ICNAW works closely with HIAS (Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society) to resettle new families. To date, ICNAW has worked with refugees from Afghanistan who are SIVs, i.e., those granted special immigrant visas for assisting United States forces in Afghanistan. ICNAW has settled five families and is planning to welcome a sixth to Westchester after HIAS clearance.
The Ghafoor Family arrived in November 2017 and continue to successfully acclimate to their lives in the US and became U.S. Citizens in 2024.
In 2018, HIAS ran a news story about ICNAW’s work with a family they call the Kabirs. You can read it here:
https://hias.org/news/interfaith-volunteers-find-common-ground-with-refugees-in-westchester
In 2023, ICNAW supported an Afghan family seeking asylum because the wife had worked for the government in the Afghan Department of Women’s Rights. Her family was being threatened by people she had previously prosecuted for domestic abuse. They traveled 15,000 miles from Afghanistan to Brazil and then made their way through South America, the Darien gap, Central America and finally to the southern border. In 2024, they were granted asylum. The wife now works as a paralegal and her husband is an administrator with the highly respected non profit, Neighbors Link. You can read their story in the New York Times:
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/05/21/world/americas/darien-gap-afghan-migration.html