Welcoming and supporting the mental well-being of forcibly displaced Afghan newcomers in the context of rapidly changing policies that create and sustain instability

As we consider policies and practices at multiple levels that contribute to the mental health of forcibly displaced people, it is critical to consider the role of newcomers themselves and newcomer-led community-based organizations in building connections between forcibly-displaced people and their new communities, fostering belonging, and helping to addrestts the stressors and uncertainty they face. Newcomer leaders are integral to building strong communities (Im & Rosenberg, 2016). They typically speak multiple languages, understand the challenges and cultures of newcomers, and are skilled in community navigation. Community-based interventions addressing mental health from a strengths-based, holistic perspective have been shown to be important for reducing psychological distress and increasing protective factors among recently resettled forcibly displaced peoples (Goodkind et al., 2020). Research has also documented the important roles community-based organizations play in the lives of newcomers, including increasing access to resources, cultural connectedness, capacity building and empowerment, and buffering the effects of migration losses and discrimination, and mobilizing local citizens to support the needs of newly settled refugees (See Callejas, Pérez, & Limón, 2020; Cordero-Guzmán, 2005; Gonzalez Benson et al., 2019; Walker et al., 2022).

Lessons from New Mexico: Afghan community advocate and U.S.-born community partner perspectives

As an illustration of the deep connections and mutual understanding that must be built to support the mental health and well-being of forcibly displaced people throughout the world, we are writing this piece collaboratively – an Afghan person with lived experience of forced displacement and resettlement in the U.S. and a U.S.-born person with lived experience working in a refugee camp in Thailand and partnering with resettled refugees in the U.S. for more than 30 years. By providing a brief example of the role of CBOs and newcomer and U.S. community members, we hope to demonstrate the types of partnership and creativity that can be developed at the local level to buffer some of the broader political uncertainty and also work towards policy change.

Sara: I came to the United States in 2016 as a refugee, having been forced to leave Afghanistan in the late 1980s. After growing up in Afghanistan and resettling in the United States, I participated in the Refugee & Immigrant Well-being Project (RIWP), through which I was paired with a University of New Mexico student to engage in mutual learning and mobilization of community resources to support my adjustment and well-being. I found the experience so worthwhile that I decided to join the project as a staff member. I began by interpreting at Learning Circles [weekly meetings of newcomers and university students that foster mutual learning and connection] and providing mentorship and community navigation to other Afghan newcomers and became the full-time Coordinator of the RIWP with United Voices for Newcomer Rights (https://uvnr.org) for several years.

Jessica: I started RIWP in the year 2000 because, after working in a refugee camp in Thailand from 1993-1995 and visiting families I had worked with after they resettled in the U.S., I recognized the necessity of changing U.S. communities to be more responsive to newcomers. I wanted to make sure that we could properly welcome newcomers, create spaces of belonging, build on newcomers’ strengths, knowledge, and experiences, and mobilize resources to support their well-being as they healed from past experiences and navigated numerous stressors in their new communities. After more than 10 years of implementing RIWP in New Mexico, former newcomer and student participants of RIWP and I worked together to form the 501(c)3 organization United Voices for Newcomer Rights (UVNR), which is a newcomer-led CBO that provides full-time employment to newcomers who are the experts in their communities and which continues to implement RIWP and many other community-based efforts (see CITATIONS for a more detailed discussion of the impact of RIWP on newcomer mental health and U.S. communities).

Sara: After the Taliban occupied Afghanistan in August 2021, it was a terrible experience for all Afghans inside and outside Afghanistan. Having experienced forced displacement myself, I understand how emotionally draining and heartbreaking it is to wait in second and third countries, dealing with constant challenges, deep stress, and uncertainty. The families who came to the U.S. through humanitarian parole went through a lot coming on U.S. military flights. Most of them experienced family separation – often the parents got on a flight and had to leave their children behind. Many unaccompanied Afghan minors also arrived in the U.S. and needed support. Even though Afghans who came to the U.S. had relative safety, their mental health suffered because of their worries about the safety of family and friends left behind in Afghanistan. The cultural differences were also distressing. Many new families called me and asked me if I thought it was safe for them to send their children to schools and daycare here in the U.S.. Another difficult issue was housing. Some of the families I worked with were in hotels for 5 months, sometimes moving between 5 or more hotels, all the while not being able to access homemade food or observe Ramadan.

Many people arriving in 2021 needed specialized mental health services. Because the displacement was so abrupt, traumatic, and chaotic, many adults were so distressed that they could not work, and youth could not focus in school. Their distress levels were higher than previous Afghan families I worked with who were coming as refugees with established legal status. I referred many more Afghans to clinical mental health services, but our partner organizations lacked the capacity to take on so many clients and to provide the interpretation and transportation supports necessary for newcomers to access therapy. In addition, their staff needed to learn how to provide culturally appropriate mental health services for Afghans.

