75 Afghan Children Arrive In Chicago, Around 500 Afghans Expected

CHICAGO — Around 75 unaccompanied children from Afghanistan arrived in Chicago on Wednesday, city officials confirmed.

Their arrival was announced during a Wednesday morning City Council meeting on immigrant and refugee rights. The city plans to welcome about 500 Afghans to be resettled in Chicago over the next few weeks, according to the director of the Office of New Americans.

Following U.S. Military withdrawal from the country, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security said the children were traveling from Qatar to Chicago, where they will be reunited with a vetted relative. Some children, however, will remain in the custody of the Office of Refugee Resettlement, a spokesperson said.

As part of a promise from Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot, all eligible refugees will receive a COVID-19 vaccine.

A spokesman for Lightfoot said in a social media statement that the city's Office of Emergency Management and Communications is working to get the children where they need to go.

"Chicago will always be a welcoming home to those displaced and we will work with our State and federal partners to ensure we support the Afghanistan minors who arrived [Wednesday]," Cesar Rodriguez wrote in a statement. "They have given up their homes, their families, their lives as they know them for a chance to survive."

Wednesday's committee hearing was to discuss the possibility of a formal condemnation of gender-based violence in Afghanistan now that the Taliban has re-seized power.