Holidays a time to welcome refugees
This Christmas season offers Houston residents a chance to show values and support.
Matthew Abid waited at George Bush Intercontinental Airport on Wednesday for five Afghan refugees who'd never before set foot in Houston. Abid, a case manager for the Catholic Charities Refugee Resettlement Department, is the first introduction many Afghans have to their new home. Abid bears a message for each person: Houston is ready for you, and happy to have you.
Every week, dozens of Afghan nationals arrive at Bush or Hobby with perhaps a couple pairs of shoes and a set or two of clothes, and little else. Suddenly they are thousands of miles from friends and family, sometimes with no way of contacting their loved ones. Leaders like Abid from a variety of local organizations greet them and provide temporary shelter and food — and start helping them navigate the bureaucracy waiting for these newest Houstonians.
This work is often deeply personal: Abid came to Houston from Afghanistan nine years ago with his wife and child after being embedded for six years with the U.S Marines as an interpreter. Like Abid, many of those coming to Houston and elsewhere in the U.S. from Afghanistan assisted our military forces, often at great personal risk, in the 20-year war that concluded in August with a frenzied evacuation of 125,000 out of Kabul.
“I was one of them. I know what they're going through,” he told the editorial board last week, just before one of his airport runs. “I share my story with them, and I tell them it's hard at first to adjust — but I tell them also that this is a great place to be. We have the best city with the best people. I tell them that if you want to go to any restaurant in the world, come to Houston.”
The Christmas story recalls the birth of Christ — and yet, it tells a more universal story, too. Though Christmas itself celebrates Jesus' birth in a stable in Bethlehem when his parents could find no room at a local inn, there is more to the story of Jesus' earliest days than the manger he used as a crib. His parents were on the road in part to flee threats of violence at home, and eventually sought shelter — today, we'd likely call it asylum — in Egypt. “They left for their own country by another road,” the Gospel of Matthew tells us, not knowing if they'd find safety and welcome in Egypt.
In our time — also a time of persecution and violence and disease and hunger — tens of thousands of Afghans risked much in the name of democracy, and were forced to flee. Refugees and immigrants from all over the world come to our state and our country every day in the pursuit of a freer and safer life.
Houston has long been a hub for refugee resettlement. More than 2,800 Afghans have come to Houston since September, and local agencies expect that number to reach 6,000 by the spring.
“This city is one that welcomes the stranger and welcomes the immigrant. There's an amazing opportunity to work here with people from all over the world,” said Terry Cody, the legal services director for Catholic Charities' St. Frances Cabrini Center for Immigrant Legal Assistance, which is one of the local organizations working in the recently announced Houston Afghan Resettlement Collaborative to ease refugees into their new lives.
Those groups could use our help. Abid, for instance, said gift cards to grocery or department stores are always useful to newcomers, and donations along those lines are most welcome. Financial donations can help purchase rice cookers, clothing for job interviews and school supplies. A sponsoring family can come together to buy a computer or purchase home supplies. Time and again, we have proven to be a region willing to show up and help out, full of a welcoming spirit.
“I want the Houston community — my city and my neighbors — to help these people as much as they can,” Abid said. “They will pay us back. They will work and grow their kids in the city of Houston and feel part of this city.”
Other kinds of help are badly needed, too. Tens of thousands of Afghans have applied for humanitarian parole here, and their applications must not be allowed to languish in buearacratic stasis.
And while they wait, they should be permitted to work, so they can provide for themselves and their families as their status is decided.
Meanwhile, whether motivated by the story of Jesus' birth, by the tenets of other religions or just simple kindness, there is much we all can do to support those arriving here full of mingled trepidation and hope.
It's likely that many who are reading this also read from the Gospels of Matthew and Luke at Christmas Eve services. Some said prayers for refugees and immigrants before Christmas dinner. Catholic Charities and several other organizations are offering us opportunities to put those prayers into action by supporting Afghan allies and other people in need who have just arrived. Our Christmas wish is that more of us take those opportunities to help, remembering that perhaps the people next to you at IAH baggage claim this weekend are a family of refugees experiencing their first Houston moments.
With gift cards and supplies and smiles, let us welcome those who need it most.