April Newsletter

Welcome to Neighbors for Refugees' new monthly newsletter. At Neighbors, we are pushing forward with our efforts to help refugee families already in our area and working hard to help refugees approved to come to the U.S. but are now left in limbo abroad. Our VP Resettlement and Board Director, Jmel Wilson, talks more about Neighbors and our work.

---

Working Even Harder for Refugees

Since January, the administration has issued several executive orders (EOs) that target refugees and asylum seekers, including those with Special Immigrant Visa (SIV) status. After careful, multi-year vetting, SIV status is granted to individuals and families who worked with the U.S. government in Iraq and Afghanistan.

At present, a limited number of fully approved Afghan SIVs are still permitted to come to the U.S. and be resettled by Neighbors and other such organizations — however the U.S. State Department no longer helps to arrange transportation, provide financial support, nor case management support. This necessary work is left largely to local resettlement organizations with the result that receiving and resettling an SIV family has become more expensive and challenging. We hope to settle at least two new SIV families within the next month or so.

Except for SIVs, the administration has “paused” all new refugee processing for the moment. It remains to be seen if and when refugee reception and placement may resume and with what (if any) government support.

Meanwhile, thousands of refugees present in the U.S. under Humanitarian Parole (HP), Temporary Protected Status (TPS), United for Ukraine, CHNV (Cuban, Haiti, Nicaragua, Venezuela), and other programs face the possibility of deportation, perhaps subject to the challenging, expensive, and time-consuming process of applying for asylum.

In response to the many and increased challenges facing refugees we have or are in the early days of resettling, we have:

• Established a legal fund to help Afghan, Ukrainian, and other asylum seekers change their status and mitigate the risk of deportation after their TPS or HP status expires or is canceled.

• Provided grants for childcare support, to enable mothers to find employment and enhance their families’ ability to become financially independent.

• Stepped-up employment support to refugee job-seekers, for whom the employment environment has become far more difficult.

We work with many families that have come to Westchester and surrounding areas through the SIV programs, like the Abasi family, who fled Afghanistan to Brazil and then on foot to the U.S. We worked to resettle the Abasi family in a home in Pelham, furnished their apartment, and continued to help as they settled into their new life. Learn more about the Abasi family and their experience.

While we work to support refugees in our communities, we're also working to bring Afghanis with fully vetted SIV status, like the Abasi family, to the U.S. after the administration canceled contracts and stopped financial aid to resettle them. Without the federal government's help, we aim to fund travel and resettlement ourselves. LoHud recently covered our efforts to bring over one Afghan family stranded in Pakistan.

---

Help Us Continue Our Work with Refugees

Donate Now

---