Veterans groups urge Trump admin to continue Afghan ally support program amid budget cut concerns
A leaked budget proposal sent on April 10 from the White House Office of Management and Budget to the U.S. State Department highlighted the Trump administration's posture toward Afghan allies, particularly those awaiting transportation to the U.S. through the Coordinator for Afghan Relocation Efforts (CARE) as part of Operation Enduring Welcome.
The OMB budget proposes ceasing additional funds to CARE and using the program's $600 million balance "for the orderly shutdown of the CARE program by end of [fiscal year] 2025."
The National Security Council and State Department did not answer Fox News Digital's questions about whether these funds would be used to transport additional Afghans in the Special Immigrant Visa and the suspended U.S. Refugee Admissions Program (USRAP) pipelines to the U.S., or simply to disassemble processing platforms in the Philippines, Qatar and Albania.
But a State Department spokesperson did tell Fox News Digital, "The Department is actively considering the future of our Afghan relocation program and the Office of the Coordinator for Afghan Relocation Efforts (CARE). At this time, no final decisions have been made. CARE continues to provide support to Afghan allies and partners previously relocated to our overseas case processing platforms."
Veteran experts told Fox News Digital that the shutdown of CARE would be a problem for America's reputation and for the allies who believed in U.S. promises of safety.
U.S. Navy veteran Shawn VanDiver, founder of the #AfghanEvac coalition, told Fox News Digital that Operation Enduring Welcome is "the safest, most secure legal immigration pathway our country has ever seen" and allows well-vetted Afghans "to show up in our communities and start businesses and become job creators… in a time when we have a labor shortage."
VanDiver noted areas where Trump could improve on the Biden administration operation, which was carried out "so slowly that people have been left behind in Pakistan, in Afghanistan, in 90 countries around the world… for three and a half years." Particularly in Pakistan, the Biden administration promised the Pakistani government "that it would process Afghans quickly," VanDiver said. "We haven't been keeping up our end of the deal; 10,000 people are stuck in Pakistan right now because President Biden couldn't house them fast enough."
VanDiver emphasized that "President Trump has an opportunity to be a hero to veterans and our wartime allies, and demonstrate that when the United States makes a deal, it keeps its promise."
In an open letter sent on April 23 to Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth, Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem, and national security advisor Michael Waltz, #AfghanEvac states that "over 250,000 Afghans remain in the relocation pipelines."
Andrew Sullivan, executive director of the nonprofit No One Left Behind, told Fox News Digital that his organization supported congressional authorization in 2024 for the three-year appointment of a Coordinator for Afghan Relocation Efforts, which had "wide bipartisan" and "wide bicameral support."
"Our belief is that Congress spoke for a reason and CARE should exist," Sullivan said. "We have a moral obligation and a national security imperative to ensure that we're continuing the facilitation of movement and safe refuge for our wartime allies."
Ending Operation Enduring Welcome and the CARE program "just spits in the face of veterans like myself, who've been working to try and keep our promise to the Afghans who fought with us for 20 years," Sullivan said.
In addition to two Iraq deployments, Sullivan deployed to Zabul, Afghanistan, as a U.S. Army infantry company commander in 2013. In February, he "deployed forward" with No One Left Behind to processing platforms in Tirana, Albania, and Doha, Qatar, after a Jan. 20 executive order reassessing foreign funding, thus ending government-funded flights for SIV applicants.
Thanks to "robust American support that comes from across the political spectrum," No One Left Behind received sufficient donations to fund travel for more than 1,000 Afghans.
"In Albania, I met someone that had been paralyzed by the Taliban after being shot twice," Sullivan said. "I met someone that had been tortured and shackled, hands and ankles together, for over a week before his release was secured by village elders." Both individuals were moved from Afghanistan in December 2024, which Sullivan says proves Afghans are still "facing brutality, absolutely facing death, if they remain in the clutches of the Taliban."
Sullivan says that "those same things could happen" to tens of thousands of Afghans left behind by the Biden administration. This includes "10,000 principal [SIV] applicants and their families," who, according to State Department quarterly reports, have already received Chief of Mission approval, the SIV program's first hurdle.
With no word about the fate of allies, many worry about Taliban retribution. So do numerous Afghans in the U.S. who learned in April that their parole has been revoked or their temporary protected status (TPS) was terminated by Secretary Noem. Questions sent to the Homeland Security were not immediately returned.
Bill Roggio, editor of the Long War Journal and a senior fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, told Fox News Digital that sending allies to Afghanistan "would be a death sentence for many."
"The Taliban have demonstrated that they have – and continue to – ruthlessly hunted down Afghans who worked with the U.S. and former Afghan government," Roggio said. "Thousands have been murdered or tortured. The Taliban cannot be trusted in any way, shape or form. Their past actions, such as openly flaunting the failed Doha agreement and allowing al Qaeda safe have, or refusing to negotiate with the now defunct Afghan government, demonstrate this."
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