"There is No Process" for Arriving Afghans, Hetfield tells CNN
By Sharon Samber, HIAS.org
Aug 30, 2021
HIAS President & CEO Mark Hetfield joins CNN Senior Global Affairs Analyst Bianna Golodryga to discuss the current Afghan refugee situation.
“There is no process,” HIAS President and CEO Mark Hetfield told CNN’s Bianna Golodryga when asked how Afghans would be resettled in the U.S.
Hetfield said HIAS was told by the State Department to prepare, along with the other resettlement agencies, for 50,000 parolees — that is, people who are in the Special Immigrant Visa (SIV) process but were not able to complete that process in Afghanistan.
HIAS will eventually get federal support for this population, Hetfield explained, but the U.S. doesn’t have a mechanism to fund people who are paroled into the country. Even for those it will pay for, the government provides only a little over $1,000 dollars per refugee. As Golodryga admitted, “that doesn’t really get you very far.”
Golodryga, who was resettled with her parents to the United States from the former Soviet Union with assistance from HIAS, closed the segment by thanking the organization for the assitance provided to her family.
Watch: Mark Hetfield explains how red tape is hampering resettlement efforts.
