Answering an "Urgent Appeal": Two Weeks in the Afghan Evacuee Resettlement Process

In the International Migration Studies (IMS) courses I have taken to date, I have studied major events of the last century for insights into how migration policy has shaped nations and their peoples today. In August 2021, the world witnessed what may become a watershed moment for future migration scholars to look back on and analyze, namely Afghan evacuees being airlifted out of Kabul as the Taliban speedily reconquered Afghanistan.

Image by NATO (CC BY-NC-ND 2.0)

More than 120,000 Afghans had been flown out of the country in a matter of weeks. Before many of them arrived in the United States, they were first processed for security clearance on various U.S. military bases overseas, with army installations serving as make-shift refugee camps. Private aid organizations next coordinated the various procedures to help Afghans to resettle, either by connecting them to family already in the United States or to resettlement agencies that assist in their gradual societal integration. In early September 2021, I took a small part in that arduous and critical humanitarian process, and my time in the IMS program encouraged me to embrace an opportunity to work directly with Afghans as they experienced their first interactions with U.S. migration policies developed on the fly.

Hired Overnight as an IRC Contractor

During the last two weeks of September 2021, I was a contractor with the International Rescue Commission (IRC) at Fort McCoy, Wisconsin. The IRC is a large international nongovernmental organization that works for the health, security, education, and overall welfare of millions of refugees. Most of the IRC’s work is conducted in the global south, across Africa, the Middle East, and South East Asia, where the organization administers refugee camps of all sizes. In the United States, the IRC operates as a resettlement (or voluntary) agency, providing services and assistance to newly-resettled refugees and asylum seekers.

Early in September, an IMS classmate had circulated an intriguing job listing from the IRC, with an ‘URGENT APPEAL’ in the subject line. The organization needed people capable of fulfilling all kinds of roles, from bus drivers to language teachers, willing to work long hours and ready to begin immediately. That was all the information the otherwise vague job posting gave. The “developing situation” – the mass evacuation of Afghans – was unfolding faster than the organization could keep pace with. The IRC needed people, and they needed them yesterday. Not knowing what to expect, I applied for a two-week assignment. After being interviewed on very short notice and going through a quick background check, I received an airline ticket via email sometime during Professor Kasinitz’s International Migration class. I was scheduled to fly to Wisconsin the next day!

Learning on the Job

Upon arrival to the Fort McCoy army installation in rural western Wisconsin, I learned that I and other IRC hires would be conducting intake interviews with the recently-arrived Afghans. The official terminology used to codify them was “essential”: the Afghans who had been flown to the United States were, and remain, technically “evacuees.” This distinction allowed tens of thousands of Afghans to receive a (permanent) Temporary Protected Status (TPS) or another expedited form of residency more quickly than if they had been recognized and treated as official “refugees.”

Image by Pixabay (Pixabay License, free image)

The interviews I conducted essentially jumpstarted these evacuees’ resettlement process in the United States. During these interviews, I collected information needed to fill out their social security number applications, allowing those registered to work legally in the United States. The information I collected would also be forwarded to the resettlement agencies taking responsibility for evacuees after they left the base.

After we received an hour-long training in the software we would be using, we promptly set to work. We worked with interpreters, often Afghan civilians who had come through the refugee resettlement process themselves and who translated questions and answers into Pashto and Dari. It was hard for me not to wonder about the evacuees’ stories, but the tightly-scripted IRC interview questions only inquired about the most basic biographical information: were the names and birth dates on their documents correct?; what region had they come from?; did they have anyone they could stay with in the United States?; did they know anyone back in Afghanistan?

Our IRC trainers instructed us repeatedly that we neither had the time nor training to ask about people’s past experiences or present conditions, and neither was it our task to help them process the many changes they were going through. We conducted interview after interview, between 10 and 12 hours per day, seven days a week. The goal was to interview all 12,000 evacuees in Fort McCoy as quickly as possible. The sooner we did so, the sooner they could be resettled around the United States near organizations better able to help them adjust to their new lives. It was important, but also taxing work.

Reflecting on Scholarship and Praxis

From my IMS courses, I had learned that the resettlement of refugees and asylum seekers can often take painfully long, sometimes stretching on for years. However, seeing a tiny part of the resettlement process in action provided me with new insights. In a sprawling military installation in the middle of rural Wisconsin, people were rushed through the bureaucratic jungle of interviews, screenings, applications, and evaluations. This process appeared much faster and more chaotic than what I had learned about, perhaps the result of the fact that these Afghans were recognized as “evacuees,” not “refugees.”

Now, in early 2022, many of the Afghan evacuees have left Fort McCoy (and the other military bases) where they first landed. I often wonder about what they are going through, making me reflect on what scholarship has taught me about immigrant integration and refugee resettlement. Are they successfully settling into new homes and new communities around the country? How are those faring who have settled in welcoming communities, such as the growing number of “Little Kabuls” across the country, as compared to those who have ended up in far less friendly areas? How have they been navigating the critical resources offered by underfunded resettlement agencies, and perhaps the support of family and friends already in the United States? They arrived at a time when jobs are plentiful, but have they been able to secure jobs when the COVID pandemic still poses major obstacles to establishing ‘normal’ lives? If they came with children, how are they faring in schools, often theorized as key institutions of immigrant integration? How are female Afghans adjusting differently from males, given that gender dynamics are so different in the United States? My IRC contractor experience has left me with many questions that are only further fueling my appetite to further study migration issues.

Some answers are already becoming clear in early media reporting on evacuees’ fate in the United States, others will likely soon be. By next year, we may very well be reading journal articles and policy reports on the Afghan evacuees for our IMS classes. But how these migrants will become American and remake America are important questions that scholars will debate far into the future. Studying migration at this moment, I and other IMS students may well be among those scholars. We cannot help but be eyewitnesses to this crucial moment of history in the making and engage our training to make sense of it.

About the Author

Harry Frey is a first-year student in the International Migration Studies MA program at the CUNY Graduate Center.