Our group is working to welcome an Afghan family into the Broome County community. There is now an urgent need to resettle Afghan asylum-seekers who currently remain housed on military bases in the US. These Afghans assisted the US military as translators, interpreters and contractors and have been fully vetted by the federal government. As this crisis is unfolding national resettlement assistance programs are unable to handle the volume of Afghans needing resettlement in communities across our country. In response, a model called “Sponsor Circles” has been developed to enable small networks of people within a community to welcome individual families. These Sponsor Circles are being supported by national resettlement organizations.
In response to this need, we have formed a Sponsor Circle that we call the Binghamton Regional Afghan Immigration Network (BRAIN). We are an interfaith collaboration between members of the United Presbyterian Church, Temple Concord, the Unitarian Universalist Congregation of Binghamton, First Presbyterian Union Church, St. Paul’s Episcopal of Owego, and the American Civic Association as well as additional interested community residents of Broome and Tioga counties. Our circle is operating under the umbrella national refugee resettlement organization HIAS and our application to welcome an Afghan family into Binghamton has been accepted. We anticipate this family will be arriving mid-February.