• Over 1,100 vetted Afghan allies (including 400+ children) are being forced to choose between relocation to war-torn Congo or return to Taliban rule.
• The Trump administration has suspended all Afghan humanitarian pathways to the U.S., leaving thousands stranded who were already cleared for U.S. admission.
• At the same time, the administration fast-tracked resettlement for white South Africans under widely discredited refugee claims.
• Congress must immediately use national interest waiver authority to admit vetted Afghans and hold the administration accountable to keeping America’s promises to its allies.

When the Taliban seized Kabul in August 2021 and the U.S. evacuation began, IILA mobilized and prepared to welcome Afghan arrivals to the greater Los Angeles area. We coordinated with our national partner, our dedicated staff, and generous volunteers to welcome and resettle nearly 900 Afghan newcomers within six months. Our clients ranged from translators for U.S. military personnel to women’s rights advocates, journalists, and former Afghan government officials. Today, IILA continues to serve Afghan clients across Southern California through ongoing integration support, including health programs and case management for those with medical or trauma-related needs.

Nearly five years later, however, more than 1,100 Afghans who risked their lives alongside U.S. forces are still waiting abroad for the safety and new lives they were promised by the U.S. government. According to State Department officials and multiple advocacy groups, the Trump administration is now considering offering these Afghan allies two options: (1) relocate to the Democratic Republic of Congo, a nation engulfed in one of the world’s worst humanitarian disasters, or (2) return to Taliban-controlled Afghanistan, where many face near-certain persecution or death. The cruelty of this choice becomes even starker when set alongside the administration’s simultaneous decision to fast-track resettlement for white South Africans — a group whose refugee claims have been widely discredited by independent experts.

For IILA, this is not an abstract policy debate. It is a direct threat to a group we have served and our community has welcomed.

The individuals currently held at a U.S.-managed transit facility outside Doha, Qatar known as Camp As Sayliyah are no strangers to America. They are interpreters who translated under fire, former Afghan special forces members who fought alongside U.S. troops, and family members of U.S. military personnel. More than 400 of them are children.

They have been held Camp A Sayliyah since 2024, after being brought out of Afghanistan by the U.S. government specifically because their ties to U.S. forces made them targets. They were promised a path to resettlement in the United States — a promise backed by years of extensive security vetting. Most have already been cleared for U.S. admission, and many have been waiting for years to reunite with relatives already living in America.

Shawn VanDiver, a U.S. veteran and president of the advocacy group AfghanEvac, argues the administration is deliberately offering an option it knows the Afghans cannot accept in order to pressure them into returning to Afghanistan.

The Democratic Republic of Congo is no refuge. It is an active war zone where people are dying. According to the United Nations Refugee Agency, 8.2 million people were displaced there as of September 2025, with the number expected to reach 9 million by year’s end. Armed groups are fighting over territory, and the country already hosts more than 600,000 refugees of its own. That this is the alternative being considered for people who served the United States at the same moment the administration has rolled out a red carpet for Afrikaner arrivals in Washington speaks volumes about the double standards applied to different populations under this Administration.

The disparity did not happen by accident. In February 2025, even as Afghan allies sat stranded in Qatar, President Trump signed an executive order directing the U.S. government to prioritize resettlement for Afrikaners (a white, Dutch-descended minority in South Africa) based on claims of racial persecution and so-called “white genocide” in post-apartheid South Africa.

Nevertheless, the program moved swiftly. By May 12, 2025, just three months after the executive order, the first group of 59 white South Africans landed at Dulles International Airport outside Washington, D.C., where they were personally welcomed by Deputy Secretary of State Christopher Landau and provided with immediate resettlement assistance.

The numbers confirm the pattern. Of the approximately 4,499 refugees admitted to the United States since November 2025, 4,496 came from South Africa. Only three were from Afghanistan. Meanwhile, the administration was freezing all Afghan visa pathways, detaining Afghan families in U.S. custody, and now is considering pressuring the 1,100 vetted allies at Camp As Sayliyah to accept relocation to a war-torn African nation or return to the Taliban while simultaneously considering increasing the annual refugee cap to accommodate more Afrikaners. And in a final, almost absurd coda to this story, some of the white South Africans resettled under the program are now poised to move back to South Africa, claiming that life in the U.S. is “too difficult”, while Afghans would give anything for the chance to be here.

This is not simply a matter of competing policy priorities. It is a question of who this administration believes deserves America’s protection, and the answer it has given is deeply troubling. Afghan allies were vetted through years of background checks and promised resettlement in direct exchange for their service alongside U.S. troops. Afrikaners were admitted on an expedited basis under refugee claims that independent experts and the South African government itself have called unfounded. One group bled for American foreign policy objectives. The other is being welcomed as a political statement. The people paying the price for that distinction are the 1,100 men, women, and children still waiting in Qatar.

The path forward is clear. Congress must use national interest waiver authority to admit vetted Afghans who have already completed extensive background checks. Bipartisan support exists for doing so and IILA urges lawmakers to act on that support immediately. The administration must honor commitments made to those who served alongside U.S. troops and recognize that a manufactured “choice” between two humanitarian crises is no choice at all. Contact your federal elected officials today to demand justice for our Afghan allies and equity in America’s refugee admissions.

For IILA and the communities we serve, this is personal. The Los Angeles region is home to thousands of Afghan Americans with family members still waiting for the resettlement they were promised. We stand ready to welcome those who come, provide the services they need, and advocate for the policies that make it possible.

America’s word must mean something. To our allies. To our partners. To the children at Camp As Sayliyah who have done nothing wrong and have everything to lose.