Secretary of State Marco Rubio told lawmakers Tuesday that the U.S. is still negotiating with several countries to resettle more than 1,000 Afghans who assisted the American war effort, while he defended the administration’s decision to authorize refugee admissions for tens of thousands of white South Africans. The testimony, delivered during an annual budget hearing before House and Senate committees, comes more than a month after The Associated Press and other outlets reported that war-torn Congo was among the countries where the U.S. was considering sending the 1,100 Afghans and relatives of American service members who have been stranded in Qatar for more than a year.
Advocates for the Afghan allies have said the other option would be for them to return to Afghanistan, where they face likely reprisal from the Taliban. Democrats on the committees questioned Rubio about why the U.S. has not followed through on its promise to take in the hundreds of allies who had been rigorously vetted before President Donald Trump signed executive orders in January 2025 that targeted asylum and refugee cases.
MSI previously reported that the administration had raised the refugee cap specifically for white South Africans while Afghan allies remained in limbo. That report documented the disparity in the administration’s treatment of the two groups.
Rubio told lawmakers that discussions with several countries to resettle the Afghans are ongoing, but he did not provide a timeline for resolution. The administration has designated white South Africans as a priority refugee category, citing claims of persecution under South Africa’s land reform policies, a decision that advocates and Democratic lawmakers have criticized as politically motivated.
Shawn VanDiver, a veteran and advocate for Afghan allies, has previously called the situation an abandonment of a moral commitment, warning that the delay places the Afghans at increasing risk. The Taliban has said that Afghans who helped the U.S. war effort could return safely, but advocates and lawmakers have dismissed those assurances as unreliable.
The contrast between the swift processing for white South African refugees and the stalled resettlement of Afghan allies has become a recurring point of contention in Congressional oversight of the State Department’s refugee programs. Trump’s January 2025 executive orders suspended refugee admissions and imposed additional restrictions on asylum claims, effectively freezing the pipeline for Afghan applicants who had already passed rigorous security and background checks.
Rubio’s testimony did not include a firm commitment on when the stranded Afghans might be admitted to the U.S. or relocated to a third country.