Statewide Iowa — A coalition of agencies and organizations is preparing to help as many as 13-hundred Afghans resettle in central Iowa by the middle of next year.
Mak Suceska is head of the Iowa Bureau of Refugee Services, the state agency that’s providing technical assistance to organizations sponsoring Afghans evacuated from their home country this summer.
Iowa officials working on the resettlement process get a couple of weeks notice that a group of Afghans will be flying into the Des Moines Airport.
Kerri True-Funk is the director of the U.S. Committee for Refugee and Immigrants in Des Moines. She says the Afghans who were evacuated in August were fleeing persecution and violence, often because of their work with or support of the U.S. military over the past 20 years.
The tens of thousands of Afghans flown to airports overseas underwent initial screenings there to determine if they were eligible for resettlement, then once they arrived at eight different military installations in the United States, there were more extensive medical checks.
Once the Afghans arrive in Iowa, they’ll get financial support and assistance from government agencies and private organizations for three months.
A federal program to help Afghans enter the U.S. workforce lasts for eight months. Most of the Afghans who were flown out of their country in August were living in cities like Kabul, which has a population of more than four million and Kandahar, which is about the same size as Des Moines. True-Funk says there are no restriction on where the Afghan evacuees may live here and many are likely to choose to stay close to urban areas, but some may relocate to rural America.
A handful of Afghans had resettled in Cedar Rapids by the end of October. In mid-November, an agency leading the resettlement process in Cedar Rapids indicated about 115 more are likely to arrive by next fall.
