Pima County Youth Employment Center
The county is teaming up with the American Job Center Network and bringing job opportunities to people who are 24 years old or younger. Included in what they’re offering are things such as job search assistance, paid internships, career counseling, in some cases tuition assistance, and tutoring youth who are still in High School. The youth center does weekly orientations – each Tuesday and Wednesday. We hear of the ‘great resignation’ - this is the flip side. A great opportunity for young people to get the training and guidance they need to enter the workforce. Please check out the flyer below if you know someone who might benefit from this.
 Racial Healing Day
A while back, I partnered with the mayor’s office on bringing a Resolution to the M&C acknowledging the importance of the National Day of Racial Healing. It’s an important statement that this governing body recognizes the need for a wide coming together, both nationally and regionally.
On Tuesday, January 18th, from 1 pm until 5 pm, there’ll be a webcast presented by the WK Kellogg Foundation honoring the Day of Racial Healing. The show will begin with presentations but will follow with discussion at 4 pm our time. You need to RSVP to sign up for the presentation - RSVP HERE.
And to join the follow-up discussion, Click Here. You’ll be asked for contact information – they'll use that to send you the link.
Judge Ahmad
KVOA’s Eric Fink ran this very important story last weekend. The woman who appears in it is Nilofar’s sponsor, Katy. Remember, Nilofar is Judge Ahmad’s wife. Katy worked in Afghanistan for several years as a project manager teaching literacy and numeracy to young girls. She is still very connected and therefore is still very familiar with the threats the people who we left behind are living under. You can watch the piece using this link.
Last week there were several changes to the effort I’m involved with in getting the Judge’s family reunified. But ahead of a brief update, I want to share this article from Politico that describes the conditions in Afghanistan. For many people, it fell off the radar screen once the images of Kabul were off the air. The Star hasn’t reached out for a follow-up since their short piece in the first week of December, showing the judge doing my swearing-in. For them and others, the short message is that things have only gotten worse for those left behind. And please note, nothing in the Politico article mentions people like Ahmad’s wife and daughter who are stuck in a 3rd country trying to get reunited as a family.
 A nurse checks on a child in a makeshift clinic at a settlement near Herat, Afghanistan, in December 2021. | Mstyslav Chernov/AP Photo
After months of the media ignoring the horrific humanitarian disaster unfolding in Afghanistan, the issue has suddenly stormed back into the news — with some taking aim at President JOE BIDEN for his role in the nation’s collapse.
Roughly 23 million of Afghanistan’s 39 million people are hungry, with most devoid of shelter and heat to survive the country’s brutal winter. A long-sputtering economy, drought, the pandemic’s persistence, and the Taliban’s gross mismanagement have plunged the country into more chaos and scarcity than before.
The situation is so dire that the United Nations this week made its largest-ever single-nation appeal for funding, calling on countries to provide $5 billion to those in need. "A full-blown humanitarian catastrophe looms. My message is urgent: don't shut the door on the people of Afghanistan," UN aid chief MARTIN GRIFFITHS said.
To its credit, the Biden administration hasn’t stood idly by. On Tuesday, the U.S. pledged more than $308 million in aid to Afghanistan, raising its total to $782 million since October. But prominent reporters, experts, and lawmakers argue more — much more — could be done, with some advocating for the president to drastically shift his Afghanistan policy.
On Monday, MSNBC’s CHRIS HAYES listed steps the administration could take now to alleviate the suffering of millions starving during a harsh winter.
“The U.S. government could release the $9.4 billion of Afghan government assets that were frozen last year. They could also ease the sanctions against the Taliban. They could encourage the international community to restart aid,” he said. While providing financial assistance to a Taliban-run government is hard to swallow, Hayes made sure to say, withholding it “produces zero positive geopolitical effect. Instead, it is brutal in terms of human cost.”
Hayes proceeded to call Biden’s policy “cruel, indefensible and horrific.”
The next day, LAUREL MILLER, formerly a top U.S. official on Afghanistan issues, wrote a New York Times op-ed arguing the administration was also to blame for Afghanistan’s meltdown.
“The United States should draw a distinction between the Taliban as former insurgents and the state they now control,” she wrote. “This starts by beginning to lift sanctions on the Taliban as a group (leaving sanctions on some individuals and an arms embargo in place); funding specific state functions in areas such as rural development, agriculture, electricity and local governance; and restoring central-bank operations to reconnect Afghanistan to the global financial system.”
