Thread by @ajnabieh

I had a Zoom call this morning with my colleagues at @uOttawa who are engaged in Canada’s evacuation of #Afghanistan and resettlement of Afghan #refugees. Spoilers: Canadian policy looks better on paper than it does in practice. A 🧵: 1/18

First, the commitment to resettling 20,000 #Afghan #refugees: it looks nice! But that number is NOT a commitment to evacuating 20,000 Afghan human rights defenders, feminists, and scholars who are directly threatened by the Taliban. 2/18

Almost all of those 20K will be people who meet the legal definition 'refugee', which requires that they be outside their country of citizenship & have a credible fear of persecution. See the @UNHCR definition: unhcr.org/what-is-a-refu… 3/18

20K is a big number - but there are currently about 2.5 million registered refugees from Afghanistan, mostly in Pakistan and Iran. unrefugees.org/news/afghanist… 4/18

Resettling 20K refugees from among those 2.5 million is great! But there is no increase in Canada’s annual resettlement targets - meaning these people will take the place of 20K other refugees who might have been resettled. unhcr.org/figures-at-a-g… 5/18

The 20K will be a mix of government sponsored and privately sponsored refugees. Private sponsorship is great work - I’m part of a private sponsorship group - but it's also a tedious bureaucratic process by which Canada looks good through the private efforts of Canadians. 6/18

What about #humanrightsdefenders at risk in Afghanistan? That’s who Canada is trying to get out through the Kabul airport right now, right? Nope. We're evacuating Canadian nationals and those who “assisted Canada” - ie, who worked for CAF, GAC, or GAC-funded projects. 7/18

Canada is also only evacuating people who can get to into the Kabul airport before it closes which is likely to be in the next 24-36 hours. Can't get there, whether from Kandahar, Herat, or through the last checkpoint? You can't leave. 8/18

Those who can't get to the airport by the deadline? They can stay and take their chances under the new Taliban government. Or they can try to get out by land - a difficult proposition when the Taliban controls the land borders as well. 9/18

If they manage to get across? Then they need to register with UNHCR, wait for that processing to happen, and then wait in a queue - 2.5 million people long - to find a place that can take you. 10/18

Canada’s evacuation amounts to about 2000 Canadians and folks who "assisted Canada," plus some with assured places in other countries who needed a ride. Great! Awesome! But is that a rescue mission for 20,000 Afghans who are at risk under the Taliban? No. Not even close. 11/18

What could we be doing instead? Providing visas and a way out for those at risk who are still inside Afghanistan, without them needing to get to a border, not just in the next day but in days and weeks to come. This is not going to be a short-term problem. 12/18

We could also work with Iran, Pakistan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, to ensure that Afghans can enter, and to support the heroic efforts neighbouring countries make to #WelcomeRefugees. Check out this 2014 piece on Pakistani policy: fmreview.org/afghanistan/kh… 13/18

We can insist that all 20K promised Afghans resettled will be government sponsored - and that Afghan PSRs won’t count towards the annual target number. (There is precedent! LGBT PSRs don’t count toward a Sponsorship Agreement Holders' limitl! We could do it again.) 14/18

All of these policies would save lives, enrich Canada’s social landscape, and have us living up to our performance of humanitarian values more than the song and dance the 20,000 refugees announcement could ever. 15/18

Want to take action? You can share and signal boost calls by Afghan Canadians for more support. Here’s one: s626883436.initial-website.com/home/news-afgh… Here’s another: ayedi.ca/ccap/ 16/18

If you work at a university, you can fill out this form from @ScholarsAtRisk to learn more about hosting Afghan academics, judges, and students: nyu.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_08… 17/18

And yes, you can become a private sponsor, and work together with others to support people coming to safety. You can find a list of sponsorship agreement holders here: canada.ca/en/immigration… 18/18

I’m not one of the people who has friends, colleagues, family trying to escape right now. But I know that Canada can do better, for them. So let's make sure it does. 19/18