Advocates are raising the alarm on a reported Trump administration plan to send wartime Afghan allies and their families stranded in a State Department camp in Qatar to the Democratic Republic of Congo.
More than 1,100 Afghans — including at least 400 children — have been living at Camp As Sayliyah in Doha, Qatar, since at least January 2025.
During the Biden administration, the camp served as a way point for processing Afghans and their families for resettlement in the United States.
Afghan relocation halted on President Donald Trump's first day back in office when he ordered all refugee travel suspended.
He later imposed a travel and visa ban on Afghans.
The Afghan residents of the camp issued a statement via #AfghanEvac, an advocacy group. In it they say they learned of the resettlement plan from the New York Times.
"No American official has come to us to explain what is being planned for our lives," the statement said. "Many of us are not well. The uncertainty has been more than some of us can carry. There is deep depression here."
The Afghans said they don't want to go to the Democratic Republic of Congo — a country dealing with its own refugee crisis and an armed conflict with Rwanda.
"We have been in enough war," the statement said. "We cannot take our children into another one."
A State Department official told the New York Times the administration is working to find "responsible, voluntary resettlement options" for the Afghans in Qatar.
Rep. Sydney Kamlager-Dove, D-Los Angeles, said at a news conference Wednesday the Congo plan is hardly an option.
"So the option to be deported to the Taliban or to move to a catastrophic humanitarian crisis in the D.R.C. is not a choice — it is a death sentence," Kamlager-Dove said.
Republicans have claimed tens of thousands of Afghans admitted into the U.S. after the fall of Kabul in 2021 under a Biden administration program weren't properly vetted.
That program — Enduring Welcome — was officially ended last year by the Trump administration. It also dismantled the State Department's office of the Coordinator for Afghan Relocation Efforts, or CARE.
Advocates and former State Department officials dispute the claim Afghans weren't vetted.
"More than 190,000 Afghans who served the American war effort have already been resettled here lawfully under the most rigorous vetting framework in modern U.S. immigration history," said #AfghanEvac president Shawn VanDiver in a statement.
Sean Jamshidi was a gunnery sergeant in the Marine Corps. During his 10 years of service he worked as embassy security and with special operations.
Jamshidi was born in Afghanistan but was raised in the U.S. Five members of his family are stuck at Camp As Sayliyah, including his older brother. His brother worked with U.S. forces during the 20-year occupation and was told he'd be eligible to resettle because of that.
"But by the time he was lucky enough to get approved for his (Special Immigrant Visa) the administration changed the policy," Jamshidi said.
As a Marine in 2018, Jamshidi deployed to Congo, he said. He doesn't want his family there.
"I personally served as a Marine in D.R.C. in Kinshasa," he said. "I was there for a short period of time but I remember how tough that time was."
VanDiver said there's nothing stopping the administration from bringing the Afghans to the United States.
"Nothing in U.S. law prevents bringing them home to the country they fought for," he said. "The only thing standing in the way is a policy decision in Washington, and policy decisions are reversible."
Jamshidi said he plans to continue to advocate for his brother. By doing that, he says, he's also advocating for his country — one that told Afghans they’d be taken care of if they worked with it.
"I'm going to continue advocating for the credibility of the United States government, that we hold our word to the people that served us," he said. "And if we don't, no one else in the world is going to serve the United States government when we need them the most."
