First Group Of At-Risk Afghan Refugees Arrive At New Jersey's Joint Base McGuire-Dix-Lakehurst
BURLINGTON COUNTY, N.J. (CBS) -- The first group of at-risk Afghan refugees arrived at New Jersey's Joint Base McGuire-Dix-Lakehurst overnight Wednesday. Afghan refugees are now being temporarily housed at four military installations in the U.S. including, Joint Base McGuire-Dix-Lakehurst, Fort McCoy in Wisconsin, Fort Bliss in Texas, and Fort Lee in Virginia.
The arrivals are expected to continue throughout the day Wednesday and the days following.
Task Force McGuire-Dix is building capacity as the Army North, Northern Command, and the Department of Defense also work to build additional capacity at Fort Lee, Fort Bliss, Fort McCoy and potentially other military locations as required, the media relations chief at Fort McGuire-Dix-Lakehurst says.
As of Wednesday morning, the White House says approximately 19,000 people were evacuated from Kabul from 3 a.m. Aug. 24 to 3 a.m. on Aug. 25. Since Aug. 14, the U.S. has evacuated approximately 82,000 people on U.S. Military coalition flights and since the end of July the country has re-located approximately 87,900 people.
CBS3 recently looked into the process for Afghan refugees coming to the Philadelphia region and who will be helping them once they arrive.
For the refugees flying into Fort Dix, the Department of Human Services connects them to refugee resettlement organizations like HIAS or Nationalities Service Center, that work to get them settled here in Philadelphia.
"We communicate with landlords, get them settled in," Antonia Moffa, with the Nationalities Service Center, said. "We provide household goods, furniture, food, hygiene products, anything they'll need to get set up then we provide job readiness training, English classes."
Officials tell CBS3 that evacuees who are American citizens, or green card holders, are not required to stop at military bases and some of them are already on their way to destinations including Philadelphia.
The Nationalities Service Center says one family arrived in our area on Monday and they expect others in the days to come.
CBS3's Alecia Reid contributed to this report.
