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A Letter to Local, State and Special District leaders

August 24, 2022

Local, State, and Special District leaders:

“Brother, will you grant my last wish and help my family get back to San Diego?”

These are what I thought my friend Lucky’s last words would be as he texted me from atop a mountain in Orgun, about 8 hours outside of Kabul. He and his friends were running out of ammunition, surrounded by the Taliban, and were sure they were going to lose their lives.

I did what I could to help him out but our story was not unique. All over the world, Afghans were reaching out to friends and colleagues they had amassed outside of the country over the years and they were asking for help. The need for coordination and collaboration across the various groups was apparent. That’s how #AfghanEvac was born.

Today we are reaching out to government entities at the local, state, and special district levels — including yours — to ask you to take three simple actions to help Afghans still in need on this one-year anniversary of the fall of Kabul.

#AfghanEvac is a non-profit, non-partisan organization that brings together more than 200 organizations working around the clock to help Afghans who stood with the United States to realize their American dream. Our member organizations span the full spectrum of support, from relocation from Kabul to resettlement in new homes in the U.S. Our membership is composed of veterans, frontline civilians, intelligence community professionals, and regular, everyday Americans who represent a cross-section of our great country. Although our members’ personal political ideology spans left, right, and center, we are united in zealously avoiding partisan politics and election-year gamesmanship.

My friend Lucky made it out, after talking his way through ten Taliban checkpoints, and now he lives in Fort Worth, TX where he owns and operates an Afghan Halal Market. All of his employees are recent arrivals from Afghanistan. There are two particular challenges highlighted by Lucky’s struggle that are still being faced by countless other Afghans — and we need your help to address it.

First: the relocation process, while helping many, faces serious challenges. One of the most significant is creating the housing, benefits, and services capacity at the local level to successfully welcome those arriving.

You can help by making sure the welcoming process is warm and efficient. Not only does this ease the transition for those arriving, it helps those left behind get here faster.

Afghan communities all over the country have carried much of the load in these efforts, and oftentimes local leaders don’t know how to help or engage. Please visit our website at afghanevac.org/policy and expand the State and Local government tab to learn more about what you might do in your local areas to help do your part in welcoming Afghans into your community.

Second: we know how hard local leaders, as well as Afghan communities in the U.S., have worked for the past 12 months to welcome arriving Afghans, and the burden you all have shouldered is immense. And despite progress, so far these efforts have largely been localized, with each community struggling alone.

You can help us change that — and uplift a unified effort to highlight that local communities across our nation are helping to honor the promises made by our service members, veterans, frontline civilians, and the more than one million Americans who served in Afghanistan over our 20 year conflict.

Here are three ways you can help to honor the sacrifices made by our allies and show that local communities across the U.S. stand together in this cause.

●  Pass a resolution or issue a proclamation calling on Congress to pass the Afghan Adjustment Act | We’ve drafted a template for you, available on our website.

●  Check in with newly arrived Afghans and the resettlement affiliates helping them restart their lives in your local community. You can visit USAHello.org to track down the affiliates in your region.

●  Light your civic infrastructure in honor of Afghans and those we lost during our conflict.

• ○  August 25th (26th in Kabul) honoring the Afghans and US Servicemembers we lost at the Abbey Gate bombing on 8/26/2021

  ○  August 30th (31st in Kabul) acknowledging the thousands of Afghans left behind following withdrawal of all US and allied forces on 8/31/2021

  ○  The color scheme should be black, red, and green honoring the Afghan flag. If the lighting scheme doesn’t support black, please use blue, red, and green to represent the special relationship between Afghans and Americans.
  
  Thank you and we hope to hear from you soon.
  
  Sincerely,