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Military Bases Turn Into Small Cities as Afghans Wait Months for Homes in U.S.

An estimated 53,000 evacuees from Kabul remain on eight military bases across the country. Thousands more are waiting at U.S. bases abroad to come to the United States.

In late August, evacuees from Afghanistan began arriving by the busload to the #Fort_McCoy_Army_base in the Midwest, carrying little more than cellphones and harrowing tales of their narrow escapes from a country they may never see again. They were greeted by soldiers, assigned rooms in white barracks and advised not to stray into the surrounding forest, lest they get lost.

More than a month later, the remote base some 170 miles from Milwaukee is home to 12,600 Afghan evacuees, almost half of them children, now bigger than any city in western Wisconsin’s Monroe County.

The story is much the same on seven other military installations from Texas to New Jersey. Overall, roughly 53,000 Afghans have been living at these bases since the chaotic evacuation from Kabul this summer that marked the end of 20 years of war. While many Americans have turned their attention away from the largest evacuation of war refugees since Vietnam, the operation is very much a work in progress here, overseen by a host of federal agencies and thousands of U.S. troops.

While an initial group of about 2,600 people — largely former military translators and others who helped allied forces during the war — moved quickly into American communities, a vast majority remain stranded on these sprawling military way stations, uncertain of when they will be able to start the new American lives they were expecting. An additional 14,000 people are still on bases abroad, waiting for transfer to the United States.

“We built a city to house almost 13,000 guests,” said Col. Jen McDonough, deputy commander for sustainment at Fort McCoy, where about 1,600 service members are tasked with ensuring the massive operation runs smoothly.

On a recent warm autumn day here, refugees played a pickup game of soccer with soldiers, young children made arts and crafts with volunteers while their mothers studied English in an adjacent classroom, and families at a warehouse rummaged through boxes of donated underwear, shirts and jackets.

Afghan evacuees said they were grateful for the warm reception they have received at the fort, but for many, the long wait has been grueling. None have left the base since arriving, unless they were green card holders or U.S. citizens.

“I have asked many times about the date of departure,’’ said Farwardin Khorasani, 36, who was an interpreter at the U.S. embassy in Kabul. He fled Afghanistan with his wife and two young daughters and hopes to relocate to Sacramento. “We are jobless here and have nothing to do.”

U.S. officials say the delays are a result of a measles outbreak, medical checks and a vaccination campaign, as well as the need to complete immigration processing, which involves interviews, biometric exams and applications for work permits. Most bases in the United States are at or near capacity, and Afghan evacuees waiting on bases in the Middle East, Spain and Germany can be flown in only once space opens up.

A shortage of housing also is creating delays. Many families wish to settle where they already have friends or relatives, in places with existing Afghan communities such as California and the Washington, D.C., area. But officials have said that a dearth of affordable apartments could postpone their resettlement. On Thursday, Congress passed a short-term spending bill that included $6.3 billion to relocate and settle Afghan refugees.

Gen. Glen D. VanHerck, commander of the United States Northern Command, which oversees the operation at Fort McCoy, said the military was prepared to accommodate arrivals on bases through the spring, giving the authorities time to work through the housing shortage.

“We’ve built housing capacity and we are providing our Afghan guests the environment they need,” he said.

One of the first priorities has been to inoculate evacuees against a variety of diseases.

There have been 24 cases of measles, prompting a vaccination campaign against that illness, along with mumps, rubella and polio, an effort that is just winding down. People must wait at least 21 days after those vaccinations before receiving medical clearance to leave the bases.

Almost 85 percent of all evacuees on bases have received the single-dose Johnson & Johnson vaccine against the coronavirus, and the rate of infection among the population is less than 1 percent, General VanHerck said.

The bases also have seen crime, not unlike densely packed cities.

Two Afghan evacuees are in federal custody; one has been charged with engaging in a sexual act with a minor and another charged with assaulting his spouse, both at Fort McCoy.

The F.B.I. is investigating an assault on a female service member by Afghan men at Fort Bliss in El Paso. And in Quantico, Va., a military police officer on guard duty reported that he had observed a 24-year-old Afghan sexually assaulting a 3-year-old Afghan girl, according to a criminal complaint.

