Class News
Tom Susman ’64 visits Abu Dhabi to assist Afghan evacuees
April 15, 2022
Thomas Susman ’64 is Strategic Advisor on Governmental Affairs and Global Programs for the American Bar Association in Washington D.C.
Tom wrote:
Earlier this month I spent two weeks in Abu Dhabi with a team from the American Bar Association. Our goal was to connect with Afghan evacuees in the Emirates Humanitarian City (EHC), where over 10,000 Afghans had been flown between August and November of last year. While some have a pathway to the United States — and have started to be flown out in mid-April — most will need assistance and guidance to find a country that will accept them.
The ABA has an active domestic program to provide pro bono immigration attorneys for Afghans who reach the U.S. Our Afghan Response Project is now focusing on providing volunteer legal assistance to those evacuees remaining in EHC, which was the object of our trip to Abu Dhabi. We found ourselves whipsawed among the U.S. government, the United Arab Emirates government, and the NGOs who were responsible for bringing many of the evacuees to EHC. While we all shared a common goal of assisting the Afghan evacuees to find a landing spot in a host country, the bureaucracy, communication failures, and distrust amongst the responsible officials raised myriad challenges to our connecting directly with potential clients.
The evacuees in EHC are generously provided housing, food, clothing, and internet access by the UAE, but they remain confined to the premises. Little wonder that, after months of isolation, protests broke out, making the situation even more fraught for those responsible for their well-being and eventual movement out.
We were finally able to set up a process where our two volunteer immigration lawyers on the team were able to start screening a group of lawyers and judges we had identified in advance, though they did so remotely from offices we were allowed to use on the NYU Abu Dhabi campus — a collaborator with our project. The morning we left the country, ten days after arrival, we were told that we would finally have personal access to evacuees in EHC going forward.
Next step: secure funding to scale up our program for EHC and explore establishing similar programs in other countries where Afghans have been evacuated to.
PS: I routinely read your ’64 Class Notes to keep up with my colleagues. Their publications and accomplishments continue to amaze me, and I’ve seldom felt I had a project worthy of reporting. Until now.
Thomas M. Susman is ABA Director, Government Affairs Office, effective May 5. Susman, who is leaving a 27-year legislative and regulatory practice with the law firm of Ropes & Gray, has been active in the ABA throughout his career. Before joining Ropes & Gray, Susman served on Capitol Hill for more than eleven years. He was chief counsel to the Senate Subcommittee on Administrative Practice and Procedure, and General Counsel to the Antitrust Subcommittee and to the Senate Judiciary Committee.