Afghan evacuees arrive at Ali Al Salem Air Base, Kuwait, on Aug. 26, 2021. A White House budget proposal seeks to end funding for Operation Enduring Welcome, a program that allows Afghans who helped the U.S. during the Afghanistan war resettle in the United States. (Ryan Brooks/U.S. Air Force)
A program to relocate Afghans who worked alongside U.S. service members during two decades of war is being targeted by the White House for shutdown by the fall.
No more funding for Operation Enduring Welcome was allotted in President Donald Trump’s fiscal year 2026 budget proposal released Friday. Advocacy groups fear that hundreds of thousands of Afghans awaiting resettlement in the U.S. could be shut out if the program is defunded.
Shawn Vandiver, head of the nonprofit group #AfghanEvac, one of the veterans who worked to establish Enduring Welcome, called it a secure pathway to legal immigration.
“It’s helping me understand that perhaps they don’t actually care about safe, legal immigration,” Vandiver said of the administration’s proposal. “They just don’t want immigrants.”
There are more than 260,000 Afghans waiting in the resettlement pipeline, including about 3,000 family members of active duty service members, according to Vandiver’s estimates.
While a majority of applicants are still in Afghanistan, thousands are in third-party countries awaiting transfer, including about 1,200 refugees who are stuck at a former U.S. military base in Qatar.
In response to questions, an administration official said that more than 50,000 Afghan SIV applicants are being vetted by the State Department, which continues to prioritize and schedule visa interviews.
“The Trump administration remains committed to protecting those who supported our mission while ensuring rigorous security standards,” the official said on condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive matters. “These measures make certain that refuge is provided only to those credibly at risk while maintaining broader U.S. national security priorities.”
Following the chaotic American withdrawal from Kabul in 2021, the U.S. set up channels to allow eligible Afghans — such as military translators, interpreters and families of American service members — to seek new lives in the U.S. through the granting of special immigrant visas and refugee status.
The State Department has relocated more than 190,000 Afghans to the U.S. in the last four years under Enduring Welcome, according to the White House’s budget proposal.
The White House’s proposed budget will head to Congress, which will hold committee hearings to hash out a final budget to be voted on later this year. Some lawmakers, like New Jersey Democrat Cory Booker, have pushed back against the moves to shut down the program.
The proposal to cut off funding tracks with a broader trend by the Trump administration to consolidate programs and lower spending in certain federal agencies.
The State Department last week also notified Congress that it will close the office that coordinates Afghan relocation efforts and transfer those duties to the Afghan Affairs Office. If Enduring Welcome were to be shut down, however, it’s unclear what those duties would be.
No One Left Behind, another veteran-led nonprofit advocating for affected Afghans, called the decision to close the relocation office “incredibly alarming.”
“This restructuring sends the message that the promise we made to our allies in arms is no longer a priority,” the group said in a statement Thursday.
The closure was part of a broader restructuring that shuttered more than 300 offices. Secretary of State Marco Rubio said the move would make the department more agile.
The program to grant parole and settlement to Afghans has stretched across multiple agencies. In May 2024, the Department of Homeland Security largely concurred with its inspector general’s report, which found gaps in its ability to monitor parole expiration and remove those with derogatory information in their backgrounds.
In May, Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem terminated temporary protected status for more than 8,000 Afghan nationals already in the U.S., including some who assisted the U.S. in the war.
Sens. Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, and Jeanne Shaheen, D-N.H., sent a letter calling Noem’s decision a “historic betrayal of promises made” that undermines the values Americans fought for in Afghanistan.
In addition to deteriorating economic and humanitarian conditions, Afghans who helped the U.S. are at heightened risk for retaliation from the Taliban, the lawmakers wrote.
