An unreleased financial plan dated April 10 and issued from the White House Office of Management and Budget to the U.S. State Department highlighted how the Trump administration views Afghan allies, specifically those eagerly waiting for transportation to the U.S. through the Coordinator for Afghan Relocation Efforts (CARE) under Operation Enduring Welcome.
In the budget proposal, it was suggested to halt any further funds to CARE and utilize the remaining $600 million from the program for the organized closure of CARE by the conclusion of the fiscal year 2025.
The National Security Council and State Department declined to respond to questions from Fox News Digital regarding whether these finances would be allocated for moving more Afghans through the Special Immigrant Visa and the paused U.S. Refugee Admissions Program (USRAP) channels to the U.S., or simply for dismantling processing centers in the Philippines, Qatar, and Albania.
“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.
Newly graduated personnel march during their graduation ceremony after a three-month training program at the Afghan Military Academy in Kabul, Afghanistan, in November 2020. (AP/Rahmat Gul)
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.
Taliban fighters celebrate the second anniversary of the withdrawal of U.S.-led troops from Afghanistan, in Kandahar, south of Kabul, on Aug. 15, 2023. (AP/Abdul Khaliq)
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.”
