Hope grows stronger for reunion of families
Albany’s Syrians more optimistic for change under Biden presidency
Days into his presidency, President Donald Trump enacted a travel ban on people from seven Muslim-majority countries. The impact of Trump’s executive order, which has since expanded to a total of 13 countries, has been drastic, with issuing of visas dropping as much as 79 percent for certain countries.
Trump also slashed refugee intake: 6,557 Syrians were resettled in the U.S. in fiscal year 2017, but just 481 were resettled in fiscal year 2020. The policy shift led to the separation of many families who were in the process of building new lives in the U.S.
But there is renewed hope families will be reunited with the election of Joe Biden, who has promised to increase refugee intake and repeal Trump’s travel ban when he takes office in January.
Following are stories of three area residents whose world for the last four years has been turned upside down when the ban was instituted amid a war
“We ended up getting separated”
It was supposed to be no more than three months.
Ibrahim Alkahraman arrived in the U.S. with his wife and five of his sons Jan. 4, 2017. His daughter and other two sons stayed behind in Jordan, waiting for their parents to sort out their visas from the States.
What was supposed to be a three-month separation for the Syrian refugee family turned into one that has lasted nearly four years. Trump enacted the Muslim ban just three weeks after Alkahraman arrived in the U.S. — and he says he was one of the last Syrian families settled in Albany.
“The whole world closed in our face. One’s kids, family…” Alkahraman choked up, his voice fading as he spoke Arabic. “Why would one leave Syria? So as to not separate the family because of war. And we ended up getting separated.”
The Alkahramans’ life used to be peaceful, safe.
Alkahraman worked in agriculture and retail, and had a beautiful vineyard is his hometown of al-bab, an Aleppan city in northwest Syria, roughly 20 miles from the border with Turkey. His children were in school, his eldest son studying Arabic at the University of Damascus.
Then 2011 hit, and with it the Arab Spring. What were once anti-government protests spiraled into a war with the regime of Syrian President Bashar al-assad cracking down on protesters.
The conflict and violence trickled closer and closer to Alkahraman’s home. Then one day, he received word that his eldest son had been captured and severely beaten by the Mukhabarat, or Military Intelligence Directorate, while walking home from campus. Meanwhile, three of Alkahraman’s sons had been drafted to join the army. He knew he needed to protect his boys.
Alkahraman took a total of three trips to and from Jordan in 2012 to get four of his sons situated away from Syria’s dangers and difficulty. He, his wife and four other children were the last of the family to escape Syria — experiencing more bombs, food and gas shortages and the infiltration of the terrorist group Islamic State of Iraq and Syria before finally finding refuge themselves alongside their family in Amman, Jordan.
In the years since Alkahraman has been separated from three of his children, he has missed marriages and the births of his grandchildren. The separation has taken an emotional toll on his wife, who has been suffering from mental illness amid the uncertainty. Yet, there’s a glimmer of hope.
“When we first heard about Biden’s promise to repeal the (travel ban), we were really, really happy,” Alkahraman said. “The world reopened.”
“My daughter is over there struggling”
Jamal Almoussa said the concern for the welfare of the daughter he left behind in Syria grew deeper after the rest of the family left.
With no one there to defend or check on Mariam, Almoussa said his son-in-law has taken advantage — beating her, sometimes locking her in the bathroom and even threatening to kill her.
And until the travel ban is lifted, Almoussa, who is from Aleppo, can’t bring his eldest daughter to join him in Albany — where she will be safe.
When the war began in Syria, sleep became a foreign concept for Almoussa’s family of nine — himself, his wife and their seven kids. The sounds of bombs and rockets, and the conviction that they would be the next victims, kept them up all hours of the night. Neighbors died in front of them. Basic goods — bread and drinking water — were nearly impossible to come by.
Leaving became the only option. Almoussa and his family fled to Antep, near Turkey’s border, in 2012.
“I never imagined that something like this would happen in my life,” Almoussa said in Arabic. “I thought we were going to stay living in Syria, and I would work in my shoe factory, and my kids would study in Syria, and I had a house in Syria. We never thought there would be a war.”
Little did Almoussa know that leaving Syria was just the beginning of the challenges and surprises life would throw at him.
Two months after arriving to Antep, Almoussa and his wife discovered their newborn daughter had three benign lumps in her heart. She would need a heart transplant — but could not be placed on Turkey’s donor waiting list as a foreigner. The U.S. became their only option, and the entire family, except for Mariam, arrived to their new home on Jan. 19, 2017.
The plan was for Mariam, then a married adult, to follow the rest of her family after they sorted out her U.S. visa. Then the travel ban was enacted. Today, Biden’s promise to repeal the ban is Almoussa and his wife’s only hope.
“We’re living here and I feel like I’m going to kill myself because my daughter is over there struggling and we can’t do anything about it,” Almoussa said. “We just want to get her away from her husband. Inshallah, if everything works out, my daughter will be able to come.”
“My dream is that all the family will come together one day”
Ilham Almahamid has held her breath with every call, preparing herself for the worst: That this call could be the one that goes unanswered.
She was hopeful when the revolution first began in her home country of Syria, watching from her Slingerlands home as citizens made demands for a democracy. Then the government crackdown launched, and with it the violence. Almahamid feared for five of her siblings that remain in Syria — two in Damascus and three in Daraa.
“From there it was total panic that my family would get bombed,” she said.
Almahamid, a U.S. citizen and who has been living in the States since 1991, quickly applied for visas for her siblings in 2012. But the waiting period took five years, ending just after the travel ban was instated.
Her siblings were stuck in Syria for the foreseeable future. Even her sister, who was suffering from a punctured lung, could not secure a medical visa due to the executive order.
“It’s a feeling that you’re discriminated against, that you’re not treated as a human being, that you are bullied with no proof of any wrongdoing,” she said. “This was one of the actions that really made me feel that, boy, America is in danger of losing its freedom.”
Before the ban, when Syrian refugees began arriving in Albany in 2016, Almahamid threw herself into making them feel at home. What started off as an informal initiative turned into New York 4 Syrian Refugees, a 501(c) (3) organization.
“It’s really hard to leave your country. It’s like a tree you take out and try to plant somewhere else — you are re-rooted,” Almahamid said. “At least we can help them excel and be part of the community, help them adapt and integrate.”
Through the organization, Almahamid and volunteers have created a community for the refugees, helping them with medical appointments and school, finding apartments and furniture, supporting business ventures such as the women’s catering business Syrian Delights, organizing gatherings in PRE-COVID-19 days.
Still, Almahamid is waiting for when she can be reunited with her nine siblings — particularly the ones in Syria who she has not seen for nearly a decade. It is a hope that has been rekindled with Biden’s election.
“My dream is that all the family will come together one day and we will have homes near each other,” she said. “Then I will feel that I have roots.”