General VanHerck said the military would “continue taking all necessary measures to ensure the safety” of both those working on the base and the Afghan evacuees. He said many reports to law enforcement were made by Afghans.

The residents seen on a tightly controlled media tour of the base represented a cross-section of Afghan society.

Among them was a group of 148 young women who hoped to finish their university education in the United States, and the principal of an international school. There was an Afghan Air Force pilot who had learned to fly UH-60 Black Hawk helicopters in Alabama and Texas.

There were men and women from remote provinces, including a cook who had prepared food for soldiers in a far-flung outpost. Some people wore traditional Afghan attire. Others donned jeans and T-shirts. About half knew some English, but others would need to begin learning to read and write once they resettled in the United States, officials said.

Farzana Mohammadi, a member of the Afghan women’s Paralympic basketball team who has been unable to walk since she had polio as a child, said she hoped to keep playing sports and to study psychology in Seattle.

While optimistic about her own future, “I am only thinking all the time about my parents and younger sister,” said Ms. Mohammadi, 24, whose family was still in Kabul.

About 50 to 60 people live in each two-story barracks, where single beds sit side-by-side. For privacy, families have improvised partitions using sheets.

There are robust security details outside the living quarters, which are clustered into “communities,” each with a center where evacuees can get personal hygiene items or learn about activities, such as town halls with military leadership.

“Grab and go” cafes offering tea, coffee and light snacks are bustling. But the eight self-service laundromats have been underutilized: Most Afghans have preferred to wash their clothing by hand and hang it out to dry on lines, which the military quickly erected.

An imam certifies that meals served at four cafeterias are halal, but the lines to buy pizza at the base exchange often stretch outside.

After weeks of being bottled up together with no timeline for leaving, there have been tensions among the residents. Fights often break out in the line to enter the cafeteria, and there are occasional arguments between people from different tribes.

Several young single women said they were verbally harassed by Afghan men because they were on the base alone.

“We were told, ‘How are you here without your male family member? We won’t tolerate this,’” recalled Nilab Ibrahimy, 23, who made it to the Kabul airport in a convoy of seven buses carrying the 148 students from the Asian University for Women, based in Bangladesh, where they had all been studying before the coronavirus outbreak stranded them in Kabul.

Ms. Ibrahimy took the issue to the U.S. military leadership, and the entire group of students was moved to another barracks housing mainly single women. There have been no problems since, she and others said.

Passing the time has been another challenge. “When we arrived here, we were sitting in our rooms doing nothing,” said Sepehra Azami, 25, who was studying economics before she fled.

Ms. Azami, Ms. Ibrahimy and another friend, Batool Bahnam, asked some mothers whether they were interested in having their children learn basic conversational English: What is your name? How are you? Thank you.

They were. Soon, adults began approaching the young women about lessons, too, and classes were added for women and men. “The demand is really high,” Ms. Azami said. “Families are struggling with language barriers.”

Mounds of clothing have been donated to the refugees, but it took until last week for every evacuee to receive items.

On Thursday, it was finally the turn of a 12-year-old boy named Nayatola. Dressed in a brown kurta pajama, he searched for clothes in his size. He ended up with an oversize white pullover. On his feet were the adult-size plastic slippers his father had brought from Afghanistan — Nayatola had no other shoes.

As the day wore on, children could be seen outside doodling with chalk. When the visitors passed by, they called out. “Hello, how are you?” a few of them shouted, trying out their new English phrases.

Abdulhadi Pageman, the former Afghan Air Force pilot, looked toward the warehouse where families were getting clothes. “These children are the future of the United States,” he said, talking about the children on the base. “They will be scientists, engineers. You just have to be patient.”

▻https://www.nytimes.com/2021/10/03/us/afghan-evacuees-military-bases.html?referringSource=articleShare

#bases_militaires #réfugiés #asile #migrations #transit #Afghanistan #réfugiés_afghans #limbe

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A mettre en lien avec les pays qui ont accepté d’accueillir des #réfugiés_afghans sur demande des #Etats-Unis (#USA) et dans l’attente d’une #réinstallation (qui n’arrivera jamais ?). Métaliste ici :
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ping @isskein @karine4

The Temporary Hosting of Evacuated Afghans in Third Countries : Responsibility Sharing or Externalisation ?

