Nearly five years after the US withdrawal from Afghanistan and the Taliban's return to power, the authors argue that America's promise to protect its Afghan wartime allies remains unfulfilled. Many translators, drivers and others who worked with US forces became targets for reprisal, and while a broad coalition of evangelical Christians, veterans' groups and organisations such as World Relief and AfghanEvac mobilised to resettle and support them, most were only granted temporary legal status rather than a permanent route to residency.

Roughly 70,000 Afghans were brought to the US shortly after Kabul's fall in 2021 under Operation Allies Welcome, mostly on humanitarian parole or Temporary Protected Status rather than Special Immigrant Visas, leaving their long-term status uncertain. The Afghan Adjustment Act, introduced in 2022 and 2023 with bipartisan and evangelical backing, would have created a path to green cards and citizenship but failed to pass under President Biden. The authors say the situation has worsened under the second Trump administration, with no Special Immigrant Visas issued to principal applicants in 2026 and pathways for Afghans still abroad effectively shut down.