Here in New Mexico, we have been successful in supporting the well-being of Afghan newcomers by connecting them with community resources for mental and physical health, housing, employment, education, children’s education, legal status adjustment, and interpretation. Myself and other community advocates at UVNR have helped Afghan families to apply for low-income housing and free government phones, open bank accounts, obtain driver’s licenses, enroll their children in schools and day care, provide transportation to medical appointments and grocery stores, connect pregnant women with community resources including home visiting programs, enroll adults in English classes, and provide interpretation in multiple settings.

I also want to emphasize the importance of the broader community in New Mexico. They have been extremely supportive and welcoming. Many people housed Afghans in their own homes, provided transportation to medical appointments, and donated cash, food, iPhones, cars, clothing, furniture, and other necessities. When an Afghan family needed to move nearer to their family in another state, community volunteers drove the family to Texas and raised funds to support two months of their rent. These supports, which have focused on multiple levels, have been critical in supporting the mental health of Afghan newcomers.

The other challenges Afghans have faced here are the language barrier and concerns about their temporary immigration status and trying to find legal support to convert to a more permanent status. People were given only two years of Temporary Protected Status (TPS) to stay in the U.S. legally; as the expiration date approached, it was extremely stressful for Afghan newcomers and overwhelming to organizations trying to help them apply for a permanent status. Afghans were first designated for TPS by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) on May 20, 2022. On September 21, 2023, DHS announced an extension and redesignation of TPS for Afghans, effective November 21, 2023 through May 20, 2025. In early April 2025, the current administration announced plans to end TPS for forcibly displaced Afghans, which officially ended on July 14, 2025. Fear and uncertainty spread once again throughout the Afghan community. In response, UVNR and other CBOs and community members in New Mexico continued to work to support Afghans in the U.S. and help them apply for asylum or adjust their status through the Special Immigrant Visa (SIV) program. However, in late November 2025, the Administration suspended all asylum requests and other immigration matters for Afghans in the U.S., citing the shooting of two National Guard members by someone who came to the U.S. as a refugee from Afghanistan.

Jessica: On November 25, 2025 (the night before the National Guard shooting), I was attending a RIWP Learning Circle, sitting at a table with many Afghan women, their children, and their student partners from UNM. It was the week of Thanksgiving, and we were each sharing what we were grateful for, with the interpretation help of a UVNR staff member. Every Afghan woman talked about how welcomed they were in their New Mexico community and the connections and belonging they felt here. Juxtapose this to two days later, when these women learned that their hopes for finding more permanent safety, stability, and belonging in the U.S. were once again destroyed. We could not change these new policies, but we worked quickly to share information with Afghan community members and to ensure that Afghans in New Mexico had all possible support that we could provide.

Sara and Jessica: We have tried to describe here the contradictions that so many forcibly displaced people feel – often achieving temporary safety and feeling supported in a community and then how this quickly and repeatedly is disrupted by unpredictable policy changes that increase both the fragility of individuals’ experiences and communities’ abilities to navigate and create the safe spaces that are required for mental health and healing. Despite ongoing setbacks and uncertainty, we will continue to work together through UVNR, RIWP, and partnerships with the broader community to support Afghans in the U.S. This is not a substitute for the broader policy efforts that are urgently needed, but we hope we have shown how local practices can make a difference in promoting the safety, mental health, and well-being of forcibly displaced peoples.                

This is part of a three-part series by the Migrants and Displaced Persons (M&DP) Task Force. The series examines how displacement, political instability, and shifting social climates in host countries shape individual and community mental health, while highlighting pathways toward protection, healing, and collective resilience.

Check out Part One: Legal Precarity and the Mental Health of Displaced Afghan Persons in Shifting Policy Contexts

Part Two:  The Growing Challenges Faced by Forcibly Displaced Afghans in Germany

References

Callejas, L. M., Perez Jr, G., & Limon, F. J. (2021). Community-defined evidence as a framework for equitable implementation. Stanford Social Innovation Review, 19, 25-26.

Cordero-Guzmán H.R. Community-based organizations and migration in New York City. (2005). Journal of Ethnic Migration Studies, 31(5):889-909. doi:10.1080/13691830500177743

Gonzalez Benson, O., Pimentel Walker, A. P., Yoshihama, M., Burnett, C., & Asadi, L. (2019). A framework for ancillary health services provided by refugee-and immigrant-run CBOs: Language assistance, systems navigation, and hands-on support. Journal of Community Medicine & Health Education, 9(5), 1-5.

Goodkind, J. R., Bybee, D., Hess, J. M., Amer, S., Ndayisenga, M., Greene, R. N., Choe, R., Isakson, B., Baca, B., & Pannah, M. (2020). Randomized controlled trial of a multilevel intervention to address social determinants of refugee mental health. American Journal of Community Psychology, 65(3-4), 272–289. https://doi.org/10.1002/ajcp.12418

Im, H., & Rosenberg, R. (2016). Building social capital through a peer-led community health workshop: A pilot with the Bhutanese refugee community. Journal of Community Health, 41, 509-517.

Walker, A. P. P., Sanga, N., Benson, O. G., Yoshihama, M., & Routté, I. (2022). Participatory action research in times of Coronavirus disease 2019: Adapting approaches with refugee-led community-based organizations. Progress in Community Health Partnerships: Research, Education, and Action, 16(2), 69-76.