Amidst the completion of the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan and the Taliban takeover of the country, over 124,000 Afghan civilians were evacuated. Those evacuated were sent to several processing sites around the world, where they were subsequently held, medically screened, vetted for “security purposes,” and processed in order to receive visas or parole to the United States. Yet,  two years later, thousands are still awaiting complete processing of their visa, asylum, or humanitarian parole applications – the majority of whom have been arbitrarily detained in these sites for more than a year.

The Center for Constitutional Rights submitted a FOIA request to the Department of Defense (DOD), Department of State (DOS), and Department of Homeland Security in March 2023 for records and data concerning recent reports of the thousands of Afghan civilians  being arbitrarily detained in third country sites abroad, including Humanitarian City in the United Arab Emirates, Camp As Sayliyah in Qatar, and Camp Liya in Kosovo. After the agencies' protracted failure to respond to the request, the Center for Constitutional Rights, in partnership with Muslim Advocates, filed a lawsuit under the Freedom of Information Act (“FOIA”), 5 U.S.C. §§ 552 et seq., seeking declaratory, injunctive, and other appropriate relief to compel the government to produce agency records that have been improperly withheld.

Seeking information from January 1, 2021, continuing through to the date at which the defendants commence their searches responsive to this FOIA request, the FOIA request sought records relating to, among other things (i) the number and demographic information of the Afghan evacuees detained at these sites; (ii) policies and procedures used to decide which Afghans would be diverted to these sites; (iii) policies and procedures used to determine whether and when a detained individual can leave the sites to enter the United States or be sent elsewhere; and (iv) several categories of records relating to the locations and operations of, and increasingly harsh conditions at, each of these sites. 

This FOIA case is being brought with the guidance of Afghan human rights defenders and Afghan women’s rights activists, who, along with impacted civilians, civil society organizations, and the public at large, have a compelling need to obtain such information, which will aid in ongoing advocacy and educational efforts related to the precarious situation Afghans detained abroad are subjected to two years after the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan and the ensuing humanitarian and human rights crises.