The Trump administration is considering sending hundreds of Afghan refugees to the Democratic Republic of Congo instead of allowing them to resettle in the United States, according to multiple government officials briefed on the proposal.
The plan would affect approximately 1,100 Afghans currently housed at Camp As Sayliyah, a former U.S. military base in Qatar. These individuals include former members of Afghan special forces, military interpreters, and others whose work alongside American forces puts them at serious risk under Taliban rule. The camp has been slated for closure, with a March 31 deadline that passed without resolution.
Shawn VanDiver, president of San Diego-based AfghanEvac, said he learned of the Congo proposal from multiple State Department officials with direct knowledge of the plan. He characterized the approach as deliberately creating an unappealing alternative designed to coerce refugees into returning to Afghanistan.
"This is insane," VanDiver told NBC News. "You do not solve the world's number one refugee crisis by dumping it into the world's number two."
The Democratic Republic of Congo is already overwhelmed with its own humanitarian crisis. The country hosts more than 600,000 refugees, mostly from Rwanda and the Central African Republic, and has been destabilized by decades of armed conflict. VanDiver stressed that the DRC has no capacity to support additional populations and that Afghans sent there would likely face immediate deportation back to Afghanistan.
A State Department spokesman told The New York Times that Afghan refugees were not properly vetted under the Biden administration, though advocacy groups including AfghanEvac dispute this claim. The Trump administration has emphasized that any resettlement would be voluntary and that it is pursuing "responsible, voluntary resettlement options" at third countries.
Among the roughly 1,100 people at the Qatar camp, more than 400 are children. Most have already passed extensive security screening and been approved for U.S. resettlement. Many have been waiting months or years to reunite with family members in America, including relatives of U.S. service members and veterans.
Returning to Afghanistan poses severe dangers beyond Taliban persecution. Women's rights have been drastically curtailed since the Taliban's return to power in 2021. The country faces widespread malnutrition and other humanitarian crises. Additionally, Afghanistan is experiencing deadly conflict with neighboring Pakistan, with airstrikes regularly killing civilians in Kabul and surrounding areas.
The Congo proposal is part of a broader Trump administration immigration crackdown that has effectively blocked virtually all pathways for Afghan allies to enter the United States. Since August 2021 through mid-2025, more than 190,000 Afghan allies had been resettled in America. Under the current administration, many have been detained by immigration authorities. One Afghan refugee, Mohommad Nazeer Paktyawal, 41, died last month after less than 24 hours in custody; the death is being investigated by Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
Restrictions intensified after a November shooting in Washington that killed one National Guard member and injured another. The suspect, identified as Rahmanullah Lakanwal, 29, was an Afghan national who had served with U.S. forces as part of an elite CIA-backed unit. He was granted asylum under the Trump administration after arriving during the Biden presidency.
VanDiver said the Trump administration has been in negotiations with dozens of countries, many in Africa, to accept Afghans from Qatar. Those negotiations have likely been complicated by other Trump administration policies, including travel bans on many of these same nations and steep visa bond requirements for their citizens.
The proposal also reflects a larger Trump administration strategy to pay foreign governments to accept migrants facing deportation from the United States. Several of these countries have documented records of human rights abuses.
Advocates warn that abandoning Afghan allies could damage U.S. national security by discouraging local populations from cooperating with American forces in future conflicts. VanDiver emphasized that nothing legally prevents the Trump administration from bringing the pre-screened Afghans directly to the United States as originally promised.
The prolonged uncertainty about their fate has devastated the mental health of those waiting at the camp. "They're reaching their breaking point," VanDiver said.
Author Sarah Mitchell: "Using Congo as a dumping ground for people who bled alongside American soldiers isn't immigration policy, it's betrayal wrapped in bureaucracy."
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