Lessons from our former interns suggest anyone — with or without a connection to Afghanistan or Ukraine — can help those who have moved on beyond refugee camps.
With the withdrawal of U.S. forces last year, two of our former interns were evacuated from Afghanistan. We followed their journey from Kabul airport to refugee camps to resettlement.
Assistance is being provided by government, business and not-for-profit organizations but programs need to be scaled up and sustainably resourced. Yet of those Afghans who made it to the United States since August, many still face the prospect of deportation due to their rushed arrival under what the U.S. government calls humanitarian parole. This is an emergency status that extends the right to work and live in the United States for just two years without a means of qualifying for permanent residency.— Afghanistan or Ukraine or elsewhere — even as the news cycle moves from one crisis to the next.