Evacuees from Afghanistan prepare to board a flight to the United States at Naval Station Rota, Spain, Oct. 7, 2021. A federal court ruled this week that the Trump administration cannot use its travel ban to block the spouses and children of Afghan asylees from joining their families in the United States. (John Owen/U.S. Navy)
Travel restrictions imposed by the White House cannot prevent the spouses and children of a group of Afghan refugees who supported U.S. forces in Afghanistan from joining their families stateside, a federal court ruled.
U.S. District Judge Anthony Trenga’s decision Wednesday gave the State Department 15 days to issue travel documents to the families of five of the seven refugee plaintiffs, whose relatives had already been approved to enter the United States.
The agency must also reconsider travel eligibility for the other relatives waiting to reunite with loved ones, and it was ordered to disregard the ban in its reassessment. The department must report back every two weeks until the families arrive, Trenga said.
The State Department did not immediately reply to a request for comment Monday afternoon, including whether the agency plans to appeal the decision.
The lawsuit was filed in October in Virginia. It names the U.S. government and the agencies overseeing immigration and travel to the United States, including the State Department, Homeland Security Department and Citizenship and Immigration Services.
Global Refuge, a nonprofit organization that supports refugees and migrants entering the United States, welcomed Trenga’s ruling.
“Afghans who supported the U.S. mission and won protection here have waited years to bring their spouses and children to safety,” Krish O’Mara Vignarajah, Global Refuge president and CEO, said in a statement last week.
“This ruling made clear what the travel ban’s own text already said: its restrictions were never meant to reach asylees, or the family members our laws entitle them to bring to safety.”
At issue were two travel proclamations issued last year by President Donald Trump. The first went into effect in June 2025, placing a full or partial entry ban on people from 19 countries, including Afghanistan. The number of countries later grew to 39.
Trump cited the need to address the threat of terrorism, saying that the Taliban control Afghanistan and the country lacks appropriate screening and vetting measures.
Attorneys for the Afghan families argued in the lawsuit that Trump’s travel ban explicitly states the restrictions do not apply to individuals granted asylum or refugees already admitted.
More than 190,000 Afghans have entered the U.S. under Operation Allies Welcome and its successor, Operation Enduring Welcome, according to the State Department.
Following the U.S. military’s sudden and chaotic withdrawal from Afghanistan, the programs were established to support the interpreters, drivers, engineers, fixers and logistics specialists who had worked alongside U.S. partners during the war.
The plaintiffs applied for their families to join them in the United States well before the travel bans were enacted, according to the original lawsuit.
Some family members already approved for asylum by the Homeland Security Department had to travel outside Afghanistan for consular interviews ordered by the State Department, since there is no U.S. Embassy in Afghanistan, according to the complaint.
Some were issued denials in the form of “boilerplate letters,” including one dated days before the family’s scheduled interview, the lawsuit said.
“In the wake of these preordained, unlawful denials, the wives and children of Afghan allies who have been granted asylum in the United States either are stuck in third countries like Pakistan where they have no independent resources or support and are subject to persecution, violence, and risk of deportation, or have returned to Afghanistan to face potential persecution based on their familial connection to [U.S. forces],” according to the lawsuit.