In the days after the Taliban took over Kabul, tens of thousands of people tried to escape Afghanistan through emergency airlift evacuations. Many sought passage to the United States (US), having been associated with the American presence in the country. Between the fall of the Afghan government on 15 August and the end of the US withdrawal on 31 August, tens of thousands of Afghans were able to flee the country among the nearly 130,000 people evacuated on US aircraft.

However, not all of the Afghans landed on US soil. Instead, a range of other countries, with various levels of experience hosting refugees and some with no ties to the conflict in Afghanistan, announced that they would temporarily host evacuated Afghans on behalf of the US. As reported by the US State Department, this list now includes Albania, Bahrain, Canada, Colombia, Costa Rica, Chile, Ecuador, Guyana, India, Kuwait, Mexico, Netherlands, North Macedonia, Poland, Portugal, Qatar, Rwanda, Singapore, Uganda, and the United Arab Emirates. In addition, thousands of other Afghans transited or are still in one of the US military bases in the Middle East or in Europe. Altogether, these agreements represent an novel form of international cooperation: the provision of temporary protection in third states at US request, in the context of the largest emergency evacuation since the Kosovo crisis.

While the Biden administration has not made explicit why it asked third countries to provide temporary refuge to evacuees, three main factors can explain this decision. First, these deals have bought the US government some time to run security screenings in these countries, before moving evacuees to US soil. While a number of the evacuated Afghans already applied for the Special Immigrant Visa (SIV) or Priority 2 (P-2) programs,[1] the Biden administration initially needed more time to decide on the legal channels for all those who have not completed their application, as well as the at-risk Afghans who are not SIV or P-2 applicants. Lastly, some analysts have pointed that these arrangements with third countries were partly driven by political concerns, with the Administration worried about a public backlash if tens of thousands of Afghans landed on US soil simultaneously and without a thorough security vetting.

This post sets out what we know about the situation of the Afghans who were evacuated to a third country (outside of a US military base), specifically looking at what living conditions, protection, and legal pathways to the US the evacuees have access to. The post finally discuss whether these agreements between the US and third countries should be understood as a form of responsibility sharing or externalisation of international protection.

Temporary hosts

So far, the group of states that have offered temporary protection to evacuated Afghans announced pledges ranging from 450 in Northern Macedonia, 2,000 in Uganda and 5,000 evacuees in Ecuador. But while governments have publicised these targets, there is limited information as to how many Afghans each country has received so far, and how many more people, including family members of evacuees, could be evacuated in the future.

The nature of the agreements between the US and third countries has also been informal so far, mainly publicised through government press releases or media coverage. There are presently no signs of more detailed arrangements, suggesting they were negotiated hastily, with operational details being worked out after public announcement.

At operational level, reception conditions for Afghans upon arrival vary from country to country, with evacuees being hosted in reception centres or ad hoc accommodation, including student housing and hotels. In Albania, for instance, the reception capacity for asylum seekers is limited overall but the government decided to open a separate mechanism to host the rescued Afghans.

The budget and funding for these arrangements are yet to be made public, but the US government is presumably bearing the costs of reception and processing. However, in high-income countries like Canada or where the government is directly coordinating the operation, it remains unclear which state bears the costs for these arrangements.

Finally, and critically, the duration of the arrangements remains unclear. The agreements for the purpose of transit through US military bases made clear that Afghan evacuees should not spend over 10 days in the third countries, including the United Arab Emirates or Germany. In contrast, the information available on the temporary hosting arrangements with third countries shows that these governments have not set a time limit, simply calling it a temporary mechanism. The Albanian government, for example, already shared that it expected the evacuees to stay for at least one year.

