We can help resettle Afghan refugees in the Hudson Valley
Dear Editor,
I am writing to you about an important endeavor starting up in the Hudson Valley, called a “Welcome Center.” As of this note, 29,000 Afghan refugees are being temporarily housed in U.S. Army bases across the U.S., with some 10,000 refugees living in tents and barracks at Base McGuire-Dix-Lakehurst in central New Jersey.
As we enter a cold winter, these families need to leave the base and get resettled into American life. The bases are to be emptied by March and these people have no place to go.
Although Albany and New York City both have the infrastructure and support NGOs (non-governmental organizations) to welcome and resettle Afghan immigrants, there are very few agencies or community groups doing so in the Hudson Valley.
So far, over 50,000 Afgans have been successfully resettled throughout America in cities, towns and small hamlets by welcoming agencies, veterans, community groups, families and Welcome or Sponsorship Circles since September 2021. It’s been a monumental patriotic and humanitarian effort.
I believe that Ulster County has the capacity to welcome and resettle at least one Afghan refugee family here, if not 100 families.
Over the past few days I have been in contact with several immigrant-service NGOs to get information and their support in starting up a Welcome Circle here, including HIAS (one of the nine Federally designated NGOs charged with the resettlement effort), Welcome.US (the White House entity coordinating the NGOs), the Refugee Council USA (RCUSA), Women For Afghan Women (a NYC resettlement-based NGO also doing direct work in Afghanistan), and the International Rescue Committee (IRC/Rescue.org), etc.
They all said that to start, we need a circle of supporters who can together welcome at least one Afghani family, identify temporary (at least 3 month) housing, secure basic home furnishings and clothing, introduce them to community organizations and businesses, social services and agencies, introduce their children to the school system, and begin to assist them to find employment. With the local schools losing population every year, and the need for workforce at all levels, the challenge will be housing, but I believe it exists here.
If you want to be even a small part of this effort, or can assist in any way, as a Welcome Circle supporter, participant, volunteer, employer, property owner or sponsor, please reach back to me. Now it’s our turn to “Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, the wretched refuse of your teeming shore. Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me, I lift my lamp beside the golden door!” — Emma Lazarus, 1883 (inscription on the Statue of Liberty).
Thank you, and to all a Happy New Year!