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American researcher: The United States needs to resettle Afghan refugees in other countries

An Afghan family is heading towards a plane at Hamid Karzai Airport to leave Afghanistan.

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Scenes of Afghans crowding into Kabul airport seeking to escape Taliban rule are still fresh in the minds of many, and the United States has already accepted many of these Afghans to live inside the country, but in what conditions will these Afghans live?

The director of research at the American Center for Immigration Studies, Stephen Camarot, says in a report published by the American National Interest magazine, that the crisis in Afghanistan and the decision to accept tens of thousands of citizens of that country, with plans to accept more, has raised interest in the way this huge number of immigrants will adapt to life. in the United States.

Unfortunately, he adds, there is no clear picture of the Afghan evacuees in recent weeks.

Some worked for the US government, others had a more fragile connection to it, while others seemed to have just scrambled to be in the front row at Kabul airport to get on the plane that would enable them to leave the country.

By contrast, Census Bureau data provide a clear picture of Afghans already in the United States.

It turns out that many of them suffer from low income and high rates of social welfare use.

Going forward, Camarut says, US policymakers should think about how they can help Afghan immigrants in the future better adjust to life in the United States, or alternatively, help those who want to get out of Afghanistan resettle in neighboring countries.

According to the American Community Survey conducted by the Census Bureau, the number of Afghan immigrants in the United States increased from 55,000 in 2010 to 133,000 in 2019.

This represents a 2.5-fold increase in less than 10 years.

The same data also shows that a large proportion of Afghans suffer from low levels of education and are predominantly poor.

Among people living in families headed by an Afghan immigrant, 51 percent live in poverty or near the edge of poverty, nearly double the rate among native-born.

In 2019, 65% of Afghan households used at least one major social welfare program (either cash benefits, food assistance or medical care), compared to 50% in 2010. In fact, rates are likely to be higher, as It is known that the «American Society Survey» significantly reduces the participation rate in the program. This compares with a slight increase over the same period among families with native-born members from 22% to 24%.

This rise in the number of Afghans using social welfare programs is somewhat puzzling, because the proportion of Afghans living in or close to poverty, while high, did not increase from 2010 to 2019. Perhaps the explanation is that refugee organizations have had success It has recently increased its enrollment of low-income Afghans into programmes, which has helped many integrate into the welfare system. A related possibility is that the growth in the number of Afghan immigrants has facilitated the dissemination of information on how to take advantage of the various facets of the welfare bureaucracy.

The high use of welfare programs does not mean that Afghans are not employed, the data suggests that while Afghan women have much lower employment rates than US-born women, Afghan men are slightly more likely to hold a job than US-born men .

But there is nothing about work that prevents access to welfare programs, as long as one's income is low enough.

In fact, most families receiving welfare in the United States have at least one worker.

One of the main reasons Afghans are poorer is that they are, on average, less educated than those born in the country, and therefore earn less.

Indeed, their level of education has declined somewhat in recent years, especially for native-born Americans.

The proportion of Afghans with at least a bachelor's degree fell from 30% in 2000 to 26% in 2019, compared to an increase from 27% to 35% among the indigenous population.

Perhaps most importantly, the share of Afghan adults without a high school diploma (22%) is now three times that of US-born Americans.

In addition, Afghan families are, on average, much larger than US-born American-headed households, but have roughly the same number of workers.

This means that Afghans are trying to support relatively large families with relatively few workers.

As a result, the proportion of Afghan migrants and their children living in or near poverty is very high, as is the dependence on social welfare.

Undoubtedly, says Camarut, the Afghan immigrants accepted today will do better over time.

Income tends to rise for all immigrants the longer they live in the country.

However, this does not mean that we are likely to see rates of welfare use or poverty converge with US-born Americans.

At the conclusion of his report, the researcher says that we should look at alternatives to permanent resettlement in the United States, as the countries neighboring Afghanistan include large numbers of residents of the same ethnic groups as most Afghans, such as Pashtuns, Uzbeks and Tajiks.

These countries have lower costs of living and social attitudes more similar to those of Afghanistan.

By providing assistance to these countries to resettle Afghans, the United States can help more refugees for a certain level of investment, and avoid the economic, social, and financial challenges that large-scale immigration causes in the United States.

 The settlement of 37,000 Afghan refugees in the first phase

A number of US states, including California and Texas, are set to receive a disproportionate number of tens of thousands of Afghan evacuees to the United States, while other states are expected to resettle fewer than 10 evacuees or none at all. According to government data.

This week, the administration of US President Joe Biden notified state authorities of the number of evacuees that each state could receive in the coming weeks as part of the first phase of a massive resettlement operation that is set to settle nearly 37,000 refugees from Afghanistan in the communities. American.

California is expected to receive 5,225 evacuees, the largest number of any state.

Texas is scheduled to receive 4,481 Afghans, followed by Oklahoma, which is expected to host 1,800 evacuees.

Washington and Arizona are scheduled to receive more than 1,600 people.

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