Unanswered questions and emerging answers

The procedure for Afghans in these third countries is yet to be clearly outlined, starting with the question of who was (and could be) sent there in the first place. Due to the chaotic situation at Kabul airport before 31 August, it is possible that evacuated Afghans were sent to US bases abroad or third countries more-or-less at random. But it is also likely that people who had already launched a SIV or P-2 application were sent to US military bases to be processed more quickly. Some anecdotal evidence also suggests that the distribution may be based on the occupation of the evacuees in Afghanistan. For instance, the North Macedonian government reported they would host people who previously worked with US-led international forces while the Albanian Prime Minister said they were focusing on Afghans who previously worked for the North Atlantic Treaty Organization.

Second, it remains to be seen what status Afghans will enjoy in these third countries, and the implications for their rights, including reception conditions and freedom of movement. Albania, for instance, reported that it would grant evacuees temporary protection status, Kosovo announced they would get a one-year residence permit and North Macedonia provided them with a three-month visa.

Third, there is limited information as to what will happen to evacuees after screenings in these third countries and how this procedure differs in nature and duration from a screening in the US or at a US military base abroad. It remains unclear, for example, how many of the evacuees in these third countries could benefit from the humanitarian parole scheme announced for 50,000 Afghans on 23 August, that allows access to the US on a temporary humanitarian residence permit. Other legal pathways to the US could be offered to these groups, but it remains to be seen what they would be and how long it would take for these options to materialize.

The third country agreements seem to leave open the possibility that some Afghans could be granted a form of local integration in the host state as refugees or beneficiaries of other forms of international protection. While there has been little indication of such development in the third countries so far, 90 Afghans staying in a US base in Germany have applied for asylum there in the past week.

Ultimately, one of the most pressing questions is what will happen to those evacuees who are ‘screened out’ by the US. The government insists that Afghans who do not pass the security vetting will not be allowed into the US, or may be deported if security concerns arise after their arrival on US soil. However, officials have not specified where these people will be sent.

Of course, the US and third states are bound by the principle of non-refoulement, which prohibits the return of any person to a real risk of torture or other ill treatment at the hands of the Taliban. Some Afghans in third states may receive offers of local integration or an alternative resettlement country, though where they are rejected by the US on security grounds, it is difficult to imagine that any other country would want to assume this responsibility.

Responsibility sharing or externalisation?

The rapid emergence of these temporary protection agreements could be a sign of a new responsibility sharing mechanism for refugees, but it could also constitute another form of externalisation designed to prevent Afghan refugees from accessing US territory and protection. Given that these arrangements grew out of an emergency situation and were primarily agreed upon broad principles, their operationalization in the next few weeks should provide a definitive answer to this question.

Responsibility sharing, on the one hand, is a principle of international refugee law emerging from the preamble to the 1951 Refugee Convention, which provides in part:

the grant of asylum may place unduly heavy burdens on certain countries, and that a satisfactory solution of a problem of which the United Nations has recognized the international scope and nature cannot therefore be achieved without international co-operation

The principle does not form part of the substantive obligations of the Convention, though a UNHCR expert roundtable on the principle recommends that cooperation must ‘enhance refugee protection and prospects for durable solutions’ and ‘must be in line with international refugee and human rights law’. The Global Compact on Refugees, a non-binding agreement passed by the United Nations General Assembly in 2018, has ‘more equitable sharing of the burden and responsibility for hosting and supporting the world’s refugees’ as its primary objective.

Thus, one reading of the third country arrangements for Afghan refugees is as a new form of responsibility sharing, with a varied range of states, often with no prior links to Afghanistan, stepping up to host evacuees as a sign of international solidarity. This might neatly fit into what Durieux labels the ‘rescue paradigm’ as the provision of a safe haven by a collective of states. Many of these countries are from the Global South, with some like Colombia and Uganda already hosting very large refugee populations despite widely underfunded humanitarian and development responses. But even though these arrangements were born to a sense of global responsibility, it remains to be seen how the US will have to show its appreciation and payback.

