Kayla Mueller’s friends speak out against Trump campaign

A group of students at Northern Arizona University had a protest planned to demonstrate against genocide in the war-scarred Darfur region of Sudan.

Then a snowstorm shut down the school, and the students decided to postpone the protest.

Except for Kayla Mueller.

The young activist wrapped herself in a thick coat, pulled up her hood and went out anyway, her “Save Darfur” sign barely visible in the driving sleet.

Even then, in 2007 — years before she would become an international aid worker, a hostage, a headline name and a character in a presidential campaign — human rights were that important to Kayla Mueller.

“Kayla was always an advocate for people who were suffering persecution and violence,” said Attie O’Brien, a friend of Kayla’s from college.

It’s why O’Brien, and what she describes as a coalition of Kayla’s friends, decided to put out a statement about the repeated use of Kayla’s name by President Donald Trump and his administration.

Including O’Brien, 35 people who identified themselves as Kayla’s friends have signed on to the statement, which was sent to news organizations including The Arizona Republic this week.

Kayla, an aid worker from Prescott, had been working with Syrian refugees in Turkey in 2013 when she crossed into Syria to visit the city of Aleppo and was taken hostage.

She was held hostage for 18 months before ISIS said in February 2015 she had died. Her captors claimed she had been killed in Syria as a result of Jordanian airstrikes, but others held with her had been publicly executed.

She was 26 at the time.

“Kayla Mueller dedicated her life to the rights and dignity of oppressed people around the world,” a “Coalition of Kayla’s Friends” said in the statement.

“Donald Trump’s behavior and rhetoric stand in stark contrast to the values Kayla fought for every day — empathy, compassion, integrity, connection, and justice.”

Kayla’s parents, Carl and Marsha Mueller, became strong advocates of Donald Trump during his first presidential campaign.

The Muellers contend the Obama administration did not do enough to rescue their daughter, despite Obama authorizing an unsuccessful raid in 2014. They chafed at the government’s policy against paying ransom for hostages, which has since been partially revised.

Their commitment to Trump was strengthened after the U.S., during his administration, brought charges against two men believed to have assisted in holding Kayla captive.

In August, the Muellers appeared at the 2020 Republican National Convention and attended the Oct. 7 vice-presidential debate as guests of Mike Pence.

“If Donald Trump had been president when Kayla was captured, she would be here today,” Carl Mueller said during the couple’s RNC speech.

O’Brien contends it is not her death that should define her but how she lived.

“I feel for the people who only know Kayla in death and focus on that,” said Marilyn Poirier, who is a retired advisor at NAU’s Center for International Education and signed the statement.

“Kayla was filled with compassion beyond belief, loved foreign language, gave thoughtful birthday presents, liked meeting people from other countries, and honored justice for all — and meant it,” she said.

O’Brien met Kayla in 2007 when she and other students started an organization to protest genocide in Darfur. Kayla showed up at the second meeting with a stack of petitions and suggested they join the national Save Darfur Coalition, which she had volunteered for in high school.

“We were impressed,” O’Brien said. They would learn that was Kayla: dedicated, knowledgeable, determined and always one step ahead.

“She was a force,” O’Brien said. Kayla helped lead Students Taking Action Now: Darfur and wrote articles about Darfur for the college paper. She organized vigils for refugees and trips to Washington, D.C., to attend genocide conferences.

After Kayla graduated in 2009, she worked with aid groups in India, Israel and the Palestinian territories. Then in December 2012, the plight of families fleeing the violence in Syria drew her to Turkey, where she worked with the aid group Support to Life.

O’Brien said Kayla’s work is in sharp contrast to the policies of the Trump administration. Kayla had been saving to go back to college to get a master’s degree, either in conflict resolution or peace studies.

For example, O’Brien said, she, Kayla and others trained with No More Deaths, a humanitarian organization dedicated to preventing deaths of migrants in the desert, learning how to treat blisters and where to leave water jugs.

