Sonia Pastore wants to help people walking the path that her parents took five six decades ago.
Her parents, who were born just outside of Jerusalem, immigrated from the Middle East in the 1950’s seeking to start a new life. Now, as the first U.S.-born person in her family, the Bloomfield Hills resident is continuing to assist in the resettlement of immigrants in Michigan after first helping an Iraqi family of refugees after they fled Iraq during the Syrian Civil War.
Michigan will welcome 1,300 Afghan arrivals, from over 50,000 Afghans being admitted into the U.S., by the end of December. This follows the U.S. military’s dramatic and chaotic exit from Afghanistan Aug. 31 that ended a 20-year war and involved the evacuation of thousands of Afghan civilians, special immigrant visa holders who worked with the American military, and U.S. citizens from the Kabul Airport as the Taliban and other militant groups began to move into the city.
As Afghans begin arriving in Michigan, Pastore, working with fellow congregation members at Christ Church Cranbrook in Bloomfield Hills, remembers vividly helping that Iraqi family who fled Afghanistan several years ago..
“They had nothing but the clothes on their backs,” she said. “They didn’t speak a word of English. They had never seen winter before. We got them tutoring as the children had not been in school.”
Pastore is very willing to help these Afghans because she says it wasn’t that long ago that her family was in the same situation, adding that her church has taught her to show her humble side and help people in need.
“My family wouldn’t be here without the help of people like Christ Church Cranbrook,” she said. “I was the first American born here in my family. My father was here on a student visa and my mother was a refugee. I have a daughter that was born in the Middle East, so we have very close ties.”
She added that the Iraqi family that she and her church helped resettle in 2018 remains self-sufficient and still living in southeast Michigan.
Nationwide, tens of thousands of Afghans have already made it through security vetting and have arrived on designated U.S. military bases to be temporarily housed before beginning the process of resettlement.
The U.S. Department of State has approved an initial group of 1,300 Afghans to be resettled in Michigan by five resettlement agencies supervised by the Office of Global Michigan, a state government agency.
Last week, the first Afghans began arriving in Michigan following a mandatory quarantine period that concluded for most of them Oct. 1. As of Oct 12, a total of 54 Afghans have arrived in Michigan with travel scheduled for an additional 209 refugees in the coming days/weeks, according to the Office of Global Michigan.
The Office of Global Michigan is prepared to resettle these Afghans, but admit there are challenges including the sheer number of arrivals in such a short amount of time.
According to the Refugee Processing Center,housed within the U.S. Department of State Bureau of Population, Refugees, and Migration, Michigan has welcomed, on average, 2,788 refugee arrivals per year since 2010 with most of them coming from Iraq (15,720) and Burma (3,723). Between October 2010 and September 2021, a total of 526 Afghan refugees have arrived in Michigan.
Troy and Southfield welcomed the most refugee arrivals at 3,442 and 4,330 respectively between 2008 and 2018, according to data compiled by The Associated Press and pulled from U.S. State Department’s Bureau of Population, Refugees and Migration.
The statewide foreign-born population totaled 684,200 million in 2019, according to the Migration Policy Institute. Oakland County’s foreign-born population, the highest of any county statewide, totaled over 162,000. Foreign-born is defined as people residing in the U.S. at the time of the 2019 population survey who were not U.S. citizens at birth.
That was before President Trump reduced the annual nationwide refugee cap to 15,000, the lowest in history. It’s a number that President Biden has since raised to 125,000.
Although thousands of refugees are resettled statewide on a yearly basis, this specific group of Afghans are different in that more of them speak English and more of them are familiar with the American culture due to their experiences working alongside U.S. troops, according to Father Bill Danaher, of Christ Church Cranbrook.
Danaher and Pastore agree that familiarity with language and culture allows for a much easier resettlement process.
Poppy Sias-Hernandez, the newly-appointed executive director of theOffice of Global Michigan, said the Afghans will be placed with a resettlement agency and be provided with housing, food, transportation, and other day-to-day necessities. The goal is having the immigrants self-sufficient within the first six months.
“I think that it’s important to keep at the forefront that all of this resettlement work is very fluid and that as a state we have a real responsibility to answer this call,” she said “We receive weekly updates from the federal government, which includes a list of Afghans with scheduled travel so that the resettlement agencies can meet them at the airports.”
