Resettling refugees
Former Bush and Obama officials spearhead effort
Former Bush and Obama administration officials create group to ease process for Afghans coming to live in U.S.
WASHINGTON – Former Obama and Bush administration officials are launching an organization that aims to help streamline the process of resettling the roughly 65,000 Afghans forced out of their country and now making the United States their home.
Welcome.US will bring together top refugee organizations, the government and major businesses to engage with Americans on how to help with resettlement efforts for Afghan refugees.
“America has long been a beacon of hope and refuge for those in search of safety,” Welcome.US Co-Chairs Cecilia Muñoz and John Bridgeland told USA TODAY. “This effort to welcome Afghans who have already contributed so much will enrich us all by their very presence and show the world America at our very best.”
The United States withdrew from Afghanistan last month after nearly 20 years in the country. Officials evacuated more than 120,000 people from the country. Of the total, about 65,000 were Afghan refugees.
Many of the refugees who have come here had applied to the Special Immigrant Visa program, a visa for Afghan nationals who helped the U.S. during the war, or who would be vulnerable in the now Taliban-controlled Afghanistan.
Muñoz is the former director of the White House Domestic Policy Council under President Barack Obama, and Bridgeland is the former director of the council under President George W. Bush.
Bush and former first lady Laura Bush, ex-President Bill Clinton and former Secretary of State and first lady Hillary Clinton, and Obama and former first lady Michelle Obama are honorary co-chairs of the organization.
The new group will work with local and state officials, businesses, veterans groups, faith-based organizations and top refugee groups to engage with Americans on how they can help the Afghan refugees, who will need clothes, food, and homes as they have come with nearly nothing from their home countries.
In addition, as part of the organization, there will also be a Welcome Fund that will provide grants to nonprofits working directly with resettling Afghan refugees. Businesses such as Walmart and Starbucks have pledged grants to the group, $500,000 and $350,000 respectively. Instacart has said it will donate 25,000 culturally sensitive meals to Afghans who are resettling in the U.S.
Officials are still working to evacuate U.S. citizens who were left behind in Afghanistan, as well as the thousands of Afghan visa applicants who were not evacuated.
Former Delaware Gov. Jack Markell, whom President Joe Biden appointed to temporarily serve as the point person on resettling Afghan evacuees in the United States, said Welcome.US will make the resettlement process more effective, not only in the short term but to help get Afghans adjusted in the long term as well. Markell said that resettlements will begin “in earnest in the coming weeks.”
Markell noted the Afghans coming to America after 20 years have supported the United States in their efforts and said Americans “know that our Afghan allies will help strengthen our communities, just as refugees and as immigrants, always have.”
Krish O’Mara Vignarajah, president and CEO of Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Service, said nine major resettlement agencies had individually been working on an emergency response to help resettle Afghans, but now there is a “single point of entry” for Americans to get involved.
“This is a historic opportunity for us to show our new Afghan neighbors and the world the best of our country in demonstrating a collective, bipartisan broad coalition, coming together to provide essential services,” she said.