The Afghans are coming! The Afghans are coming!! You have probably read all about the airlift from Kabul, the remarkable work by the American military airplanes, and the thousands of Americans and Afghans with special visas who were on board the flights leaving for either American or foreign airports.
And you must have heard on television or seen articles in various newspapers and magazines that HIAS Pennsylvania is involved in the re-settlement of the refugees in our region. According to Cathryn Miller-Wilson, Esquire, Executive Director of HIAS Pennsylvania, the U.S. Government has designated nine national agencies to work on re-settling the Afghan refugees once they arrive in America.
Since 1882, HIAS Pennsylvania and its predecessor organization, the Association for Jewish Immigrants, have exemplified the full meaning of the Jewish value of welcoming the stranger, as well as the American sentiment of sanctuary as engraved inside the Statue of Liberty with the words of Emma Lazarus. You remember, “Give me your tired, your poor…”
When Soviet Jews were finally allowed to leave Russia, HIAS played an important role in welcoming the new immigrants, educating them in the English language, finding apartments and furniture for them, and giving them free citizenship classes as well.
When that wave of Jewish immigrants was reduced to a trickle, HIAS nationally as well as in Pennsylvania turned its attention and energy to helping refugees from other countries and other desperate situations. I have been a board member of HIAS PA for many years, so I have seen up close the remarkable work which all of the staff attorneys and support staff do to assist refugees. I have also attended a number of citizenship swearing-in ceremonies to welcome the newly minted Americans.
If you had to pack up and leave your native land in a hurry, do you think you could find the time to round up $575 for each family member for each application for a humanitarian parole?
This is the fee which our federal government, United States Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS), charges for every single application, regardless if it is for an adult, a child or an infant.
The HIAS PA executive director recently published an op-ed in the “Inquirer” urging our American federal government to waive the fee which is often an insurmountable obstacle for Afghans seeking to leave and come to America.
So far 15 Afghans have arrived here, with five or six expected this week. According to Miller-Wilson, HIAS PA is committed to resettling 100 Afghans for the year starting October 1, in addition to the regular 200 to 250 that they normally resettle for the year from many different countries. HIAS national sends them to Philly because they maintain staff members at military bases across the country.
Philadelphia has 200 Afghans already living here. Miller-Wilson expects family members of those 200 at a minimum. People are in military bases now. Most got out on military flights – some went to Germany and Quatar. From those two destinations, they were able to get private fights to Dulles or Philadelphia. Our airport has the infrastructure to process people and to send them to military bases, for more processing, and then re-settling.
All those who helped the US during 20 years of warfare are bilingual. But many of the Afghan refugees do not yet speak English. They are often relatives of the workers who assisted the US military. HIAS is trying to prepare for providing huge number of folks with English as second language lessons.
You may have read the major article in the “Inquirer” about the HIAS PA office manager, an Afghan named Sadiq. The newspaper called him Mohammed because of his family situation at the time he was interviewed. He and his family had been living in Philly since 2019. In early July the whole family went back to visit Sadiq’s mother who had fallen seriously ill in Afghanistan. His wife and five children, all under the age of eight, were due to come home September 7. But Kabul fell and they were trapped. They ended up on a plane just before the second bomb went off. They ended up for a time in Germany. They all arrived back in Philadelphia this past weekend.
Here is the email address for those seeking to donate: https://hiaspa.org/get-involved/donate/donate-now/. For updated information on the crises in Afghanistan and Haiti, including how to help, please check the website often at: https://hiaspa.org/afghanistanhaiti/
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