Afghans on US military bases need winter assistance

KABUL (Pajhwok): The Afghan refugees relocated to military bases in the United States say they do not have supplies for the upcoming winter and are unaware how long they will have to wait for permanent shelters.

The largest Afghan evacuee population in the US is in Fort McCoy, Wisconsin, a sprawling base that currently houses 13,000 refugees.

Several refugees there told HuffPost that they don’t have winter clothes such as jackets or gloves, even as temperatures have steadily dropped. Some said they have been on the base for months, and they have no clarity about when they’ll be able to leave.

The conditions at Fort McCoy are just one example of what critics say is the Biden administration’s lack of preparedness when it comes to Afghan refugees.

Approximately 70,000 Afghans have come to the US since Aug. 17, in an evacuation that was chaotic and incomplete. Tens of thousands of Afghan nationals who had worked with the US were left behind.

About 50,000 evacuees remain in immigration limbo on military bases, and the Pentagon said 44% of the Afghan refugees at US bases were children as of October.

Volunteer and refugee resettlement groups say they are overwhelmed and understaffed, and that the government seems to lack a strategy to transition these individuals to life in the United States.

“There was never a plan because it was so chaotic from the beginning, and there are so many unknowns,” said Spojmie Ahmady Nasiri, a California-based immigration attorney who has visited five of the eight bases where Afghans are currently being housed. “You’re trying to put out the fires as you’re going along and in the process, many people are suffering.”

nh/mud