Why was Lakanwal given asylum
Executive summary
Rahmanullah Lakanwal was granted asylum in the United States in April 2025 after applying in December 2024; the decision followed his arrival under Operation Allies Welcome in 2021 and drew on both his prior cooperation with U.S. forces and the immigration processes available to Afghans whose Special Immigrant Visas stalled, though the precise adjudicative reasoning in his file is not publicly available . Reporting and government documents indicate he underwent asylum interviews and routine vetting tied to the asylum process, but political debate has focused on whether vetting was sufficient and which administration approved the final decision .
1. A pathway shaped by evacuation and stalled SIVs: why asylum was the practical option
Lakanwal arrived in the U.S. as part of Operation Allies Welcome in September 2021, a program that granted temporary humanitarian parole to thousands of Afghans who had worked with U.S. forces, and many evacuees were advised to seek asylum as a backstop while Special Immigrant Visa (SIV) cases lagged—an avenue Lakanwal’s attorney reportedly recommended and he ultimately used .
2. Fear of Taliban retribution and service with U.S. forces formed the core protection claim
Multiple outlets report that Lakanwal had worked alongside U.S. forces in Afghanistan and that the fall of Kabul created credible fears of retribution for people who cooperated with the United States, a standard ground for asylum claims; those operational and personal-security facts informed why he and other evacuees sought asylum rather than relying solely on parole or delayed SIV adjudication [1].
3. The asylum timeline: application, interviews, approval
According to federal files and news reporting, Lakanwal applied for asylum in December 2024, attended multiple in-person asylum interviews and background checks during 2024, and his asylum application was approved on April 23, 2025—three months into the Trump administration—making the timing politically salient even as the underlying immigration adjudication unfolded through standard procedures .
4. Vetting claims, government statements, and competing narratives
Officials and fact-checkers note that asylum applicants undergo vetting—background checks, social-media reviews, and interviews—and multiple reports say Lakanwal was vetted several times in Afghanistan and the U.S. . Nonetheless, the Trump White House and others have blamed prior administrations for “insufficient” vetting of Afghan arrivals, while outlets including Reuters, CBS and FactCheck document that the approval itself occurred under the Trump administration even though the asylum process began earlier, creating a partisan tug-of-war over responsibility .
5. Warnings, mental health concerns, and what did or did not affect the asylum decision
Community case-worker emails from 2024 recorded concerns about Lakanwal’s isolation, inability to hold steady employment, and mental-health deterioration, and those communications were shared with refugee organizations; CBS reporting indicates the case worker believed DHS/USCIS did not see or consider those emails during adjudication, but public reporting does not establish whether such warnings were reviewed by the asylum adjudicator or factored into the final grant . Reporting also notes questions about whether any contemporaneous behavioral warnings or medical issues were incorporated into the asylum file, but the public record available does not contain the asylum officer’s written rationale, so the exact weight of these factors in the approval is unknown .
6. Bottom line and limits of public record
The documented reasons for granting asylum to Lakanwal center on his evacuation under Operation Allies Welcome, his cooperation with U.S. forces and the attendant fear of persecution by the Taliban, and the procedural avenue of asylum as a safeguard while SIVs were pending; he applied in December 2024 and was approved in April 2025 after interviews and vetting steps standard to asylum adjudication . What remains opaque in public reporting is the adjudicator’s internal rationale or file-level analysis that explicitly ties those facts to the legal standard applied—information not available in the sources reviewed .