U.S. Seeks Third-Country Options For Afghans Stranded In Qatar
The United States is negotiating with several countries to relocate more than 1,100 Afghan evacuees stranded in Qatar, after plans to move them to America stalled under tightened U.S. immigration restrictions.
The Wall Street Journal reported that Washington has opened talks with at least three countries; two in sub-Saharan Africa and one in Southeast Asia, as it seeks to close the costly transit facility where the Afghans have been left in limbo.
The evacuees are being housed at Camp As Sayliyah near Doha, a former U.S. military facility that was originally intended as a temporary transit point after the Taliban takeover of Afghanistan. The camp is costing more than $10 million a month to operate, and Qatari officials have pressed Washington to resolve the situation quickly after a U.S. deadline to empty the site by March 31 passed without a solution.
According to the report, some Afghans have also been offered money to abandon hopes of reaching the United States and instead return to Afghanistan. The financial offers reportedly range from $1,200 to $4,500 per family member, despite the fact that U.S. government forms acknowledge that returnees could face danger if sent back under Taliban rule.
The uncertainty has grown since the Trump administration’s January 2026 restrictions suspended visa issuance for Afghan nationals, including Afghan Special Immigrant Visas in most cases. That policy shift sharply narrowed legal pathways for many Afghans who had already been evacuated or were in advanced stages of U.S. processing, leaving many cases frozen despite earlier expectations of resettlement.
A U.S. official cited by the Journal said attempts to persuade Arab and Muslim-majority countries to accept the evacuees had so far failed, prompting Washington to widen its search to more distant destinations. But no country has yet publicly agreed to take the group, leaving the future of the stranded Afghans unresolved months after their expected onward movement.
The case has become one of the clearest examples of the unfinished legacy of the 2021 U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan, when tens of thousands of Afghans linked to the American mission were evacuated in haste. While many were resettled, others remained trapped in legal, political and bureaucratic uncertainty, especially those whose immigration categories were later delayed, restricted or suspended.
Advocates and refugee groups have warned that any pressure on Afghans to return could expose them to serious danger, including retaliation, detention or worse. With no confirmed relocation plan, and no official U.S. figures on how many have accepted return payments, the fate of the evacuees in Qatar remains uncertain and increasingly urgent.
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