Special Immigrant Visa Program Needs Resuscitation, but it's Not Dead Yet |
Immigration
Beth Bailey | 2.11.2026 2:57 PM
On February 5, The New York Times reported on the supposed death knells of the Afghan Special Immigrant Visa (SIV) program, explaining that "on Tuesday, Congress quietly closed the door to the program altogether when it cleared a spending package that authorized no new visas for it."
Fortunately for the more than 125,000 Afghan SIV applicants still awaiting various stages of processing as of the last State Department's April 2025 quarterly report, the situation is not necessarily so dire.
Though the deadline for submitting new SIVs passed on December 31, 2025, there is no strict deadline on when the U.S. government can stop doling out visas to the Afghans already in process with their applications and who meet the program's prerequisites of having provided more than a year of faithful and valuable service to our government during the course of the nearly 20-year war in Afghanistan.
The number of remaining visas available is a serious concern, however. The April 2025 quarterly report shows 10,216 remaining SIVs for the 115,258 Afghans with a pending application for Chief of Mission (COM) approval, the first step of the SIV process. While that is the latest official figure, far fewer visas are likely available now.
The main impediment to SIV processing is a halt on all Afghan immigrant visa processing, one of numerous punishments leveled against the entire Afghan community shortly after an Afghan national shot two West Virginia National Guardsmen, and killed one, on November 26.
The SIV program hasn't always lived up to its promise. The International Refugee Assistance Project (IRAP) forced the U.S. government via a class-action lawsuit to adhere to the nine-month SIV adjudication timeline that the program mandates in recognition of the dangers facing applicants. In December, IRAP filed a motion to enforce this class action lawsuit. Last week, a judge ruled with IRAP that the State Department must recommence issuing COM approvals to qualified applicants in their class action suit.
Pedro Sepulveda Jr., an IRAP litigation fellow, told Reason that "Secretary Rubio violated the will of Congress and the court's orders when he unilaterally suspended the Afghan SIV program. While Afghan nationals are still not able to enter the U.S. as a result of President [Donald] Trump's travel ban, the court ruled that other steps of the Afghan SIV program must resume."
"On February 24, the U.S. government will explain to the court what steps they are taking to meaningfully comply with the court's orders to speed up processing for SIV applications that have been pending for nearly half a decade," Sepulveda Jr. added. "Compliance with the law is long overdue, and IRAP........