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Last Afghan refugees leave New Jersey base after chaotic evacuation

The last of thousands of Afghan refugees awaiting resettlement at eight US military installations left a facility in New Jersey on Saturday, capping off a trip that began with the chaotic evacuation from Kabul in August.

Afghans evacuated after their country fell to the Taliban have been progressively departing military bases in recent months and establishing new lives in cities across the United States with the help of refugee resettlement agencies.

The United States welcomed 76,000 Afghans as part of Operation Allies Welcome, the country’s largest refugee resettlement in decades.

“It’s a tremendously important milestone in Operation Allies Welcome,” said Krish O’Mara Vignarajah, president and CEO of Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Service, one of nine major resettlement agencies involved in the operation.

Afghans who remain in their country but face danger under Taliban rule, as well as those who have fled to the United States, will require support, according to Vignarajah.

“Successful resettlement and integration will take more than a few days or weeks,” she said. “Our new Afghan neighbours will require our friendship and support for months and years to come since the issues they confront will not go away overnight.”

The United States intends to admit thousands more Afghan refugees over the next year, but they will arrive in smaller batches and will be housed in a facility yet to be designated, according to the Department of Homeland Security.

Refugee housing facilities at Joint Base McGuire-Dix-Lakehurst in central New Jersey will stay open in the interim, according to the agency. The base housed the most Afghans, with a population peaking at 14,500. The next largest was at Fort McCoy in Wisconsin, where the last troop left just a few weeks ago.

Afghans were subjected to immigration and health screening while waiting at the bases, often for months, until overburdened refugee agencies could place them in settlements. The government established schools for the children who made up around 40% of the refugees at the New Jersey facility.

Arizona, New York, Florida, Georgia, Colorado, Nebraska, and Pennsylvania are among the states where between 1,000 and 3,000 people have settled, according to State Department data acquired by The Associated Press.

According to DHS, around 40% of Afghans will be eligible for the special immigrant visa for persons who worked as military translators or for the US government in some other capacity during America’s longest war.

The majority of the rest, however, do not yet have permanent legal status in the United States since they were accepted under a sort of emergency government authority known as humanitarian parole rather than a refugee programme.

Refugee advocates, including a number of major veterans groups, are urging Congress to pass a “Afghan adjustment act,” similar to what has been done in the past for Cubans and Iraqis.

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