Des Moines Sun

The Iowa business community appears to be settling around the idea of several hundred Afghan refugees soon being in the state to resettle.

“Just found out today that an Afghan that I served with is one of the Afghan refugees that's being resettled in Iowa,” Iowa businessman and former National Guard veteran who served in Afghanistan and Iraq Ryan O’Leary tweeted. “Can't wait to go catch up and see him & his family.” 

At the end of the day, Lutheran Services of Iowa Vice President of Marketing and Communications Bethany Kohoutek estimated that the number of new residents could total in the hundreds.

“At the moment, we are authorized to resettle up to 300 individuals in Des Moines and 150 in Sioux City,” she said, Radio Iowa reported Nov. 1. “And then 75 in other spots in rural Iowa.”

Kohoutek said the only thing now standing between the refugees officially being able to call Iowa home is a processing and vetting process that’s taking place at U.S. military bases.

“It’s an extremely thorough process,” she said, adding that the job of finding housing for all the refugees could prove to be just as challenging.

“We’re really also looking to the community for any connections they might have,” she said. “Property managers, individuals who might have a duplex or apartment complexes — any and all solutions to at least get folks temporarily situated.”

In all, upwards of 50,000 Afghans are expected to soon be allowed in the U.S. in the wake of the fall of Kabul in what Department of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas hails as the government’s "enduring commitment" to help people who aided the American war effort and others who are now thought to be vulnerable under Taliban rule, Sioux City Journal reported.