I love my Cache Valley homeland, and I love the opportunity to help others feel at home here, too. I helped found the Cache Refugee and Immigrant Connection, or CRIC, which started out as a grassroots effort and recently grew into Utah’s third refugee resettlement agency.
The U.S. did well to evacuate our Afghan allies in 2021. Since January 2022, CRIC has successfully resettled just under 100 Afghans. As soon as these individuals and families arrive, they start making positive contributions to the community.
Every summer, CRIC hosts World Refugee Day celebrations, which feature dances from various cultures that our friends represent. Each year I watch them, thinking about our actions in their country, and what they sacrificed to assist our armed forces. This particular group is composed solely of men, because their families are still in Afghanistan. Their departure from that airport in Kabul represented all the hope they had to keep their families safe, but their families can’t join them. Our allies currently endure an immigration limbo that prevents them from reuniting with their families, and the only solution is an act of Congress.
I’m grateful to the large bipartisan group of legislators, including Reps. Blake Moore and John Curtis, who are co-sponsors of the Afghan Adjustment Act. I urge Sens. Mike Lee and Mitt Romney, as well as all of Utah’s representatives, to support this bill and the Afghan Allies Protection Act, which would ensure that evacuees, and eventually their families, can receive permanent status and be fully welcomed to our country.
Nelda Ault-Dyslin
Logan