And Wednesday, Sen. CHRIS MURPHY (D-Conn.), a Senate Foreign Relations Committee member, openly advocated for a shift in Afghanistan policy. “Congress should authorize more money” to Afghanistan in a way that helps the people but not the Taliban, he said on the Senate floor. “This humanitarian crisis could kill more Afghans than the past 20 years of war.”
We asked a senior administration official why the U.S. couldn’t at least unfreeze the reserves. One reason, the official said, is that “since Afghanistan imports far more than it exports, any foreign reserves that enter the Afghan economy will leave the country again to pay for imports.” What’s more, the status of the funds are “subject of ongoing litigation brought by certain victims of 9/11 and other terrorist attacks who hold judgments against the Taliban.”
As for relaxing sanctions, the official noted how the U.N. adopted a resolution drafted and led by the U.S. to establish a carveout for humanitarian assistance. Plus, the Treasury Department provided groups with broad authorizations to continue aiding and supporting Afghans.
"We are working closely with allies and partners and moving out as fast as possible on all options available to the international community to directly support the people of Afghanistan," a National Security Council spokesperson told us.
This morning, Secretary of State ANTONY BLINKEN noted he was “deeply, deeply concerned” about the plight of the Afghan people, describing the situation on the ground as “dire.”
“Even as we are determined to hold the Taliban to commitments it’s made … we also want to make sure we’re doing everything possible to help Afghan people who are in need,” Blinken told MSNBC. He added that the Treasury Department has made it “clear to countries and entities around the world that they can provide that assistance without fear of U.S. sanctions.”
“I want to find ways, if we can, to get some more liquidity into the economy, in ways that don’t go to the Taliban but do go to people, into their pockets, so they can provide for themselves,” Blinken added. “We’re very focused on this with the U.N., with the World Bank, with countries around the world. We want to make sure that, to the best of our ability, the Afghan people don’t suffer.
The reality is that Afghan refugees cannot wire money back to relatives if the only government-issued ID they have is from Afghanistan – an Afghan passport for example. That’s not a theoretical statement. I had to send money for Ahmad because Western Union wouldn’t accept his Afghanistan passport. Yes Mr. Blinkin, The situation is ‘dire.’ We have policies in place that are getting people killed.
Another publication most people don’t follow – but they do in D.C. - is ProPublica. This article clearly points out how broken and unaccountable our process for saving lives (refugee’s) has become.
Fakhruddin Akbari is allowing his full name to be published because he is certain he is going to die. Akbari, his wife and his 3-year-old daughter fled their home in Kabul, Afghanistan, two weeks ago. They’ve been hiding with friends in the city, living on bread and water.
He should be among the lucky ones.
Instead, Akbari fears the very thing he was hoping would be his salvation will now make him a target.
Two years ago, Akbari won a rare spot in the United States’ “visa lottery.” He was chosen at random from a pool of 23 million to get the chance to apply for one of 55,000 visas to immigrate to the U.S. The U.S. was supposed to have finished his case by last fall. The instructions when he registered promised as much. Either he would be safely en route to the U.S., or he would lose his chance and move on.
But with the final U.S. evacuation from Afghanistan just days away — and as Thursday’s bombings have added even more chaos at Kabul’s airport — Akbari has almost certainly lost his chance to get out.
He has already burned the letters of commendation his relatives received for their work with American contractors or allied militaries. The Taliban already know, he says, that he’s part of a pro-American family. His neighbors have told him they’ve been visited by strangers asking about him.
A March 2020 ban signed by President Donald Trump, citing a need to protect the American economy, prevented Akbari and visa lottery winners from entering the U.S. In response to a lawsuit by immigration lawyers, a federal judge ruled earlier this month that the government has to move ahead on processing thousands of last year’s lottery winners. But the U.S. has told the judge it can’t even start until fall 2022 at the earliest.
Several hundred Afghans are in the group. They may be the unluckiest winners in the visa lottery’s 30-year history.
The State Department did not respond to a request for comment before publication.
The lottery isn’t open to everyone. Winners must come from a country that hasn’t had much recent immigration to the U.S. Applicants for the visas must also submit biometric information, pass an interview and medical screening, and complete several security checks.
Nouman, an Afghan lottery winner who asked that his full name not be used over fear of the Taliban, spent months tracking down police documents from the Chinese town where he’d worked for a few years, to prove he had a clean record.
