DALLAS (AP) – Calls for help from Afghans have been filling Caroline Clarin’s phone for days as she works from her rural Minnesota home, trying to bring hope to those who send heartbreaking desperate messages from a distant world.
Since 2017, Clarin, who led a U.S. Department of Agriculture program in Afghanistan, and her wife Sheril Raymond have helped bring five Afghans and their families from their program to the U.S. Now they are trying to help more than half a dozen other Afghans and their families are leaving Afghanistan.
“I got news of hopelessness waiting to be killed by the Taliban and I said it wasn’t over until it was over,” said Raymond. “And as best I can, to sit in my comfortable chair in Minnesota, where I’m safe, I try to say, ‘Please don’t give up hope, think about your children and hold on.'”
Across the United States, Americans are trying to help Afghans flee their country after the Taliban quickly seized power. Driven by compassion, everyone includes themselves from volunteers in refugee relocation organizations to the likes of Clarin and Raymond helping on their own.
Russell Smith, CEO of Refugee Services of Texas, said people are calling agencies like his and offering their help as they prepare for arrivals. He would normally get notified at least a week in advance when families arrive in the cities they are about to be relocated in, but that is speeding up.
“It’s a bit faster than we were ready, I think, probably than anyone was really ready,” Smith said of the comers.
Since late July, more than 2,000 Afghans have been flown to Fort Lee military base in Virginia, and thousands are still expected. The Afghans who have worked for the US government and their families can qualify for special immigrant visas. Tens of thousands of others who also qualified were left behind due to a backlog on visa applications.
From Fort Lee, the goal is “as soon as possible” to get them to the communities where they will begin their new lives, said Jennifer Sime, senior vice president of the International Rescue Committee.
Refugees receive temporary food and housing allowances, usually for the first 90 days, from nonprofit organizations that work with a combination of government grants and private donations. They can also take advantage of some long-term services like language courses and citizenship courses, but they are expected to be self-sufficient.
“You have to be very resilient. It’s not easy, ”said Stephen Carattini, CEO of Arlington Diocese Catholic Charities, which have resettled hundreds of Afghan refugees in Northern Virginia annually for more than 15 years. “The bare essentials, being employed, paying the rent, that has to be done very, very quickly.”
Afghans who worked for Clarin’s program in Afghanistan between 2009 and 2011 are also eligible for the special immigrant visa as their salary comes from the US military.
The program hired Afghans with degrees in agriculture and other related fields as trainers who would help provincial governments and farmers increase their productivity and alleviate poverty.
But many of their visa applications had stuck in years until Clarin fired emails to senators pointing out the cases. She carefully follows cases and asks for letters of recommendation.
Clarin also used her retirement plan to pay for the trip so the gardener Ihsanullah Patan and his family could leave Afghanistan. They arrived in Minnesota in May.
“It’s the best investment I’ve ever made,” said Clarin, pulling herself together as she stood next to Patan, who has a wife and four children, ages 4-11.
Patan, who applied for the visa in 2016, is grateful for the couple he calls families and says “without them it would have been impossible” to get out.
“Thank god we’re here now,” said Patan, adding that his friends were killed for working for the United States
Krish O’Mara Vignarajah of the Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Service, who made Patan’s apartment available after the couple contacted them, said Clarin and Raymond “embody the best of the American spirit and a superior reputation for loving our neighbors.”
“We couldn’t be more grateful for the support from volunteers, advocates and donors from all walks of life,” said O’Mara Vignarajah.
People can help in a variety of ways, including greeting Afghans at airports and helping families cope with their new lives, resettlement agencies say.
Megan Carlton, who works at Refugee Services of Texas, also volunteers to help set up shelter for refugees in the Dallas area. She just filled an apartment for a family from Afghanistan who moved in on Tuesday.
Over the years she has built her own network of people who donate items to decorate the houses and fill them with necessities like pots and pans and additional items like paintings and vases to make it feel right at home.
“Neither of us can control what’s going on over there, but we can control it,” she said. “We can create this home.”
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Watson contributed to this report from San Diego. Associate press writers Ben Fox in Washington, Todd Richmond in Madison, Wisconsin, Jim Salter in St. Louis, and Sean Murphy in Oklahoma City contributed to this report.
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