Former US presidents, religious leaders & LIRS launch organization to aid Afghan evacuees
Three former presidents and first ladies have joined with religious leaders, faith-based refugee resettlement agencies (including Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Service) to support a new national organization with the goal of making it easier to help Afghan evacuees arriving in the United States.
Welcome.US launched 9/14/2021 to provide a single point of entry for Americans to donate to frontline organizations, host arriving families through Airbnb and find other ways to help Afghans as they rebuild their lives in the U.S. after fleeing the Taliban. Read the article from Religion News Service here.
A man walks with a child through the Doña Ana Village of Fort Bliss, where Afghan refugees are being housed, in New Mexico, Sept. 10, 2021. The Biden administration provided the first public look inside the U.S. military base where Afghans airlifted out of Afghanistan are screened, amid questions about how the government is caring for the refugees and vetting them. (AP Photo/David Goldman)
“We know that doing the work of making our new neighbors welcome is the starting point for the many ways in which their presence will enrich us all,” Cecilia Muñoz, co-chair of Welcome.US, said during a virtual news conference Tuesday morning.
“This is what we do when we’re at our best, and we’re proud to have developed an approach to help Americans do this work together.”
Muñoz, who was director of the White House Domestic Policy Council under former President Barack Obama, is chairing the organization alongside John Bridgeland, who directed the council under former President George W. Bush.
Obama, Bush and former President Bill Clinton — along with former first ladies Michelle Obama and Laura Bush and former first lady and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton — also are serving as honorary co-chairs “to lift up everyone else involved and remind us that this is our opportunity, in a time of all too much division, for common purpose,” according to the Welcome.US website.
They are joined by leaders from several faith-based refugee resettlement groups, which form the backbone of the U.S. refugee resettlement program. Those groups have been working independently to meet the needs of Afghans arriving with Special Immigrant Visas or on humanitarian parole since the U.S. withdrew troops from Afghanistan last month.
Among those leaders are Bill Canny, head of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops Migration and Refugee Services office; Erol Kekic, senior vice president at Church World Service; Chris Palusky, president and CEO of Bethany Christian Services; Krish O’Mara Vignarajah, president and CEO of Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Service; and Jenny Yang, senior vice president of advocacy and policy at World Relief.
Since 2009, Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Service has supported about 10,000 Afghans through the SIV program with housing, employment assistance, medical support, cultural orientation and other resettlement services, Vignarajah said during the virtual news conference. The group has seen a “tremendous outpouring of support” in recent weeks, she said, with more than 45,000 people signing up to volunteer.
Americans are looking for ways to help, she added.
“Americans across the country and across the political spectrum … are eager to welcome Afghan allies and refugees as their newest neighbors. So many individuals, communities and congregations have a deeply personal connection to this historic effort, and they are opening their homes, literally and figuratively, once again for Afghans in need,” Vignarajah said.