“She didn’t want borders to stand in the way of people living safe and free lives,” O’Brien said.

She thinks Kayla would have been horrified to know migrant children were being separated from their parents near the same area where they trained.

When Kayla returned to Arizona in 2011, she worked for an HIV-AIDS clinic and volunteered with veterans and at a women’s shelter. O’Brien noted that Trump, according to anonymous sources in one high-profile report, called veterans “losers” and “suckers.”

“We want to focus on the lessons we learned from witnessing Kayla’s life,” O’Brien said. “We have come to the conclusion that the way her name is being used today is not in alignment with what she stood for or believed in.”

“The causes she worked for were bigger than any of us, yet she was humble in her work and found joy in the smallest things,” said Emily Waldron, who met Kayla when they were freshmen in college. Now a public health worker in Tucson, she signed the statement.

“Kayla would want us to continue her legacy by demonstrating kindness and compassion to those most vulnerable and working as a global community to build a more just and peaceful world,” Waldron said.

Ruby Crews grew up with Kayla in Prescott, but they grew close when they were in Istanbul in 2012.

“Kayla was joyful but also fought hard for things she believed in,” Crews said.

They talked for hours about the work Kayla was doing, and it inspired Crews to join the Peace Corps when she finished her degree in Middle Eastern politics and then enroll in law school.

Crews was in the Peace Corps in Burkina Faso, Africa, when a friend texted her a news story about Kayla’s death. She was heartbroken.

Kayla accomplished so much good in the world, which is why Crews said she signed the statement.

“Everything has been about avenging her death instead of celebrating her life and her legacy,” said Crews, who now works in a legal aid firm in Denver.

Kayla wouldn’t have wanted that, she said.

Crews thinks of Kayla’s parents often. “I just hold them in love all the time and hope they find comfort and healing,” she said.

But she cannot imagine Kayla would approve of the Trump administration, particular when its policies banned the Syrian refugees she had worked so hard to help.

Kayla wasn’t judgmental, said Jenn Grove, who mentored Kayla in college and is a nurse at a senior living community in Flagstaff. She signed the statement.

“She just wanted the world to be a better place,” Grove said. “So to invoke her name in these partisan debates that are about shaming, finger-pointing and posturing is just wrong. Those things are the opposite of what Kayla lived to do and what she died for.

Contacted at their Prescott home, the Muellers declined to comment about the statement.

Their public advocacy for Trump dates to October 2016, when Carl Mueller spoke at a campaign rally at the Phoenix Convention Center, saying, “We need a leader who will take a stand.”

The Muellers became more vocal about their support of Trump after the October 2019 military operation that killed Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, the terrorist leader believed to be Kayla’s captor and rapist. The operation had been named for Kayla.

“I still say Kayla should be here, and if Obama had been as decisive as Presi

dent Trump, maybe she would have been,” Marsha Mueller said then.

The Muellers attended Trump’s 2020 State of the Union address, where the president spoke of Kayla’s work and the military mission that killed her captor.

“Carl and Marsha,” Trump said, “America’s warriors never forgot Kayla, and neither will we.”

The Muellers started a foundation not long after Kayla’s death. With money raised through Kayla’s Hands, the Muellers supported causes that were important to their daughter: children, women, veterans, education. They later dissolved the foundation.

O’Brien spoke at a memorial for her friend in February 2015 outside the United Christian Ministry on campus, of which Kayla had been a part.

That summer, O’Brien volunteered in Haiti with the nonprofit Naturopaths Without Borders and over the years continued to do work that would make Kayla proud, she said. She lives in Portland, Oregon, where she is working on a doctoral degree in naturopathic medicine.

Deciding to put out the statement was not easy.

“We’re not happy about the fact that we had to do this, but we decided it was important enough to honor her by speaking up as her friends,” O’Brien said.

Kayla was diplomatic. She wanted to understand the viewpoints of those who disagreed with her. Her goal was to educate, not create divides.