Those requirements are still far less restrictive than other ways to legally immigrate to the U.S., which generally require being closely related to a citizen or green-card holder or having a job offer from an American company. In Afghanistan, interest in the lottery is so great that Nouman said it took him two days to successfully log onto the swamped website where lottery results were posted.
But unlike other visas, diversity visas — the type lottery winners become eligible to receive — are on a tight and unvarying schedule.
Lottery winners are notified in the early summer. After submitting their full application, they can only be interviewed at the nearest U.S. consulate once the federal fiscal year begins on Oct. 1. Then the whole process has to be completed within a year. Eligibility for the visa doesn’t roll over.
Usually, most of the annual 55,000 visas have been handed out by that time. But last year, two things happened. First, in mid-March, consulates around the world shut down because of the pandemic. Two weeks later, Trump declared that letting in immigrants would hamper the recovery of the economy, and he signed the order barring most types of immigrants — including diversity visa holders.
When U.S. embassies and consulates began to reopen last summer, a State Department cable disclosed as part of the lawsuit shows they were instructed to handle diversity visas last, even if they met the narrow exemptions to the ban.
Giving someone a visa is legally distinct from letting them enter the U.S., and critics of Trump’s actions — including a group of lawyers who filed lawsuits over the bans — argued that even if the ban were legal, consulates could still prepare visas so that recipients could come after the ban was rescinded, which President Joe Biden did this February.
In early September last year, Judge Amit Mehta of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia agreed with the argument and ordered the government to make up for lost time, prioritizing diversity visa applicants ahead of everyone else for the last 26 days of the fiscal year.
The State Department’s bureaucracy took a few days to get into gear. Then it began a process that turned out to be far from efficient.
Officials compiled a spreadsheet of applicants who had joined the now-consolidated suit and were supposed to be prioritized, but it was riddled with misspelled names and incorrect case numbers. In a court declaration, a State Department official from a different office said the spreadsheet took “many queries” from his team to fix.
Once consulates and embassies got the correct names, they rushed appointments, often giving applicants little notice. The Kabul embassy wasn’t participating at all, so any Afghan appointments were set up in different countries — or continents.
At least three Afghan immigrants, including Nouman, were scheduled for interviews in Cameroon. All three were given one day’s notice to get there. (Nouman, at least, was able to get a later appointment in Islamabad, Pakistan.)
Many more weren’t given interviews at all. According to court filings, some State Department employees told applicants who called the office handling the cases that if they hadn’t officially joined the lawsuit, “you lost your chance” — which wasn’t true. When a COVID-19 outbreak hit the office and workers went remote, the help line shut down entirely.
When the fiscal year ended on Sept. 30, 2020, more than 40,000 of the 55,000 diversity visas were still unused — and several hundred Afghans were still waiting. Less than 20% of the Afghan lottery winners had gotten visas by the deadline.
That day, Mehta had ordered the State Department to reserve 9,505 slots, based on his estimate of how many diversity visas could have been processed if COVID-19 had existed but the ban didn’t. When the case finally concluded this month, he declared that the government would indeed have to process those visas.
That opinion came down on Aug. 17, two days after Kabul fell.
In a response filed to Mehta on Thursday, the government offered to start processing last year’s visas in October 2022. One reason given for the proposed delay was that processing older visas is “an unprecedented computing demand that will require the Department to implement wide-ranging hardware and software modifications.” Another was that processing diversity visas would take resources away from dealing with the crisis in Afghanistan.
It went unmentioned that some people are affected by both.
Lawyers for the affected immigrants made an emergency filing this week, with testimony from several Afghans worried that they would be targeted by the Taliban precisely because they had sought to immigrate to the U.S. They’re hoping the court will order expedited consideration for Afghan lottery winners.
The lawyers are moving to appeal for the court to order that Afghans get priority in the visa process. The plaintiffs’ lawyers had asked the government to consent to their filing the request. The government’s response — after several days of silence, delaying the filing — was to call it an “unnecessary distraction.”
In a meeting by phone on Monday, according to two people on the call, another government attorney complained that he’d been getting emails from applicants “all over the world” and blamed their lawyers for posting his address online. One of those emails was a desperate cry for help from Akbari. “We are totally hopeless and every knock of the door seems like a call to death for us,” Akbari wrote. “Please help us.”
In the time since sending that email, Akbari and his family have made two attempts to get to Kabul’s Hamid Karzai International Airport. The first time, he says, they were beaten back by the Taliban. The second time he was stopped by the United States. The Marines guarding the airport said they couldn’t enter. The reason? They did not have visas.
