Whoever came up with the word refugee had to have been thinking of the word refuge first; a safe zone for persons forced to leave their homeland to escape persecution, war or a natural disaster. Although Afghanistan wasn’t experiencing an earthquake, the country was feeling the results from yet another occupying force having given up on any more attempts to control it. But this time around, its able citizens saw an opportunity out and got on board. Much of the less fortunate ones couldn’t make it passed check points guarded by the Taliban. Worse off were the ones who became translators for American soldiers. Pressure to leave yesterday, the White House found itself caught between making them priority as a show of thanks and risking more suicide bombers at the one functioning airport. Their full names were listed in a manifest that someone forgot to destroy before takeoff, leaving them and their families as sitting targets. Those who were already disenfranchised just waited for the new leaders to decide their fate for them. Those who believed they could fly hung onto moving jumbo jets until they couldn’t anymore.
Worse off were the ones who became translators for American soldiers. Pressure to leave yesterday, the White House found itself caught between making them priority as a show of thanks and risking more suicide bombers at the one functioning airport.
Out of the multitude were unaccompanied Afghan youths. They were sent to sanctuary cities, after first getting processed and tested for Covid-19, then linked with refugee resettlement agencies whose purpose was to find them foster homes. Unaccompanied refugee children generally don’t get adopted, as the goal is to reunify them with their parents or relatives back in their home country. Since nobody was going back to Afghanistan any time soon, especially Afghans themselves, long term foster care was the next best option. These juveniles would follow the same foster care regiments as the ones I was already familiar with yet within the framework of a plan that avoided being moved from one group home to another and access to transitional independent living if their parents were proven deceased. The plan also included assistance with adjusting to a new environment and language, schooling and exposure to culturally-relevant support systems.
Before Afghans, it was about Syrians and before Syrians, it was about Somalians. There’s still a strong, self-functioning community of Somalian refugees in Maine. During my visits to the lobster state, I never saw them outside of their reservation. Well-intentioned Americans went out of their way to make them feel at home, but they didn’t represent the majority of America. Since 2008 when the East Africans first dropped on Maine, our nation’s racial and social divides took a turn for the worse, thanks to Trump-ism and a country experiencing a panic attack over White people in America becoming the new minority. On youth refugees’ most common challenges, discrimination, racism, police harassment and xenophobia were their most immediate concerns, aside from feeling isolated and marginalized. Having few to no employment opportunities exacerbated their resettlement attempts. Young refugees also pointed to gender discrimination and gender-based violence, while having limited access to youth-focused health care. Add difficulties with transitioning, leaving them vulnerable outside of their small communities which makes the telling of refugee kids graduating high school, going on to college and leading successful lives an example of a proud people.
A large net like Samaritas offered long term foster care for refugee youths who were approaching their independence stage…
The Fostering Connections Act made it possible to provide all upper teens shelter and financial assistance up to the age of 21, if the youth was enrolled in any type of schooling and employed for at least 80 hours per month. This included children with special needs. Under this bill the older children would be able to move from foster care to adoptive homes. Thing is if your school was a detention center and you couldn’t get a job because they wouldn’t let you out your cage, that allowance meant nothing to. Plus, ‘all’ meant U.S. citizens. Applying for asylum would be the route to take, if you were close to reaching 18 but had no parent or legal guardian available to be responsible for you. But a large net like Samaritas offered long term foster care for refugee youths who were approaching their independence stage. Their young adults had what they called host homes that provided the basics on being independent. They then matched them with a mentor to help them adjust to American culture; received English tutoring, grocery shopping assistance, help with handling American money, and other commonsense approaches to addressing the needs of a specific youth population.
Our Afghan sons and daughters will no doubt need help recovering from their traumas. Children of war have a specific set of psychological webs to carefully tease out, just as African American children have a specific set of on-going psychological fallouts from systemic racism before we can even begin talking about restorative justice. I’m trying to visualize an Afghan family, having gone through all it takes to get passed a border and onto a path to citizenship, living in a NYCHA apartment. Because they can’t teach you hood. You sort of gotta let hood teach you.