On the other hand, externalisation describes migration control policies carried out by high-income states outside their borders. Crisp previously defined externalisation as ‘measures taken by states in locations beyond their territorial borders to obstruct, deter or otherwise avert the arrival of refugees.’ UNHCR recently referred to ‘measures preventing asylum-seekers from entering safe territory and claiming international protection, or transfers of asylum-seekers and refugees to other countries without sufficient safeguards.’ While the term ‘externalisation’ does not appear in international refugee law, it has developed into an umbrella concept encompassing migration control measures intended to deter asylum seekers and refugees either extraterritorially or with extraterritorial effects.

Another reading of these arrangements could then place them alongside existing externalisation efforts. Thus, rather than providing evacuees admission into its territory, the US government is using its diplomatic clout to delegate responsibility for Afghans to partner states. This is likely to raise serious challenges as without guarantees that evacuated Afghans will receive protection in the US, they could enter a form of legal limbo, with no status in the third country nor the US, and no possibility to return home.

Conclusions

It is too early to say whether the current US-led temporary protection arrangements for Afghan evacuees in third countries should be considered responsibility sharing, externalisation or even a third policy approach. What is clear is that the US government is still figuring out how these arrangements will be implemented. Ultimately, they will be assessed based on their impact on the rights of Afghans in need of protection, including their reception conditions and freedom of movement in third countries, the duration of their temporary hosting, the scale of admission to the US, and the provision of solutions for those who are not granted passage to the US.

Many thanks to Camille Le Coz for her invaluable help in drafting this piece.

[1] The SIV program grants those who worked with the American government of the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) or a successor mission in Afghanistan legal status in the US. On August 2, the US government also announced a broader category, the Priority-2 refugee status, opened to a broader category of applicants such as Afghans who do not qualify for SIV but still worked for the US government or ISAF, Afghans who worked for a US-funded program, and Afghans who were employed by a US-based media organization or non-governmental organization.

▻https://rli.blogs.sas.ac.uk/2021/09/15/the-temporary-hosting-of-evacuated-afghans-in-third-countries-responsibility-sharing-or-externalisation/#es_form_f1-n1

#externalisation #asile #migrations #réfugiés #réfugiés_afghans #transit #pays_de_transit #Afghanistan #évacuation #réinstallation #responsabilité

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ajouté à la métaliste des pays qui ont accepté d’accueillir des #réfugiés_afghans sur demande des #Etats-Unis (#USA) et dans l’attente d’une #réinstallation (qui n’arrivera jamais ?)
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Sudan says willing to host Afghan refugees

Sudan on Thursday said willing to host Afghan refugees evacuated recently after the withdrawal of the U.S. troops from the Muslim country located in South Central Asia.

The U.S. army evacuated more than 100,000 Afghans from Kabul since August But they have not been taken directly to the U.S. as many friendly countries showed a willingness to give them temporary asylum to allow Washington to prepare their resettlement.

Until now, Uganda is the only African country that has received Afghan refugees in transit to the United States. Rwanda also agreed to house Afghan refugees, according to the State Department.

On Thursday the Sudanese Security and Defence Council discussed the matter in a meeting chaired by Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, Head of the Sovereign Council.

Defence Minister Lt-Gen Yassin Ibrahim Yassin stated that the meeting discussed hosting a limited group of Afghans in the country for a known period.

“Based on Humanitarian grounds, the Council agreed in principle (to temporarily host Afghan refugees), while subjecting the matter to further arrangements and procedures (...),” Yassin further said.

In a briefing call to the US House of Representatives on 20 August, Secretary of State Antony Blinken told lawmakers that some countries including Sudan offered to house Afghan evacuees.

The evacuated Afghan may face extended-stay in third countries. Besides the logistical preparations before resettling the Afghan refugees, U.S. security services prefer to conduct security screening for the evacuated people.

U.S. Army has already placed in custody an Afghan who failed the screening in a military base in Germany. French authorities took a similar decision for an evacuee that was linked to the Taliban.

▻https://sudantribune.com/spip.php?article70021

Après le #Kosovo, l’#Albanie, la #Macédoine_du_Nord, l’#Ouganda, c’est au tour du #Soudan d’accueillir des #réfugiés_afghans évacués de l’#Afghanistan, et qui attendront (à l’infini ?) une #réinstallation...
C’est l’heure de commencer une métaliste, la voilà :
►https://seenthis.net/messages/928551