Three senior State Department (DOS) officials have been recognized for quickly mobilizing U.S. efforts to resettle Afghan refugees here after the Taliban seized power in 2021, the Partnership for Public Service (PPS) announced recently.
Hilary Ingraham, Holly Herrera, and Kiera Berdinner, in the Bureau of Population, Refugees and Migration, were awarded the 2022 Samuel J. Heyman Service to America Medal (SAMMIE) Sept. 20, the PPS announced at the time. They and the Operation Allies Welcome Resettlement Team "(c)oordinated the largest resettlement of refugees in modern U.S. history," the announcement states.
Tens of thousands of Afghans who had assisted the U.S. during the war were in danger of imprisonment or death after the Taliban took control of Afghanistan when the country's government collapsed last summer, the PPS reports in its announcement. The U.S. was ill-prepared to resettle that many people due to budget and capacity cuts made during the Trump administration, the announcement states.
"Into this crisis stepped three State Department public servants: Hilary Ingraham, Holly Herrera and Kiera Berdinner," the PPS wrote in the announcement. The women "led an extraordinary mobilization that coordinated, moved and found housing and services for more than 72,000 of the 76,000 Afghans who initially came to U.S. military bases across the United States."
The pending flood of Afghan refugees came at a time when the U.S. was receiving fewer than 11,000 refugees per year, according to PPS, and had closed 100 of its 300 resettlement offices and lost collective knowledge of resettlement protocols as a result.
“You can’t just flip a switch and bring it back,” Curtis Ried, a National Security Council presidential advisor on global refugee admissions, said in the report.
Ingraham, Herrera and Berdinner started the process to resettle refugees in August 2021, when Afghans began arriving in the U.S. The women found ways to expand the network of resettlement agencies and match them with refugees, and developed relationships with private companies and nonprofits, "resulting in the largest single resettlement effort in recent U.S. history," the PPS reports.
The vast majority of Afghan refugees were actually processed as parolees— a designation that allowed a streamlined way for them to enter the country and apply for permanent status, the announcement reports. Parolees are not eligible for the same kind of aid as refugees, which is where the team stepped in.
“They set up a parallel system for Afghan parolees to provide them similar benefits as refugees,” Senior State Department Official/Refugee Bureau Nancy Jackson said, according to a news release. “They had to do it with separate funding authorities, separate cooperative agreements and new partnerships. They stood it up in a matter of days.”
“I think we ended up doing it in 10 days from conception to posting an announcement to implementation of a completely new program,” Berdinner said in the announcement. The DOS reported that the process will continue to be managed in this way.
“What they achieved was nothing short of impossible,” said Uzra Zeya, the DOS undersecretary for civilian security, democracy and human rights.
Sec. of State Antony Blinken also congratulated the women for their achievements in a post to social media.
“Hilary, Holly, Kiera & the Operation Allies Welcome team: because of your leadership, more than 72K Afghans were resettled in 331 American cities and 49 states in just 5 months—our country's largest resettlement effort in decades. Congrats on your well-earned #SAMMIES2022 award,” Blinken wrote in a Sept. 20 Tweet.
SAMMIE awards are presented yearly to "exceptional public servants who keep our nation running and moving forward," PPS states on its website.
"Although the work of these American heroes might be less visible than athletes, actors and musicians," PPS states, "their efforts have a tremendous impact on our lives."
