”
Sarah Blaskey contributed to this report.