Feel hopeless about Afghanistan? Here’s how you can help refugees coming to Fort Worth
For most of us, there are a few degrees of separation between ourselves and the war in Afghanistan.
Maybe we had a family member serve — a child, a parent or a friend.
Maybe it was a neighbor or a co-worker — someone who felt the call of duty after 9/11 or someone who was a mere infant when the towers fell.
Maybe we lost someone or watched someone recover from physical injury or struggle with the mental anguish so many face in the aftermath of war.
For a conflict that has spanned two decades, claimed the lives of more than 2,400 service members, injured thousands more and upended the lives of so many military families, it’s hard to be wholly disconnected.
But even if we don’t know anyone who has served, the events of this past week have surely rendered us incapable of detachment.
We cannot escape the images associated with a nation on the brink of collapse: Desperate Afghans clinging to the wheels of U.S. cargo planes as they take off. Mothers passing their children over barbed wire fences in the hope that someone will deliver them out of the chaos. Throngs of humanity crushing against the perimeter of the Kabul airport in a frantic attempt to secure safety for themselves and their families.
It can be overwhelming to witness and even harder to accept that there is very little we can do.
We know that women and girls who stay will be a particular target of the Taliban regime’s oppression.
We know that men and women who collaborated with the U.S. military, diplomats and allies will face arrest and likely death if they remain inside Afghanistan.
The administration’s utter failure to ensure the safety of thousands of Afghans who served alongside U.S. forces notwithstanding, means that hundreds (if not thousands) of refugee families will be coming to the U.S. in the coming days and weeks, many to North Texas.
The one thing we can do is welcome the Afghan refugees when they come. Indeed, they already are.
Jeff Demers, who serves in the North Texas Office for Refugees of Catholic Charities Fort Worth, says the group has had Afghan clients coming through their doors for weeks, and he expects that will continue.
“In August, we received 14 Afghans and have 11 coming this week so far,” Demers said. “These 25 clients are part of the airlifted families that arrived in Fort Lee, Virginia. We have also verified an additional 20 clients but do not have travel dates just yet.”
Last week, many commercial flights out of Kabul were for Afghan allies that helped the U.S. military.
They came at a rate of about one flight a day, some arriving just hours after resettlement agencies were given notice that they were on the way.
Most of the Afghans currently arriving are not officially refugees; they are or will be Special Immigrant Visa holders who are eligible for the same benefits as refugees.
In fact, 18 percent of the total Special Immigrant Visa holders from Afghanistan who have arrived in the U.S. in this fiscal year so far have come to Texas.
Agencies like Catholic Charities, renowned for their work in resettling families fleeing desperate situations, are doing their best to receive them.
They can use our help.
You can open your wallet (to places like CCFW or other resettlement agencies), but also your heart.
However you feel about the war, whoever you blame for its chaotic conclusion, the people fleeing Afghanistan now are no less military veterans than our own returning soldiers.
We have an obligation to welcome them.
For more information about how to support refugees, go to: www.catholiccharitiesfortworth.org