Hernandez said her office is working with the resettlement agencies to ensure they have the resources and support needed to provide for these Afghans.
“I think we all have a real sense of the task ahead of us,” she said. “There’s no denying it. It’s important work and it’s a very big task. Our state has a real history of welcoming refugees and other immigrants and providing them with the resources they need. We will continue to pull together resources to do what is needed. Community volunteer support is going to be really essential to respond to local resettlement needs.”
The Michigan Community Service Commission recently announced a statewide effort to ease the transition for the Afghans by bringing together volunteers to provide their time, resources, skills, and money to the resettlement efforts.
“We urge everyone to join us in welcoming these Afghan families to Michigan and ensuring they have the resources they need to succeed,” said Gov. Gretchen Whtimer. “We will continue to embrace our duty to honor and protect these families as they flee from violence and political persecution.”
Last week, Samaritas, the largest resettlement agency in Michigan and fourth-largest nationwide, welcomed its first group of Afghans, three children aged 18 and younger, who were separated from their parents at the Kabul Airport as they joined the thousands of other Afghans attempting to evacuate the country. The children have been able to communicate with their parents, who are safe for now.
Kelli Dobner, chief advancement officer at Samaritas, said she expects resettlement activity to dramatically increase in the next few weeks as Afghans complete their federally-mandated quarantine period at military bases. Samaritas has been approved by the federal government to resettle 350 Afghans.
The organization is given 48 hours to respond to Afghan profiles and accept them for placement, says Dobner.
“We will make sure we are at the airport to greet them and provide them with what they need immediately,” she said. “Most of the time it’s food, and then we take them to their new homes.”
Dobner said the three Afghan children are currently living with a family in southeast Michigan.
Legal status and uncertainty
All of the arriving Afghans are coming into the country with a “parole status” meaning they are legally here to receive resettlement services, including housing, food, and transportation, and to seek employment, but do not have permanent protected refugee status.
To become a refugee, all of them will have to apply for and be granted asylum by the federal government within one year of their arrival.
Susan Reed, managing attorney for The Michigan Immigrant Rights Center, a non-profit legal resource center, said if they don’t apply for asylum and are granted refugee status, they would be putting themselves at-risk of being deported after that first year.
“Refugee status is a permanent legal immigration status, but they are also required to apply for lawful permanent residence, a green card, one year after arrival,” she said. “After five years, they can apply for U.S. citizenship. That’s optional.”
Reed said this group of Afghans is in a very different situation compared to other immigrants due to the haste of the August evacuation process. She made clear that these Afghans are not coming into the U.S. with refugee status.
“They are going to have to apply for asylum,” said Reed. “It’s a complex, difficult and fraught process. Once they arrive here, the clock will be running on their one-year deadline to apply for asylum.”
Reed added that although federal dollars are used to fully support the resettlement agencies over the first 90 days of resettlement, there is no federal assistance to help provide refugees with legal support. Beyond those first 90 days, resettlement is funded through a combination of state, federal and private sector donations.
At this time, the Michigan Immigration Rights Center is turning away 75% of all asylum seekers due to lack of resources. Some people wait years to be granted asylum and refugee status. The center relies mostly on grant funding to provide services.
“The cost of hiring an attorney to apply for asylum is thousands of dollars,” she said. “They only have one year to apply for asylum and if they miss the deadline to apply they could completely lose their chance to get asylum. There’s a very high standard to prove that someone should be an exception beyond that first year, so we are trying to mobilize as many resources as possible now to meet this huge need.”
With the resettlement agencies focused on getting these Afghans to be self-sufficient within the first 6 months of arriving in Michigan, Reed said it’s critically important and absolutely essential that they have permanent legal immigration status.
The Michigan Immigation Rights Center is continuing to fill out grant applications and accept private community donations to be able to provide the staff and resources needed to meet the demand of these immigrants.
“Our goal is to try to use as many volunteer attorneys as possible because it would take a tremendous amount of new resources to use office staff attorneys to do this,” she said. “There are many other asylum-seekers who we are struggling to serve right now. We want to be able to have a pro bono coordinator to work with the law firms to be able to train and mentor volunteer attorneys.”
For those interested in registering as a volunteer to aid in the Afghan resettlement effort, visit https://www.michigan.gov/leo/0,5863,7-336-94421_95498_108945—,00.html.
