The Trump administration is in talks with the Democratic Republic of Congo to resettle 1,100 Afghans who have been\u00a0stranded in Qatar\u00a0awaiting U.S. \u200bvisas, according to an advocacy organisation that works on their behalf.<\/p>\n
The discussions underscore the legal hurdles facing Afghans who fled the \u200cTaliban after\u00a0U.S. immigrant visa processing for Afghan nationals was effectively halted, leaving them in limbo more than four years after the U.S. withdrawal from Kabul.<\/p>\n
Shawn VanDiver, founder and president of #AfghanEvac, a coalition of veterans and advocacy groups, told Reuters that U.S. officials had briefed him about the plan to resettle the Afghans in Congo, which he described \u200bas unacceptable, partly because of\u00a0chronic insecurity in the central African country.<\/p>\n
The Afghans are housed at Camp As Sayliyah, a former U.S. Army \u200bbase in Qatar, where they were transferred to complete immigrant visa processing for entry into the United States. Some \u2060are relatives of U.S. citizens or worked for a U.S.-funded organization during the 20-year war.<\/p>\n
But that processing ground to a halt after the Trump \u200badministration took office in January 2025.<\/p>\n
Last June, the Trump administration included\u00a0Afghanistan on a list of 12 countries\u00a0subject to a travel ban, with a narrow \u200bexemption for Special Immigrant Visas (SIV) for Afghans who served alongside troops and diplomats.<\/p>\n
In November,\u00a0Washington stopped immigrant visa\u00a0processing for all Afghan nationals following the deadly shooting of two U.S. National Guard members by an Afghan former CIA-backed paramilitary unit member.<\/p>\n
A federal judge ruled in February that the ban on Afghan SIV visa processing was illegal, but processing \u200bis effectively at a standstill, according to VanDiver.<\/p>\n
#AfghanEvac said in a statement on Tuesday that the 1,100 Afghans had been vetted for resettlement.<\/p>\n
A State \u200bDepartment spokesperson said in an email late on Tuesday that resettling the Afghans in a third country would be a positive solution that would give them a chance to \u200cstart a \u2060new life outside of Afghanistan. It did not respond directly to a question about whether Congo was among the countries under consideration.<\/p>\n
A Congolese government spokesperson did not immediately respond to a request for comment.<\/p>\n
The New York Times first reported on the effort to resettle the Afghans in Congo.<\/p>\n
AFGHANS UNLIKELY TO ACCEPT CONGO RESETTLEMENT, ADVOCATE SAYS<\/strong><\/p>\n Congo has experienced decades of conflict and is currently fighting a Rwanda-backed rebel movement that made major incursions in the east \u200blast year.<\/p>\n That makes it unlikely the Afghans \u200bwill accept resettlement there, VanDiver \u2060said, adding that the U.S. could potentially use their refusal as justification for sending them back to Afghanistan.<\/p>\n “I worry that this is just a way for State to wash their hands of these folks, many of whom \u200bare women, children, and family of U.S. military, that will ultimately result in them becoming stateless or having \u200bto go back to \u2060certain death in Afghanistan,” VanDiver said.<\/p>\n The Trump administration had previously sought to resettle the Afghans in the southern African country of Botswana, VanDiver said, describing that country as a more viable potential destination.<\/p>\n The initial plan to send the Afghans to Botswana has not previously been reported. Botswana’s foreign ministry did not immediately \u2060respond to \u200ba request for comment. The State Department did not comment on whether it had tried \u200bto resettle the Afghans there previously.<\/p>\n Plans to send the group to Botswana ultimately fell through, according to VanDiver, after the country objected to a new U.S. requirement that its citizens seeking \u200bto enter the U.S. post a\u00a0$15,000 visa bond.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The Trump administration is in talks with the Democratic Republic of Congo to resettle 1,100 Afghans who have been\u00a0stranded in Qatar\u00a0awaiting U.S. \u200bvisas, according to an advocacy organisation that works on their behalf. The discussions underscore the legal hurdles facing Afghans who fled the \u200cTaliban after\u00a0U.S. immigrant visa processing for Afghan nationals was effectively halted, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":15543,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"iawp_total_views":5,"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":{"format":"standard","override":[{"template":"1","parallax":"1","fullscreen":"1","layout":"right-sidebar","sidebar":"default-sidebar","second_sidebar":"default-sidebar","sticky_sidebar":"1","share_position":"top","share_float_style":"share-monocrhome","show_featured":"1","show_post_meta":"1","show_post_author_image":"1","show_post_date":"1","post_date_format":"default","post_date_format_custom":"Y\/m\/d","show_post_reading_time":"0","post_reading_time_wpm":"300","post_calculate_word_method":"str_word_count","show_zoom_button":"0","zoom_button_out_step":"2","zoom_button_in_step":"3","show_post_tag":"1","show_comment_section":"1","number_popup_post":"1","show_post_related":"1","show_inline_post_related":"1"}],"image_override":[{"single_post_thumbnail_size":"crop-500","single_post_gallery_size":"crop-500"}],"trending_post_position":"meta","trending_post_label":"Trending","sponsored_post_label":"Sponsored by","disable_ad":"0","source_name":"Reuters","subtitle":""},"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"jnews_override_counter":{"view_counter_number":"0","share_counter_number":"0","like_counter_number":"0","dislike_counter_number":"0"},"footnotes":""},"categories":[28,29,2362,2377],"tags":[5049,72,476],"class_list":["post-20578","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-central-africa","category-east-africa","category-featured","category-migration","tag-afghans","tag-democratic-republic-of-congo","tag-qatar"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20578","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=20578"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20578\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":20579,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20578\/revisions\/20579"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/15543"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=20578"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=20578"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=20578"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}