‘We Have to Integrate These Newcomers’: Biden Affirms Support For Afghan Refugees In Call With Jewish Leaders

President Joe Biden said on Thursday that America has “to integrate these newcomers,” in reference to the Afghan refugees who have come and are coming to the United States after fleeing the Taliban in Afghanistan, where the United States withdrew from this week after an almost-20-year war.

“It’s time that we be deeply mindful of a world beyond our borders even as we did what was necessary and right to end 20 years of war in Afghanistan and we mourn all those who we lost including 13 brave service members who were killed alongside so many other innocents in an act of terror and malice,” said Biden during a pre-Jewish High Holidays video call with Jewish leaders, referring to last week’s explosion outside the airport in the Afghan capital of Kabul.

He continued, “And in spite of welcoming the stranger we now embark on the next phase of this mission which is the cause that the Jewish community so often led whether it was Soviet Jews coming to America or Ethiopian Jews headed to Israel, we have to integrate these newcomers and help them begin to renew and rebuild their own lives.”

At least 31,107 evacuees arrived in the United States between Aug. 17 and Aug. 31, 77 percent of whom are Afghans, according to the Biden administration.

Jews were able to leave the Soviet Union in 1989 and they went to the United States and Israel, while Jews left Ethiopia two years later in what was a covert Israeli military operation called Operation Solomon while Ethiopia’s government was being toppled.

The Jewish High Holidays begin with Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish new year – which begins at sundown on Sept. 6 and ends at nightfall on Sept. 8 – and ends on Yom Kippur, which begins at sundown on Sept. 15 and ends at nightfall the following day.

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