The SIV program
There was a plan to finish the job
Before this administration, Congress and the U.S. government built a plan to responsibly finish the Afghan Special Immigrant Visa program. It was not a shutdown plan. It was a plan to complete the process for our Afghan allies. Here is what it was, what it required, and how it is being interrupted before the job is done.
Last updated July 31, 2026
Bottom line up front
A wind-down is not a shutdown
There was a plan to finish the job. Before the current administration, the U.S. government created a congressionally mandated plan to responsibly wind down the Afghan SIV program. It was not a plan to stop. It was a plan to complete the process for the Afghan allies already in the pipeline, an orderly, lawful, and finite path to the end.
What is happening now is different. Relocation has been halted, processing has slowed, and the systems the plan relied on are being dismantled. That does not wind the program down. It interrupts it before it is finished, and leaves vetted allies stranded partway through a process the United States promised to complete.
Read the plan itself. This explainer summarizes the government's own document, the report to Congress that laid out how the SIV program was meant to be finished. You can read the full wind-down plan here.
What the plan did
A structured, lawful wind-down, directed by Congress
- Keep processing applications until every case was resolved, not close intake.
- Continue relocation operations so applicants could actually reach their interviews.
- Issue visas for as long as Congress kept providing them.
- Work through the pipeline over time, in an orderly way, rather than all at once.
The math was straightforward. Keep the pipeline moving, and roughly 99 percent of cases would be completed by around 2029. Not a cliff, not a purge, a finish line.
What it required
Keep the system running long enough to finish it
A wind-down that completes cases only works if the machinery keeps running while it does. The plan depended on four things.
- Continued operations under Enduring Welcome and the CARE office.
- Additional visa numbers from Congress.
- Stable policies and predictable timelines.
- Coordination across the agencies that run the program.
What has changed
The program is being interrupted, not wound down
The current administration has taken the opposite of each step the plan required.
- Halting or restricting the relocation pathways applicants need to reach processing.
- Slowing or stopping adjudication and visa issuance.
- Dismantling the systems, the CARE office and Enduring Welcome, that the plan depended on to finish.
This is the distinction that matters. These steps do not finish the program. They stop it partway, which is not what Congress directed and not what the United States promised.
Why it matters
The obligation did not end
- Congress directed a plan to complete the program, not abandon it midstream.
- The United States made commitments to the wartime allies who served alongside it.
- Courts have reinforced those obligations, ordering the government to keep deciding long-delayed cases.
The bottom line
The question is simple. Will the United States follow the plan it created, or walk away from it? A wind-down that finishes the job is a promise kept. One that stops halfway is a promise broken. We are asking the administration to run the plan to completion, and Congress to provide the visas and the oversight to see it through.
Educational reference only, not legal advice. This explainer describes the congressionally directed SIV wind-down plan and the current status of the program as of July 31, 2026. Program operations change quickly. For the current state of SIV processing see our SIV current state page, and for case-specific questions consult a qualified immigration attorney or contact AfghanEvac.