After the Airlift: Examining the Afghan Refugee Crisis Post-Taliban Takeover

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About the Program: In this conclusion to the International Education Summit, Eric Schwartz of Refugees International will give a keynote address regarding the current state of the Afghan humanitarian and displacement crisis. As 2021 marks the 20th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks that led to the global War on Terror, learn more about how the U.S. is examining its obligations to the region following the chaos of the Taliban takeover of the government. This session will address how governments, the United Nations, and various humanitarian organizations have worked—and should work—together to respond to the needs of Afghans displaced within and outside of Afghanistan. Participants will learn more about the challenges that face refugees resettling in the United States and how they can advocate to ensure the human rights of refugees and migrants around the world. Mr. Schwartz will also highlight the factors that brought about the humanitarian and evacuation crises as well as make predictions on what issues and trends the refugee and humanitarian communities will face in the coming years.

About the Speaker: Yael Schacher is a senior U.S. advocate at Refugees International, where she focuses on U.S. asylum, U.S. refugee admissions, temporary protected status, and immigration practices that have refugee protection implications. Prior to joining Refugees International, Yael spent a decade researching the relationship between immigration and refugee policy for her forthcoming book on the history of asylum in the U.S. since the late nineteenth century. She has taught at the University of Connecticut and lectured on immigration history and refugee policy at Harvard Law School, the University of Minnesota, and numerous academic conferences and public forums. In recent years, Yael has focused on direct legal representation of behalf of those seeking asylum and other humanitarian statuses at the Connecticut Institute for Refugees and Immigrants. Most recently, Yael was a postdoctoral fellow at the University of Texas at Austin, where she combined historical research on asylum and advocacy on behalf of asylum seekers (with the law school’s immigration clinic and with the organization Justice for Our Neighbors). Yael has an M.A. in History and a Ph.D. in American Studies from Harvard University and a B.A. in literature from Columbia University.