I have made contact with the author of that ProPublica story as well as other out-of-market media. With all of that as a backdrop, all of the congressional offices I’ve been in touch with point to “protocols” they have to follow, and the State Department says their Afghan team “counsels patience.” Ahmad tells me his daily phone conversations with his wife are very emotional – as we would expect. Combining fear, separation, food shortage, confinement, and uncertainty will do that. We need to do better than being told to be patient.
In contact with Katy last week, I learned more details of conditions on the ground in Afghanistan. One young woman has a 12-year-old daughter. They cannot move around the city freely without fear of being abducted into a forced marriage with a Taliban. Protocols and patience are not going to remedy that.
For the lucky ones who have arrived, most are stuck in hotels because of the housing market. That means the donations you’ve been bringing are slow in getting out to those families – they can’t store much in a hotel room. Through our partnership with the Muslim Community Center of Tucson, we’re finding ways to assist the families or store some of the material until it can end up in the hands of those in need. On Saturday, I had 20-25 refugees here taking advantage of the donations you’ve provided. I counted 4 young kids – one who was just months old. We remain grateful for your generosity – as do those we’ve been able to reach. And this week, a special thanks to the guys over at Whisky del Bac for the two truckloads of donated items. All of it was in homes after our Saturday visit. The community we live in is wonderfully giving.
Erratic Driving – Courtesy of Arizona Motor Vehicle Division
Do you remember in the olden days when you took your car in for an emissions check – the attendant would put the probe into the tailpipe, you’d start the car, and they’d measure what was coming out? Boom – done. Well, if you haven’t taken your car in for a while, you’ll be in for a surprise.
A while back, a lady called the office asking if she was being scammed by MVD when they had her plug a sensor into her dashboard to measure emissions. Something about waiting for the yellow light to turn green before taking the car back in. It was new to me – until my bride had to take our car in, and we did the same. It’s called the “onboard diagnostic” (OBD) gizmo, and according to our mechanic, it’s legit. What strikes me as off the wall is the directions MVD gives for making it ‘read’ correctly. We’ve driven our car for weeks and hundreds of miles, and the stupid little light won’t change colors. Read these directions – we might be accidentally skipping a step.
If you were following someone on the road who was doing what MVD says you’re supposed to do, you’d think they were driving impaired. Here are the steps you’re supposed to follow:
A) Turn off all accessories (A/C, heater, radio, defroster, cruise control) - for the record, this feels like saying if I leave the light on in the kitchen, the toilet won’t flush in the bathroom. We’re measuring for tailpipe emissions, not the radio.
B) Be sure the ‘check engine’ light is not on
C) Engine temperature must be cool – cooled down overnight
D) Have the fuel level between ¼ and ¾ full
E) Drive between 20mph and 30mph for 22 minutes, allowing speed to vary
F) Stop and idle for 40 seconds, gradually accelerate to 55mph
G) Maintain 55mph for 4 minutes using steady throttle input
H) Stop and idle for 30 seconds, then accelerate to 30mph
I) Maintain 30mph for 12 minutes
J) Repeat steps G and H 4 times
Note: It is recommended an assistant accompanies the driver to read and inform the driver the next step and monitor the time that is in the above generic drive cycle as recommended.
It’s not at all clear where the State folks think someone will be able to accomplish that feat. You can’t go 20 on the freeway, and you shouldn’t go 55 inside the city. And if you do try it inside the city, remember that our new police chief is focused on traffic behavior, so be ready with your excuses when you get pulled over.
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I’m all for looking at transit as it relates to climate change, but the State needs to take a look at that recipe. Only the government could concoct something like that and think it made sense.
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Omicron Surge
The recent recommendation to move to N95 masks is based on the extremely higher infection rates from Omicron that we’re seeing. Along with that recommendation is a warning to be aware of counterfeit N95’s. To be sure you’re getting the real deal, look for a Model #, the institutes logo, and an approval # - shown in what I’ve circled in red.
 Someone’s always out to make a buck – and in this case, at the expense of others’ health.
Omicron continues to fill hospitals. Yes, it’s less deadly than Delta. But the sheer number of infections means there are still significant impacts on our health care system. And on families mourning the loss of loved ones.
These graphs validate the impact this current variant is having. There’s too much faith being placed in the notion that Delta was worse, therefore we can let our guard down. The data do not bear that out.
 The data also continue to demonstrate a very clear divide between the health impacts COVID is having on people based on their vaccination status. If you are vaccinated, you are not immune. But if you are vaccinated, you likely won’t end up like this.
