Thomas Breen photo
IRIS’s Chris George (right): “Would you leave your parents behind?”
Forty-five New Haven and West Haven residents remain trapped in Afghanistan, and are currently caught in an “agonizing” position: Do they find a way to get back to the United States while leaving their families behind, or do they stay in a country where they and their families are in constant danger?
A call went out Monday to help them get back home — and to help Connecticut prepare to resettle 1,000 new Afghan refugees through next summer.
Integrated Refugee & Immigrant Services (IRIS) Executive Director Chris George issued that call Monday during a press conference held under the front portico of First & Summerfield Church at Elm Street and College Street downtown.
George joined U.S. Sen. Richard Blumenthal, Mayor Justin Elicker, and a host of local and statewide refugee resettlement organization leaders to talk about the urgency for Congress to provide funding for housing, healthcare, and other basic needs for an incoming influx of Afghan refugees.
The press conference took place less than two weeks after the U.S. completed its military withdrawal from the country. The hectic end to a two-decade-long war saw well over 100,000 people airlifted out of Afghanistan — with hundreds of U.S. citizens and tens of thousands of Afghans left behind in a country now controlled by the Taliban.
Most of Monday’s press conference focused on the need for Congress to appropriate millions of dollars to help refugee agencies across the country handle a surge of new arrivals from Afghanistan.
Blumenthal (right) and Elicker.
George said that IRIS has already helped eight to 10 Afghan families resettle in New Haven in recent months. That number is likely to spike in the coming weeks as more and more refugees who have been staying in U.S. military camps across the country make their way to the U.S.
George estimated that Connecticut will see roughly 1,000 Afghan refugees over the 12 months ahead — which is double the number of Afghan refugees IRIS has helped resettle over the past five years combined.
Blumenthal said that the U.S. has a “moral imperative” to allocate enough money to resettlement agencies across the country to make sure that those who were able to flee Afghanistan, those who have left their home country after helping the U.S. overseas, are able to find safe homes here in the United States.
George spent most his time at the mic Monday drawing attention to IRIS clients who remain in Afghanistan.
Forty-five people from New Haven and West Haven who are U.S. residents, green card holders, or otherwise legal residents of this country remain stuck in Afghanistan, George said. They and their families tried to make it on a flight out of the Kabul airport in the last days of August, but they were “beaten and bruised” in the process, and are now “hunkering down in safe houses in Kabul.”
They are running out of food, George said, and they’re also running out of hope.
“They feel like they are bargaining chips in some high stakes game of international diplomacy.”
Why are they still in Afghanistan at all, given that they’re legal U.S. residents? George asked rhetorically.
Because they have had to make “an agonizing decision” of: “Do I take a seat on a plane to come to the United States, or do I stay and protect my brothers and sisters” and family members in Afghanistan.
George implored Blumenthal and other members of Congress to ask U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken during an upcoming hearing on the matter: “Would you leave your parents behind?”
And George referenced one such IRIS client in Afghanistan who he texted with over the weekend. “This decision is driving me crazy, Mr. Chris,” George quoted that man as writing. “Can you please help me decide” whether to leave his family, or stay and try to find a way for all of them to come to the U.S.
George said the U.S. needs to “use its considerable leverage to bring U.S. citizens, legal permanent residents, out of Afghanistan and back to the United States.”
He called on the U.S. State Department to prioritize getting these U.S. residents and their families out of Afghanistan safely and as soon as possible.
Monday’s presser outside First & Summerfield.
What about these New Haven and West Haven residents’ family members who are not legal U.S. residents? Can the federal government really bring them into the country as well at this time?
George said that many of these family members are already in the visa process. Many have submitted humanitarian parole applications, he said, or applications for I‑130 petitions. They are in the U.S. immigration visa process, he reiterated, and they should be able to come to the U.S. alongside their family members who are already residents.
“It’s a basic universal human right that people should have the freedom to leave their country, especially if they feel at risk,” George said. “The Taliban has got to respect that.”
Click here to watch the press conference in full.
"It's a basic universal human right that people should have the freedom to leave their country, especially if they feel at risk," George said. "The Taliban has got to respect that."
The Taliban is a terrorist group. The Minister of the Interior has an FBI bounty of 10 million dollars on his person.
From the Hindustan Times: Sirajuddin Haqqani, who has been named the interior minister of the new interim government, has reportedly been a senior leader of the Taliban since 2016. The United States terms him as a "specially designated global terrorist" with close ties to al Qaeda, and with the man now being named to one of the senior most posts in the Afghan state machinery, experts believe that the United States has cause to worry.
How naive is Chris George and the Administration that left Americans in Afghanistan?