Donated miles provide flights for Afghan refugees
A campaign that began with ordinary people donating loyalty miles raised enough in two months to provide 40,000 flights to refugees from Afghanistan, and organizers and the White House are looking to nearly double that number.
About 3,200 flights with donated miles have already transported Afghans from temporary accommodation at military bases in the United States to new homes in the United States, organizers say.
Companies have made half of the contributions so far, mostly in the form of tickets donated by airlines.
The campaign is organized by Welcome.US and Miles4Migrants, a group founded in 2016 that uses donated miles and credit card points to help refugees. The group saw support for refugees fleeing Afghanistan in August, as the US military withdrew and handed the country over to the Taliban, and began talking to other nonprofits about their aid.
“Government resources are limited and we knew the American people wanted to support the incoming Afghans and help them find safe homes,†said Miles Group co-founder Andy Freedman. “That’s when we turned to the airlines.
United Airlines contributed 7,000 flights and American Airlines donated 6,000. Smaller contributions came from Delta, JetBlue, Alaska, Frontier, Air Canada, aircraft manufacturer Boeing and the Tripadvisor Charitable Foundation, according to the organizers.
Individuals donated enough miles and credit card points to cover 20,000 flights, organizers said.
“It’s incredibly inspiring to see the American people and American business come together to welcome our new Afghan neighbors in this way,” said Nazanin Ash, former head of the State Department under the Bush and Obama administrations and now CEO of Welcome.US, a new nonprofit coalition trying to generate private sector support for arriving Afghans.
Organizers are looking to collect enough additional donations to pay for 30,000 additional flights. Using the miles and money donated to pay for the trip will free up government assistance to refugees for housing and other services, organizers say.
“Historically, evacuees generally pay for their own trip. It’s a huge burden to put on people who come (to the United States) with very little, â€said former Delaware Gov. Jack Markell, who is President Joe Biden’s contact person for helping refugees. Afghans and who is also Biden’s candidate for ambassador to the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development.
According to Markell, approximately 9,000 Afghans have been resettled in the United States, approximately 53,000 are living in temporary accommodation at military bases in the United States, 3,700 more are arriving in the next 10 days from bases in Europe and the Middle East. , and up to 30,000 others. are expected to arrive within the next year, a figure that includes people still in Afghanistan.
Military planes were used to evacuate Afghans from a chaotic scene at Kabul’s main airport. Airlines then transported them from bases in Europe and the Middle East to the United States under contracts with the federal government.
Groups of veterans and others have rushed to secure Afghan allies such as interpreters who have served the US military on flights out of Kabul since the capital fell to the Taliban. Some do not have the special immigrant visas that were intended for Afghans who assisted Americans during the 20-year U.S. military presence, and the U.S. abandoned its embassy in August.
Some former Trump administration officials are working to strengthen opposition to US resettlement of Afghan refugees, saying they pose a security threat. “How many terrorists are there among them? Trump said in a recent statement. Biden administration says they were screened before entering US
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