The United States and Afghanistan Evacuees

There's a desperate need for safety in other countries, especially those experiencing a humanitarian crisis. When looking at Afghanistan, this is something that its citizens are experiencing and have been experiencing for over four decades.

Nearly 6 million Afghan refugees are forced from their homes by the UN Refugee Agency. Within these 40 years, Afghanistan citizens have experienced significant conflicts, natural disasters, poverty, food insecurity, and, more recently, COVID-19. Of these refugees, most don't even get to leave Afghanistan and are therefore displaced, continuing the trauma and conflicts they have been experiencing.

However, many states within the United States have been open to welcoming evacuees to help save them from conflict and other issues. The different statuses people can come into the United States under are worth noting. Firstly, some can be identified as evacuees, refugees, and those who come under IDP status, an International Displaced Person, meaning that the person has found safety within their own country.

Currently, the Biden administration opens temporary protected status to Afghan evacuees, including around 1,900 in Massachusetts. Over the past summer, 80,000 people evacuated from Afghanistan, and now 2,000 of those evacuees have resided in Massachusetts. It allows them to apply for temporary protected status. This status will enable them to remain legally in the United States and will not only help those coming into the United States but will also help those who have already been there and help them remain in the United States without having to return to an unsafe country.

Using UNHCR’s Refugee Finder makes it easier to understand where these people are and their refugee status, as previously mentioned, by looking at it through data on a spreadsheet and in other forms like bar graphs and heatmaps. The data reveals that 2,594,826 Afghan refugees are under UNHCR’s mandate, 238,791 are Asylum seekers, 2,886,317 are IDPs of concern, and 87,499 are others. There are many people to account for when looking at misplaced persons, precisely their status.

Jeff Thielman, the president of the International Institute of New England, spoke a lot about the process of those arriving in the United States and their timeline. Mr. Thielman explained, “Our program has received 488 Afghans and placed them in apartments and some homes as far south as New Bedford and north as Haverhill, Massachusetts. Our job is to help these folks settle in the community. We help people find jobs and enroll them in our English classes. We also help them enroll in a health insurance plan and place their children in school”.

Afghan Evacuees can contact IINE because, as Mr. Thielman stated, “the state department gets in contact with these people, about 75,000 people. Then the U.S. Department contacts nine voluntary agencies. We have people in contact with our partners USCRI where they assign people to us, and we go to the airport and pick them up”.

As the United States Military has recently pulled out of Afghanistan over the summer, it has made it difficult for those trying to get into the United States especially getting in contact with organizations like IINE. Thielman states, “We have filed humanitarian parole petitions to get people from Afghanistan into the United States. These are families of people who are already in the United States. The U.S. has granted none of these petitions. So, it’s an unfortunate situation right now. The Taliban government is in disarray. The government is in severe financial difficulty. They are under enormous stress, and there’s a lack of resources. Health centers have been closed. The U.S. government and the Taliban government aren’t in very warm relations. We want people out of there; we must rebuild a relationship with the Taliban government which will take some time”.

The United States recently pulled out of Afghanistan over the summer, making it difficult for the United States Army to help those in need directly. Instead, now it's more from afar and using drone strikes to take down the Taliban to support Afghanistan, which is causing more harm than good. There are reports of incorrectly identifying the Taliban and therefore killing innocent people.

There is an Investigative Journalism website where they describe all of the drone airstrikes. However, there are some inconsistencies because not all are accurate when trying to attack a specific group of people, the United States Military. Instead, they are killing harmless citizens who are not a part of these groups. This website lists all the data: https://dronewars.github.io/data/ (Links to an external site.)

In a New York Time article listed here: https://www.nytimes.com/2021/09/10/world/asia/us-air-strike-drone-kabul-afghanistan-isis.html (Links to an external site.)

There have been several reports of those who the United States Military incorrectly attacks.

