Resettled in
Vermont O
n September 16, about a month after harrowing images circulated from Afghanistan documenting the collapse of its government under the Taliban, Governor Phil Scott announced that Vermont would welcome one hundred Afghan refugees to resettle in the Green Mountain State. Since then, that number has grown to upwards of 175. Depending on your relationship to Vermont, this news may surprise you. The second least populated state behind Wyoming and the second whitest state behind Maine—not to mention its notorious winters—Vermont may not seem like an obvious place to resettle families and individuals fleeing from diverse conflicts around the world. But it’s part of a long tradition—or rather, it’s a return to a long tradition by the state. In the past forty years, an estimated 8,000 refugees have resettled in Vermont—particularly in the seventeen square miles that surround the University of Vermont and comprise the cities of Burlington and Winooski within Chittenden County. To put that number into context of current times, 386 refugees resettled in Vermont in 2016—no small feat for a little state like ours. But before the pandemic hit in 2019, only 114 people were resettled. In 2020, that number plummeted to 23. “What had happened between 2016 and 2020 had been a pretty brutal evisceration of the existing refugee program,” says Pablo Bose, director of the University’s Global and Regional Studies Program, Gund Institute Fellow, and expert on refugees and migration. The wave of Afghans coming now to Vermont—which will be at least four times the size of last years’ refugees—signals not only a sea change in global migration policy, but also that the “Welcome” sign in the Green Mountain State is still up, and its doors still open to the new voices and experiences of our neighbors around the world.
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UVM MAGAZINE
Story by Kaitie Catania • Photos by Andy Duback
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