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By Julian Montalvo and Jeanne Batalova
In the past decade, the Afghan immigrant population in the United States has grown dramatically, as the U.S. military presence in Afghanistan ended. Between 2010 and 2022, the Afghan immigrant population nearly quadrupled, from approximately 54,000 to 195,000, while the overall U.S. immigrant population grew by 16 percent. This substantial increase can be attributed to years of war and political instability in Afghanistan that generated a steady flow of humanitarian migrants, as well as the withdrawal of U.S. and allied troops in 2021.
The U.S. withdrawal marked a turning point for Afghan migrants globally, and particularly in the United States. The Biden administration launched Operation Allies Welcome (OAW) in 2021, which gave 76,000 evacuated Afghans humanitarian parole to enter the United States. Afghan immigrants residing in the United States in 2022 represented about 0.4 percent of the total 46.2 million U.S. immigrants. The United States is far from the top country for Afghan migrants. The UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) estimated there were about 5.7 million Afghan refugees worldwide as of 2023, the large majority of whom were in Iran and Pakistan (3.4 million and 1.9 million, respectively).
Conflict drove migration from Afghanistan to the United States for decades before the 2021 U.S. withdrawal, including during the 1979 Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, subsequent turmoil after the fall of the Soviet Union, the civil war of the 1990s, and two decades of U.S. presence in the country. Since the U.S.-led invasion in 2001, many Afghans worked as interpreters, translators, and other professionals with or on behalf of the U.S. government.
In 2006, the United States created the Special Immigrant Visa (SIV) program, which provides a pathway to legal permanent residency (also known as getting a green card) for Afghan and Iraqi translators and interpreters employed by the U.S. military. The program originally issued a maximum of 50 SIVs per fiscal year, but it has been extended and amended multiple times to increase the threshold. Passage of the Afghan Allies Protection Act of 2009 expanded eligibility to include any Afghan national employed by the U.S. government. During the withdrawal of U.S. troops in 2021, the Averting Loss of Life and Injury by Expediting SIVs (ALLIES) Act sought to streamline the SIV application process.
However, most Afghans evacuated to the United States after the 2021 withdrawal were brought through humanitarian parole. Unlike those with an SIV, parolees have no pathway to a green card and have only temporary permission to be in the country. Congress has repeatedly declined to pass legislation allowing Afghan parolees to apply for permanent legal status and expanding those eligible for an SIV, which in fiscal year (FY) 2022 was the primary way Afghans became lawful permanent residents (LPRs).
Compared to other U.S. immigrants, Afghans are less likely to be proficient in English, have lower educational attainment, and lower labor force participation. Compared to both the native born and the overall foreign-born population, they are much more likely to be living in poverty and tend to be significantly younger.
This Spotlight provides information on the Afghan immigrant population in the United States, focusing on its size, geographic distribution, and socioeconomic characteristics.