Afghanistan Peace CampaignDemocrats and Republicans on Capitol Hill have long come together around supporting Afghans who worked with U.S. forces during the war in Afghanistan. Not anymore.
The November shooting of two National Guard members by an Afghan who’d been granted asylum in the U.S. has rendered the once-popular cause a taboo topic in Republican circles.
Until the shooting, GOP lawmakers had mostly worked to protect programs to aid Afghans seeking asylum from the larger Trump administration crackdown on foreign nationals in the United States. Now once-stalwart backers of programs for these Afghans are hedging their support and calling for changes to the vetting process. Some of those making the biggest reversals face voters in 2026.
“I’m sympathetic, obviously, to people who have helped America in the war effort, but all that support was predicated upon a rigorous vetting process, which I don’t have confidence in,” said Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas). Cornyn, who faces two formidable primary challengers this year, helped write a 2021 law that updated the Special Immigrant Visa category for Afghans who helped the United States during the two decades America spent fighting Taliban insurgents in the country.
Asked his current stance on the SIV program, Cornyn said, “I don’t have any confidence in it” in light of the vetting issues.
Sen. Marsha Blackburn (R-Tenn.), who has previously backed the resettlement of Afghan allies and condemned the Biden administration for inaction in helping Afghans, is also focusing on the need for reforms.
“We can be grateful President Trump is taking decisive action to strengthen vetting and prevent such a tragedy from ever happening again,” said Blackburn, who is retiring from the Senate and running for Tennessee governor, in a speech on the Senate floor.
It’s a stunning reversal of fortunes for the effort to help Afghans who aided the U.S., coming just weeks ahead of the end-of-year deadline for Congress to extend the deadline for Afghans to apply for Special Immigrant Visas. And it comes as advocates warn that there is an insufficient number of visas for the number of applicants waiting to enter the United States.
The U.S. admitted nearly 200,000 Afghan nationals in the wake of the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan. Officials who served in the Biden administration have maintained that the U.S. did adequately vet and screen those who were admitted and that only a small number have encountered legal trouble since then.
Thousands of Afghans who worked with the U.S. military and their families still wait at military bases and refugee camps around the world for a small number of SIVs. Military personnel at U.S. bases overseas typically conducted initial vetting of Afghans.
Republican leaders, said one congressional staffer, have “poisoned the Afghan allies conversation” even as a small bipartisan group of lawmakers tries to keep the efforts to help Afghans alive.
“Republicans want this debate to die,” the staffer added. The individual, like others, was granted anonymity to discuss internal conversations about the legislation.
Shawn VanDiver, head of a nonprofit called AfghanEvac that advocates for programs to help Afghans who aided the U.S., said he was shocked by House Speaker Mike Johnson’s decision to ax the provision reestablishing State’s Office of the Coordinator for Afghan Relocation Efforts from the NDAA.
“Speaker Johnson has been good on this” previously, VanDiver said. “We expected the president to turn this into a circus … This is the president using a terrible tragedy to turn prejudice into policy.”
The plight of Afghans who helped U.S. forces has been one of few issues to unite Democrats and Republicans in Washington, even as Congress became more polarized. Congressional Democrats and Republicans joined forces during the Biden administration to increase the number of Special Immigrant Visas available to Afghans following the Taliban’s 2021 takeover of the country. Legislation to provide Afghans with a path to U.S. citizenship or permanent residency has also enjoyed bipartisan co-sponsorships, though it has not become law.
Since the Nov. 26 shooting of two West Virginia National Guard members, which killed one service member and critically injured another, there’s been little appetite in Congress to increase the number of visas — let alone increase the legal pathways to citizenship — for Afghans.
The shooter, Rahmanullah Lakanwal, served in an Afghan military unit with ties to the CIA. Lakanwal was admitted to the United States under Biden, and the Trump administration approved his asylum claim in April. While investigators have not disclosed any motive for the attack, Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem said he was “radicalized” in the United States. Republicans have seized on the issue to renew their attacks on the resettlement of Afghan refugees and the security screening process.
It has also become politically dangerous for Republicans up for reelection in the midterms to voice any support for the Afghan visa programs.
One of Cornyn’s primary challengers, Rep. Wesley Hunt (R-Texas), has seized on his past support of the visa programs to portray his opponent as out of touch with voters. Hunt himself previously backed efforts to support Afghans who helped the U.S. in Afghanistan.
“When a senator from Texas takes 11 votes to support mass amnesty and then votes to accelerate Afghan SIV pathways, it doesn’t signal America First. It signals a bid for clout among Washington insiders,” Hunt’s campaign said in a statement.
Democrats and some Republicans have asked for caution. While the Biden administration’s process was criticized in a 2022 Department of Homeland Security inspector general’s report, which found that federal officials “did not always have critical data” to properly vet Afghan refugees, they argue that thorough vetting still occurs.
“Individuals are already vetted through numerous interagency databases including through the Departments of Defense, Homeland Security, the Federal Bureau of Investigation, and the National Counterterrorism Center,” a group of House Democrats led by Rep. Jason Crow (D-Colo.) wrote in a Thursday letter to Trump and Noem.
Democrats are particularly incensed about the removal of the CARE office provision from the NDAA. That office, eliminated during a July overhaul of the State Department, was a hub across the U.S. government to process visas for, and manage the relocation and integration of, Afghans allowed into the United States.
Rep. Sydney Kamlager-Dove (D-Calif.), who co-sponsored the original legislation to reauthorize State’s CARE office, said her Republican colleagues are turning their backs on Afghans.
“My colleagues need to grow a spine and stop letting Stephen Miller do their jobs, or else they will go down in history as betraying the very Afghans we promised we would never leave behind,” she said, referring to the Trump adviser who is seen as the main architect of the president’s immigration policy.
Johnson’s move dashed hopes that any legislation to help Afghans who supported the U.S. war effort could advance in this Congress.
“That was everyone’s hopes and dreams on this issue,” said a second congressional staffer. “It was literally authorizing the CARE office at State. If that’s dead, you can extrapolate that nothing more substantive on this is ever going to pass.”
Lawmakers have until Dec. 31 to decide whether to extend the SIV program. About 35,000 Afghans are approved to enter the United States, but fewer than 7,000 SIVs remain to be allocated, based on the numbers Congress authorized in previous years.
In the past, when the number of visas has come close to running out, Congress has increased the cap.
Another bipartisan bill, the Afghan Adjustment Act, would create a pathway for Afghans to obtain permanent residency and eventually U.S. citizenship. That bill already faced headwinds during both the Trump and Biden administrations given political opposition to immigration.
VanDiver said he wants lawmakers to use a discharge petition to bring the CARE office legislation and other bills to help Afghans to a vote in the House without Johnson’s approval. It is unclear whether such a petition will materialize before Congress adjourns for the holidays.
The Republican co-sponsors of the legislation to reestablish the CARE office have not commented on its removal from the NDAA. Rep. Mike Lawler (R-N.Y.)’s office did not respond to a request for comment about whether the New York Republican still supported the Enduring Welcome Act.
Rep. Michael McCaul (R-Texas) still backs the legislation — but he’s not running for reelection.
“The creed of the military is no man left behind,” McCaul said in an AfghanEvac video. ”And we promised them that we would protect them and yet we failed in that duty, in my judgment.”