Amid Deadly Terror Attack In Kabul, Sacramento Families Scramble To Bring Relatives To US
SACRAMENTO (CBS13) — Sacramento business owner Ahmad Samir shared a snapshot of nine family passports.
"They're requesting from us if there's any way to get out of Afghanistan," said Samir.
They are all members of his family stuck in Afghanistan, desperate to leave Taliban-controlled Kabul.
"They are the same people they were twenty years ago," Samir said of the Taliban.
He was in the first wave of Afghan refugees who came to Sacramento with a special immigration visa in 2008.
Now thousands of others have joined him, creating a little Kabul in Northern California.
"You can feel like a home here," he said.
Others who live in Sacramento have been speaking with desperate family members who are weighing the risk of staying and living under Taliban control or the danger of another attack at the airport in Kabul.
"They have documentation, but because of the rush on the airport, they cannot think of a way to come," Mohammad Amini said.
Nonprofits that work on resettlement plans like the International Rescue Committee say there's no word whether these evacuation flights will continue.
There's no plan right now to get evacuees off the ground in Kabul.
"One of the biggest issues is folks who have worked with the US Embassy or US military. They're not able to get to the airport, so getting these people out and getting these people to safety is our biggest concern right now," said Lisa Welze, senior director of the IRC.
These evacuees are also facing another challenge once they do get to Sacramento: finding housing when there's a housing shortage in the region. These nonprofits say the Caldor Fire and homeless crisis are contributing to that.
The IRC says it created the Soft Landing Fund, which will directly support Afghan refugee families who have fled their country to resettle in Northern California.