Private companies, nonprofits working behind the scenes help Americans stranded abroad

Private companies, nonprofit organizations and enterprising individuals are helping the State Department aid stranded Americans who face closing windows to return to the U.S. as countries tighten their borders in the battle against COVID-19.

These behind-the-scenes, grassroots efforts bloomed in the first days of border closures, as the State Department and U.S. embassies abroad were caught off guard and unprepared to assist tens of thousands of stranded travelers.

“I will confess, the thought that we would have to run evacuations from every region of the world simultaneously was not something we had gamed out,” Ian Brownlee, the principal deputy assistant secretary for the Bureau of Consular Affairs on COVID-19 told CBS on Saturday.

The State Department, which has helped more than 40,000 U.S. citizens return home since the end of January, is still tracking an estimated 22,000 Americans across the world looking to get home, but those numbers change daily as commercial flights cancel on short notice.

On Friday, for example, Americans on the last flight leaving Moscow for New York were turned around on the runway after a last-minute decision by the Russian government to end international travel because of the coronavirus.

An estimated 20 million Americans were overseas when countries — including the U.S. — began to shut their borders to international travel with the rapid rise of coronavirus cases globally.

Dale Buckner, CEO of Global Guardian, said his private travel security company has expanded its services to help stranded travelers amidst the unprecedented border closures. His company, which specializes in emergency evacuations, has access to planes and funds to get them off the ground quickly for passengers willing to pay and governments allowing permission to travel.

“We still have operations pending in Iraq, Morocco, Honduras, Peru, Mexico, UAE, New Zealand and Canada,” he told The Hill.

Many stranded Americans were shocked, frustrated and angry over what they described as complete abandonment by the State Department in the early days of the border closure crisis.

Yet they were also hesitant to go with travel options outside the U.S. government, fearful of scams and viewing State Department-chartered flights as more secure.

“A lot of people are scared,” said Valerie Edmondson Bolaños, founder of the nonprofit Warrior Angels Rescue which has been working over the past three weeks to help with evacuations of the thousands of Americans who were stranded in Peru.

“They feel like they are at the mercy of the U.S. government.”

The State Department has helped repatriate almost 4,500 Americans from Peru since the Peruvian government ended international travel on March 16, but the country has proved one of the most challenging to evacuate U.S. citizens.

Miscommunication between the U.S. and Peruvian governments and a lack of staff on the ground on both the Peruvian and American side are just some of the known problems that have hampered efforts to evacuate Americans.

It’s the only country where the State Department has so far announced it needed to dispatch extra consular staff and a senior diplomat from Washington to run ground operations, sending Julie Chung, principal deputy assistant secretary for the Bureau Of Western Hemisphere Affairs, nearly 10 days after the border closures.

Hundreds of Americans are still stuck in Peru and the State Department is continuing to work to evacuate them, but said it cannot guarantee that repatriation flights will continue indefinitely.

Tina Kuo, from Houston, spent over a week fielding different options to get herself and two children out of Peru, arriving in the U.S. on March 23 by taking a flight chartered by a local tour company, paying a little over $2,500 for the three tickets.

Kuo said she heard of the chartered flight among a group chat of thousands of stranded travelers that they organized themselves on the messaging app Telegram. She said other travelers were worried it was a scam because the tour company asked for the money up front.

“But at this point my main goal was to get my kids home,” she told The Hill.

“I had pretty much 90 minutes to wire the money,” she said. “Not everybody has the luxury to be able to do that in cash. Some people are waiting for repatriation planes because they honestly don’t have the cash, out of pocket, to pay a charter company.”

Evacuation flights organized by the State Department are not free for American citizens, and travelers are required to sign a promissory note to reimburse the U.S. government for the cost of the ticket.

Americans evacuated from Morocco, for example, were told the cost of their flights would amount to roughly $1,485. But travelers in Peru report they signed promissory notes that listed no price for the flight.

Yet travelers appear to feel a greater sense of security traveling with the U.S. government over outside organizers.

Bolaños, of the nonprofit Warrior Angels Rescue, who became active in helping Americans stuck in Peru in the early days of disorganization from the embassy, said travelers wouldn’t trust her organization until she could prove the U.S. government endorsed her work.

“I asked the embassy to basically legitimize us in the eyes of the people stuck in Peru, so that we could do our job better,” she said. The embassy sent out an email saying they were working in coordination with Warrior Angels Rescue, easing concerns for Bolaños to collect identifying information and build travel manifests.

“It’s reasonable to be cautious in giving away your information,” she said. “But also do some research before you write something off as a scam, and especially before they tell everybody else that it’s a scam.”

Buckner, meanwhile, said his company was able to get the U.S. Embassy in Honduras to endorse his company’s efforts and directed some 320 Americans to register with them for repatriation flights. 

And Brittany Garvin-Albury, a South Carolina resident working to help organize charter flights for Americans stuck abroad, said social media posts by the U.S. Embassy in India accusing her of running a scam has hurt her credibility and ended her efforts to help stranded travelers. The posts were taken down without explanation. 

Of the 22,000 Americans the State Department is tracking abroad, many of them are in South and Central Asia and Africa.

Some travelers, however, are opting to shelter in place, Brownlee, of the State Department, told reporters last week.

“We have also found an increasing number of people who have decided that, all things considered, they’d just as soon hunker down where they are,” he said.