The United States applauds the efforts of U.S. citizens and other volunteers to continue relocating and resettling Afghan partners in the United States. In particular, Secretary of State Antony Blinken recognized the progress the #AfghanEvac Coalition has made through its partnership with the State Department.
The #AfghanEvac Coalition is an organization of thousands of volunteers, including veterans, Afghans living in the United States, and many U.S. citizens who have never even set foot in Afghanistan. The State Department’s Bureau of South and Central Asian Affairs works closely with #AfghanEvac Coalition to help Afghans throughout the whole process of leaving Afghanistan and resettling in the United States.
The #AfghanEvac Coalition is “a model for what public-private partnerships can be,” said Secretary Blinken. “It’s because we worked together in common cause, in common enterprise, with community of purpose and community of action.”
“Thanks to the generosity of our fellow citizens, we’ve relocated more than 24,000 Afghans to the United States and third countries since September 2021,” he said. “Overall, we have relocated more than 97,000 Afghans to the United States – Afghans who are going to school, who are starting new jobs, who are settling into their communities.”
For all of the success that this cooperation has accomplished, “this job is not yet done,” said Secretary Blinken. To that end, the State Department introduced a Memorandum of Understanding to further the partnership with the #AfghanEvac Coalition.
“The Memorandum of Understanding that we will shortly sign will allow us to keep sharing information with one another, to coordinate our outreach to additional civil society partners, to guide our ongoing efforts to find more, and better, ways to serve our Afghan partners – both those already here, and those yet to come – and keep pace with their evolving needs,” he said.
The hard work of the volunteers from the #AfghanEvac Coalition said Secretary Blinken, shows “what America is when we’re at our best: a compassionate country, full of big-hearted people from different backgrounds, different beliefs – but all ready to drop everything and work together, work as one team, to help other people.”
