Washington has a long history of welcoming refugees. Afghanistan should be no different
Republican state House minority leader JT Wilcox described it as an “obligation” on Monday. With the tragic situation in Afghanistan deteriorating in real time, the conservative local lawmaker from Yelm sought to inspire the people of Washington to rise to the occasion, as they have so many times before.
Historically, Washington has been a state that welcomes refugees, Wilcox noted, with bipartisan support and often in times of crisis and even when the national politics are complicated. We stepped up after the end of the Vietnam War and the fall of Saigon under the leadership of Republican Gov. Dan Evans — welcoming thousands of Vietnamese and Cambodians in search of a new life — and we’ve stepped up more recently, helping to resettle scores of refugees from places like Iraq, Somalia, Myanmar and the former Soviet Union.
Now, as the devastating pictures and stories make painfully clear, there are Afghan refugees who need our help — and deserve our help, Wilcox said. You can blame any political leader you want for what has transpired in recent days and over the last 20 years, but none of it negates our paramount duty, he believes.
Once again, Washington must open its door to those in need, Wilcox said. It’s a matter of responsibility, and a matter of honoring the ultimate sacrifices of U.S. military members who served in the country, and particularly those still living with the trauma, grief and profound loss wrought by war, he argued.
“These are people that have earned their way into our country by ... risking their lives, their family, and everything else that they had. And that makes this a much greater obligation than almost anything that I can imagine,” Wilcox said of the Afghans who worked alongside U.S. military members during the two-decade war, many of whom are now desperate to flee as the Western-backed government in the country crumbles at the hands of the Taliban.
“We have debts to pay. And clearly, we’ve got a debt to pay to people that worked with our service people,” Wilcox said.
While Wilcox acknowledged that his views — which he shared on Twitter — have the potential to inflame the fraught national immigration debate and the hardliners within his own party, this is much bigger than partisan politics, he said. It’s also hopeful that he wasn’t alone in his calls, within his party or across the aisle. Democratic speaker of the House Laurie Jinkins shared similar sentiments with The News Tribune on Tuesday and was grateful for Wilcox’s support.
State Rep. My-Linh Thai of Bellevue — who immigrated to Washington with her family as a 15-year-old from Vietnam and became the first refugee elected to Washington’s House of Representatives in 2018 — said Washington doesn’t just have an obligation to welcome Afghan refugees but also an obligation to help them succeed once they arrive. In addition to opening our door, Thai said, it will be important to make sure new refugees and local nonprofit service providers have ample support from the state.
In the aftermath of Vietnam, that wasn’t always the case, Thai said, and families — like her own — struggled mightily to adapt. They’re lessons in accountability we can learn from as the country exits another 20-year war, she said.
“I have very strong opinions about this, partially because this is my personal life experience,” Thai said. “I believe that we should all come together and see each other through our humanity, besides just the moral responsibility.”
Wilcox said that one of his primary motivations in speaking out was making it clear to the Biden administration, Gov. Jay Inslee and local immigration officials that the Evergreen State won’t get bogged down in the toxic immigration politics that we see in other parts of the country.
“I’ve really stayed out of national politics. I like to talk about what happens in Washington (state),” Wilcox said. “This is one time when we can just say, ‘It’s not going to be political in Washington (state).’ …. There are a lot of things that we can argue about, but helping these folks that staked their lives for us doesn’t have to be political.”
It’s a message we should all be able to rally around, in no small part because Afghans who need us are already on their way.
As The News Tribune’s Peter Talbot recently reported, Afghans coming to the United States with special immigrant visas are expected to soon settle in Seattle and Tacoma, according to the Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Service (LIRS), a national nonprofit immigration and refugee service. The agency is seeking volunteers to help pick up people at the airport, as well as set up apartments and meal assistance.
David Duea is president and CEO of Lutheran Community Services Northwest, a local refugee placement agency that contracts with LIRS. Over the last three years, the nonprofit has helped find Northwest homes for almost 700 individuals arriving in the United States with special immigrant visas, and, according to Duea, the influx from Afghanistan is already underway.
Just last week, Lutheran Community Services Northwest settled 24 Afghans with special immigrant visas in Washington, Duea said, and he expects his staff to be “inundated” with similar numbers of refugees in the days and weeks ahead.
Like Wilcox, Duea noted that Washington has a long history of welcoming refugees to the state. While his colleagues in other places around the country spend a lot of time navigating divisive immigration partisanship and running into roadblocks, that hasn’t been the case here. Since its inception in the early 1980s, Lutheran Community Services Northwest has helped to resettle more than 45,000 refugees in Washington, Oregon and Idaho, Deau said.
Like Wilcox and Thai, Duea hopes — and expects — it’s a trend that will continue.
“I know that the Washingtonians … truly care about people. Yes, there’s division and politics, and it can get heated, but for the most part, people really care,” Duea said.
“In this instance, we’re the ones that were (in Afghanistan) … and are pulling out,” he continued.
“It says a lot about us if we don’t take care of people.”
This story was originally published August 17, 2021 at 3:20 PM.
