WASHINGTON – President Donald Trump's administration finalized a last-minute reprieve Tuesday to avoid the closure of a camp in Qatar that houses more than 1,000 Afghans who assisted America’s war effort or are the relatives of U.S. service members.
The administration extended for nine months the life of Camp As Sayliyah, which had been due to close on Wednesday at the end of the U.S. budget year, a U.S. official said. It was not immediately clear whether Secretary of State Marco Rubio had signed off on a diplomatic note to Qatar outlining the decision or if he had delegated it to a subordinate.
Recommended Videos
Nonetheless, the official, who was not authorized to comment publicly on the matter and spoke on condition of anonymity, said the nine-month extension had been agreed on.
The decision comes months after Rubio told Congress that the U.S. was still in discussions with several third-party countries to take the 1,039 Afghans who worked as interpreters or in other roles helping the American war effort as well as relatives of U.S. service members who have been stranded in Qatar for more than a year.
Rubio's testimony in June came after the AP and other outlets reported that war-torn Congo was among the countries where the Trump administration was considering resettlement.
The State Department would not immediately comment on the extension for the camp but said it “continues to work toward a positive resolution that provides safety for these remaining people to start a new life outside of Afghanistan while upholding the safety and security of the American people.”
The department also repeated its position that the camp is a legacy of an attempt by President Joe Biden's administration “to move as many Afghans to America as possible without properly vetting them” — an assertion that has been denied by former officials and refugee advocates.
The group of Afghans in Camp As Sayliyah includes those who fought or worked alongside the U.S. military between 2001 and 2021, with more than 70% of the camp's residents being women and children, according to statistics from #AfghanEvac. The group has spent the last five years advocating for Washington to make good on its promise to resettle those whose service has put them at risk since the chaotic U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan and the Taliban's reassertion of control.
“This is a victory for those people, and they’re going to have some semblance of knowing that they’re safe there because they’ve been worried that at any moment somebody’s going to come and rip them out of there,” Shawn VanDiver, a Navy veteran who heads #AfghanEvac, told the AP.
But he added that there needs to be a permanent solution to this yearslong crisis.
Despite the camp's reprieve, which prevents those housed there from possible forcible removal to Afghanistan, residents have little hope of being allowed to enter the United States.
Upon entering his second term, Trump, a Republican, paused his Democratic predecessor’s Afghan resettlement program as part of a series of executive orders cracking down on immigration, including dramatically altering refugee admissions to focus on white South Africans. Only five Afghans have been admitted to the U.S. since October 2025, #AfghanEvac says.
The refugee changes left thousands of people who fled war and persecution — and had gone through a sometimes yearslong vetting process to start new lives in America — stranded at places worldwide, including the base in Qatar.
Advocates have warned that if there is no alternative, the only other option for the group of residents would be to go back to Afghanistan, where they face likely reprisal from the Taliban.
In the coming nine months, the State Department said it would “continue to work to identify options for voluntary resettlement of all Camp As-Sayliyah residents.” It gave no additional details.
___
Amiri reported from New York.