Afghan Refugees in the United States—Boston, Massachusetts

Throughout the past year and a half, the United States has received hundreds of thousands of Afghan refugees. Refugees must leave their country to escape war, persecution, or natural disaster. In this particular case, Afghanistan has faced numerous troubles throughout the year causing Afghan citizens to have no choice but to leave. This past summer, Afghanistan faced difficulties, especially concerning the Taliban and, more specifically, the Kabul Airport attacks.

According to the president of the International Institute of New England, Jeffery Theilman said, “Around 2,000 evacuees are estimated to be settled in the state (Massachusetts) by the end of February” (2022). The International Institute of New England has been beneficial with Afghan refugees arriving in Massachusetts. They are at the airport when they arrive and help them learn English and get jobs in Massachusetts. In addition, they help children get an education and help families get on their feet so they can live comfortably in a safer space than their home country, Afghanistan. The state of Massachusetts has helped these refugees, especially when it comes to funding. The state’s governor allocated money in the budget to specifically help those who are incoming refugees. As AP News: Boston stated, “Governor Charlie Baker signed a law giving a $12 million budget to help resettle Afghan refugees” (Marcelo, 2021).

Afghan citizens have been facing this fear for over forty years. The citizens of Afghanistan fear for their life every single day. The thought of their homes getting barged into, robbed, or stripped of their rights (especially women). For example, education. They live in fear daily that something might happen to them or their family. It’s disheartening; they need help raising a family, getting an education, and working. Citizens who do work are getting jobs taken away from them due to the government or the type of job they have. Afghan citizens who have a journalistic career or are pursuing journalism in any way, shape, or form immediately get their job taken away. They aren’t allowed to say anything about the government, even if it’s true. Thus, this leads to a society with no sense of free speech and no truth, mainly if the people can’t discuss the reality of what’s happening in their country.

Sher Khan is a prime example of this. He and his family originally arrived at Fort McCoy in Wisconsin with the end goal of Boston, Massachusetts, which holds a large population of Afghan refugees, as previously mentioned. Khan explicitly describes his thoughts on the Taliban and his job. In a U.S. News article titled “Afghan Refugees in US Navigating Cultural Changes,” he explains, “Everyone who doesn’t think like them is an enemy to the Taliban. For the basic reason of living in Kabul, you can get killed for that” (2022, Kirwan). Khan explains his job as a journalist in Afghanistan and how that affected him and his family under the Taliban. He explains, “After graduating, he worked as a radio news anchor, wrote for several local papers, and translated English books into Pashto… In 2020, Khan started working for a company with ties to the U.S. government… His work made him a target of the Taliban, and he felt his children would have few educational opportunities under the group’s rule” (2022, Kirwan). Khan’s experience directly relates to the citizens of Afghanistan living in consistent fear because the Taliban is keeping people from living their lives, having jobs, an education, etc.

However, although the United States may come off as they are helping by providing a place for Afghan refugees, which is fantastic, part of the reason there are issues in Afghanistan is due to the United States. The drone airstrikes the United States is putting off in Afghanistan is causing more harm than good. Many of these drone air strikes have caused the deaths of Afghans rather than helping them out. Although the point is to stop ISIS and the Taliban from further continuing these heinous acts, the United States is also a part of the problem. In a New York Times article titled “Times Investigation: In U.S. Drone Strike Evidence Suggests No ISIS Bomb,” it states that “Military officials said they did not know the identity of the car’s driver…but deemed him suspicious because of how they interpreted his activities…the driver Zemari Ahmadi… a longtime worker for a U.S. aid group” (2022, Aikins, Koettl, Hill, Schmitt, and Jordan). Even after identifying that they were incorrect about this person, this drone strike also killed ten innocent civilians, which isn’t the first time something like this has happened. With our technology, there needs to be more evidence to identify these people rather than basing it on assumptions.

In conclusion, although a lot has contributed to helping Afghan refugees arrive in the United States, it is getting more dangerous for those who live in Afghanistan because of the Taliban and ISIS. They are creating an environment where it is impossible to live in and, at this point, even escape to a different country. Specifically, looking at where we are allocating our military’s resources is detrimental when looking at how to help Afghan citizens and provide a safe home for them.