900 REFUGEES - The governor announced Wednesday that there are around 900 refugees from Afghanistan in the state of Utah. He said he's proud of the people who have worked to pull together resources and support for the refugee families.
“To put all of this together so quickly it was breathtaking to watch,” Governor Spencer Cox said. “We are proud of the good work that they're continued continuing to do.”
Refugees who have flooded to Utah in the past few months expressed they're gratitude for the generosity of the state.“Overall, the process which was which happened was completely surreal and unpredictable," said Saida Emami, a refugee whose entire family was brought to Utah."We're just trying to take each step one day at a time because we're still learning the culture we're still learning and meeting the new people.
“We were able to to work together to really bring resources to the table from the private and the public sector,” said Asha Parekh from the Department of Workforce Services and refugee services. “We are able to make this work more smoothly.”For some refugees, Utah is already starting to feel like home.
“We have some friends also now so that's really amazing," Emami said."It's a good feeling recovering...and [it's] really nice here seeing this really gives me a lot of help.”"It's definitely something I'm proud of," he said."I would be lying if I said I didn't lose any sleep because I did lose some sleep over this one. It was a very big number and so I am very proud of the people who did all of the work. I'm not taking any of the credit.