Opinion/Garland and White: Uncertainty for Afghan refugees

Rebecca Garland is associate director at Beautiful Day. Ellen Emerson White is a novelist who divides her time between New York City and Rhode Island.

The crisis in Afghanistan last year mobilized the American public in ways never seenbefore. When the U.S. military withdrew from the country, over 75,000 Afghans whosupported the American cause had to flee for their lives. Our government agreed to resettlethem here, but no one was prepared for the challenge of assisting so many people at once.

As overtaxed resettlement agencies struggled to keep up, private citizens stepped in withextraordinary offers of housing, jobs and friendship. Within six months, these Afghans hadbeen resettled in cities and towns across the country, almost 350 of them in Rhode Island.

Now, a year later, the headlines are largely gone. Public attention has waned, partlyeclipsed by the crisis in Ukraine and partly the result of seeing that efforts to supportAfghans may last years. It takes a long time to rebuild a life. Imagine fleeing your home,leaving friends and family behind, and then arriving in a country where you don't speak thelanguage and the cultural, religious and gender norms are all shockingly unfamiliar.

Adding to the stress is the fact that most Afghans don’t know whether they’ll be able toremain here, since they were admitted under a program known as Humanitarian Parole,which grants recipients only two years of temporary status. Currently, Afghans have nosense of permanency. Approximately 40% are eligible for special immigrant visas (SIVs),but the rest will need to apply for asylum, which currently has an extensive backlog.

Beautiful Day is a Providence-based nonprofit that provides job training to refugeesworking in our kitchen making and selling gourmet granolas, coffees and hummus. As wereach out to Afghans, we are deeply concerned by their uncertain status and by waningpublic attention that threatens to leave them without support. Polls indicate that mostAmericans favor a pathway to permanent status for Afghans, but hate crimes are on therise. And as social services and rent subsidies expire, Afghan families who risked their livesto support the U.S. military are now facing financial hardship, even homelessness.

In Rhode Island, refugee service organizations around the state are continuing to reachout to Afghans with food, social services and other assistance. And at Beautiful Day, we’veincluded our granola bars and hummus in food baskets; solicited donations of wool rugs,which we learned are at the center of Afghan family life; hosted Afghan families toparticipate in communal meals; and accepted them into both our adult and youth jobtraining programs.

But there is still much to be done, and you can help. A piece of bipartisan legislation hasbeen reintroduced in Congress which would allow resettled Afghans to apply forpermanent residency after one year. Please call your representatives and urge them to voteyes on the Afghan Adjustment Act. Beautiful Day is also seeking volunteers to work withAfghans. To learn more, contact us at: https://beautifuldayri.org/pages/volunteer.