More than 80 members of the U.S. House of Representatives, including at least three Republicans alongside a majority of Democrats, on Thursday urged the Trump administration to reverse any plans to relocate roughly 1,100 Afghan nationals from Qatar to the Democratic Republic of the Congo.
In a letter addressed to Secretary of State Marco Rubio, the lawmakers argued that the Afghan men and women — who served as interpreters, contractors, and security personnel alongside U.S. forces during the nearly 20-year war in Afghanistan — have a moral claim to resettlement in the United States and should not be sent to a third country.
Rep. Jason Crow (D-Colo.), a former Army Ranger who led the letter, said in a statement that honoring the commitments the U.S. made to those who served alongside American forces was both a moral obligation and a national security priority.
According to the letter, the Afghans have been stranded in Qatar for more than four years since the U.S. withdrawal from Kabul, awaiting relocation. Earlier this year, the Trump administration was in talks to send the group to the DRC, a country currently grappling with an Ebola outbreak. At a congressional hearing last week, Rubio was asked whether the plan remained in place; he responded that the U.S. was in discussions with “multiple countries” about accepting the group.
The appeal comes after Trump signed an executive order barring Afghan refugees, including those who worked with the U.S. military, from entering the country. The order followed an incident in late 2025 in which an Afghan immigrant — who had been granted asylum during Trump’s first term — was accused of a shooting in Washington, D.C., that killed a National Guard soldier and wounded another. The administration cited insufficient vetting during the Biden administration in public statements about the attack.
Many of Trump’s fellow Republicans in Congress have stepped back from what was once bipartisan support for the Special Immigrant Visa program that cleared Afghans to come to the United States after serving alongside American troops.
The lawmakers’ letter stressed the wartime service the Afghans had provided. “In our nearly 20-year mission in Afghanistan across four administrations, Afghan allies served in essential roles in support of U.S. operations, fighting alongside our service members as interpreters, contractors and security personnel,” the letter said. It also suggested that some of the Afghans should be considered for U.S. entry.
MSI previously reported that the U.S. had been weighing a plan to relocate the Afghans to a third country as early as April 2026, and that the Taliban government had said in late April that those who helped U.S. forces could return to Afghanistan safely. Separately, the administration has expanded refugee admissions specifically for white South Africans under a program that now admits up to 17,500 per year — a policy contrast lawmakers in the letter did not directly address but that critics have flagged as asymmetric treatment of the Afghan allies.