COLUMBUS, Wis. — In a press conference Wednesday, Governor Tony Evers said that he’s currently being told to expect hundreds to ‘low thousands’ of Afghan refugees in Wisconsin, but the number is expected to change.
“We’re in constant conversations with the federal government. We’ve heard numbers in the hundreds, we’ve heard 2,000, but that frankly is all conjecture at this time,” Evers said, adding other numbers fluctuated in the ‘low thousands’. “I think this is a moving target.”
The Pentagon announced that Fort McCoy in Wisconsin and Fort Bliss in Texas are authorized to receive up to 30,000 Afghan refugees on Special Immigrant Visas (SIVs), fleeing from Afghanistan in an ongoing evacuation effort following the Taliban’s takeover of the country.
On Tuesday, the White House said more than 3,200 U.S. citizens, permanent residents and Afghan refugees had been evacuated. White House estimates have said there’s up to 15,000 Americans in Afghanistan and roughly 20,000 Afghans who would qualify for SIVs. The SIV program was launched in 2009 for Afghans who worked for and assisted the U.S. military in roles like interpretation. The Biden administration has expanded the program to apply to others who worked for the U.S. government as well.
Evers said he believes some of the refugees will likely first come to Wisconsin before resettling elsewhere in the country. Ft McCoy is currently preparing to receive and temporarily house the refugees as they’re flown in.
“We have open arms here in Wisconsin,” Evers said, citing organizations like Lutheran Social Services and Jewish Social Services who will help in resettlement.
Wisconsin’s only U.S. Army base, Fort McCoy is located on about 60,000 acres of land in Monroe County between Sparta and Tomah and is primarily used for training. The base housed about 14,000 refugees from Cuba in 1980 who fled during Fidel Castro’s rule.
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