 Above I had the hospitalization status for New York City. Here’s a little deeper dive into those data. It’s still the unvaccinated people who are showing up in hospital settings.
 And it’s still the unvaccinated who are dying. Here’s New York City and Seattle – people have ignored the science at their peril. Sadly though, when they infect others around them, the ‘my body/my choice’ idea goes out the window.
 In Pima County, we’re seeing higher case counts than at any other time since COVID began. This graph from the Arizona Department of Health Services website gives a pretty clear picture of that. The last couple of weeks aren’t shown as peaking due to reporting time lags.
 And with all that bad news, there is a sign in some other cities that this surge in cases might be topping off. These charts seem to show a pleateau in at least these 4 major cities. Health experts have been saying this might happen in mid-to-late January. They’re also saying up our game when it comes to mask protection, large crowds, and staying away from others if you’ve got symptoms or if you’ve been around others who have tested positive for COVID. Spreading the virus is one thing. Giving it room to continue to evolve and form a new variant is still a huge concern.
 Flu Season
My niece works in a local hospital. Last week she told my bride that she had her first ICU flu patient of the season. Before COVID, we all knew that the flu killed people every year. That’s why medical experts pushed the annual flu vaccinations. What we didn’t hear were claims of those recommendations reflecting fake science. The flu season is on us – this map shows where the spread is most extreme. Arizona is now in the ‘high flu activity’ level. Have you had your flu shot?
 COVID Case Counts
The last month of 2021 ended with a slight downward trend in new case counts here in Pima County. That was pre-Omicron. Here are those last 4 weeks of the year.
Week of 11/29 - 3,639 new cases
Week of 12/6 - 2,965 new cases
Week of 12/13 - 2,493 new cases
Week of 12/20 - 2,022 new cases
We begin 2022 with a change of course.
Week of 12/27 - 4,229 new cases
Week of January 2nd - 10,433 new cases
Week of 1/10 - 15,472 new cases
Regardless of whether or not other cities are seeing a plateau in Omicron, Pima County continues to see an increase in numbers. Remember, those are COVID-positive cases. Nothing in those data shows the flu. Everything in those data implicates an impact on our health care professionals. That’s doctors, nurses, physical therapists, physician assistants, technicians, orderlies, intake staff, custodial staff – everybody who steps foot in a health care institution is the collateral damage of all you who choose your liberty over the pandemic.
Islamic Center
A few weeks ago, there was vandalism and an assault at the Islamic Center on Tyndall by the UA. I had pictures of the assailants in a recent newsletter. Last weekend the truck driven by one of the group members reappeared. This is the truck, along with the tag. Note that it’s expired – yet one more thing for TPD to charge when they catch the people involved. There’s some reason to believe the owner might be living in one of the nearby student housing towers. If you see the truck or know whose it is, please call 88-CRIME, or let us know here at the ward office, and we’ll pass along your tip anonymously.
  Harvard Global Health Institute
I apologize for the rather boring risk level map. Unless you like red, there’s not much to say for it. As I shared up above, Omicron is what’s driving the case counts. And I know people who have had it with symptoms far beyond the ‘it’s just like a bad cold’ line. If you choose to take the risk for yourself, you don’t have the right to inflict that choice on others you will come into contact with who may have underlying vulnerabilities you’re unaware of.
 Two weeks ago, our 7 days moving average for new cases was 41 per 100,000 population. The average case count was 430 per day. Last week those numbers jumped to 111 and 1,167. Below is the current data for Pima County. I suppose the good news is with all of these new cases, this strain of the virus may soon be running short on targets. Bur for now, tell that to our overwhelmed nursing staff and anyone else working in our hospitals.
 If you are experiencing any symptoms, or if you’ve been in contact with somebody who you know has tested positive for COVID, you should be tested. Omicron is highly contagious. This is a listing of the Pima County testing centers. They’re free – but you must make an appointment.
 In Pima County, we’ve now passed 3,300 deaths due to COVID since this all started. Statewide we’re over 25,000 COVID fatalities. If you care enough to have been vaccinated, you probably read these numbers with a touch of sadness. If you don’t care enough to have been vaccinated, you likely stopped reading long before now.
And here’s my usual closing – the current Arizona COVID count by county. Pima County passed 200,000 COVID cases last week.
Sincerely,
Steve Kozachik
Council Member, Ward 6
ward6@tucsonaz.gov
City of Tucson Resources
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