The last of the 14,500 Afghan refugees housed at Joint Base McGuire-Dix Lakehurst, NJ left on February 19, just four days after the goal established by Homeland Security.
The tent city, just a half hour’s drive from MCCC, was known as Liberty Village and was established following the chaotic exodus of Afghans fleeing their country on August 24, 2021. The U.S. military was withdrawing and the rule of the hard-right Taliban would soon make remaining in the country dangerous for thousands, especially those who had aided U.S. forces during their 20-year effort as part of the “War on Terror,” which began under President George W. Bush.
The US plans to take in more Afghan refugees over the next year, but at a location still to be determined. Homeland Security issued a press release celebrating the pending closure and said that until the new safe haven begins operations in the coming weeks, the safe haven at Joint Base McGuire-Dix-Lakehurst will remain open and operational in a limited capacity, and will continue to welcome Afghan families who arrive in the interim through Operation Allies Welcome.
Workers have begun disassembling the 24.6-acre tent city that housed the influx of evacuees. Residents had access to multiple resources onsite, such as: medical, dining, and athletic facilities, classrooms, and even a beauty parlor and culturally appropriate clothing center.
The Reformed Church of Highland Park Affordable Housing Corporation has an initiative to provide housing and programs for refugees in Central Jersey through Interfaith-RISE (Refugee & Immigrant Support & Empowerment).
Wendy Jager, English Language Director for Interfaith-RISE says “I think that one of the challenges is that many refugees need to learn English, but they also need to financially care for their families that they have brought here and many refugees are also financially supporting extended families that have not been able to leave their country.”
To combat this issue, Interfaith-RISE partnered with Margaret Gould, MCCC Program Director of Center for Community Education and Training, at JKC to teach English to Afghan refugees.
Jager says, “I’m very excited about the partnership and I look forward to building it and continuing it in the future. We’re off to a great start.”
Rev. Seth Kaper-Dale of The Reformed Church of Highland Park says “It’s like a match made in heaven. The teachers love the students, the students are very driven because they all need to learn English to get the jobs they want, and the county college has offered to work with Afghans all around the state. So, it’s not just folks who are resettling in Mercer County, but all around the state Afghans are benefiting from Mercer.”
Gould says “Refugees are here because they want to rebuild a life that was torn apart, not by their own choosing. They just really want to re-assimilate, re-build, and re-belong to a community.”
A shortage of affordable housing and cutbacks to refugee programs under the Trump Administration has made resettlement efforts tricky.
According to the Migration Policy Institute, President Trump’s administration increased vetting procedures and reduced the number of refugees accepted annually to record lows.
Some families left without assisted placement because of the long wait times, others because they didn’t want to be moved across the country and lose access to the schools, hospitals, and legal support they were already receiving.
“There is frustration,” a 30-year-old Afghan man who left the base with his pregnant wife and two sons, one of whom had epilepsy, told The New York Times. “People are upset. The day that I left, there was a big line of independent departures.”
The man who was a US combat translator for over a decade spoke on the condition of anonymity out of concern for the safety of his relatives still living in Kabul.
He and his family have been living in temporary housing in Montclair, NJ so that his son could receive treatment for his epilepsy at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia.
Rev. Kaper-Dale says “Hands down the thing that’s most distressing to everyone is the traumatic and just gut wrenching division in family that has occurred…A man is here without his wife and kids, kids are here without their mothers, a couple is here without all their children.”
According to the Bureau of Population, Refugees, and Migration many of the refugees who waited for relocation support were placed in existing Afghan communities in Northern Virginia, the Washington area, Texas, and Northern California.
Gould says “They come to the United States because they had to flee some horrific situation in their country and it is beyond rewarding to give people the opportunity to help them find the opportunity to build a life for themselves and for their families while they’re here.”
At its peak, Liberty Village was receiving upwards of 3,300 refugees every week. They were the last location to accept new arrivals. Over 40% of those fleeing the violence were children, with more than 100 additional babies being born at the base.
The US admitted over 84,600 refugees as part of Operation Allies Welcome, in what has become the largest resettlement effort in the country in decades.
As global tensions mount surrounding the Russian invasion of Ukraine, Gould is prepared for any influx of new arrivals to the program.
Gould says “Not all of our refugees are Afghani refugees. We have refugees from different places in the world, including; Pakistan, Turkey, Iran, African countries, Syria, Central and South American countries like Ecuador, Guatemala. So we’re not just helping refugees from Afghanistan. We’re also building and planning ahead for any Ukrainian refugees.”
Gould continues “That’s the real reason why I’m in this section of education, why I find so much power, energy, and passion in this segment of education; because we’re actually impacting, changing people’s lives.”
