The Middletown Press (Middletown, CT)
Refugees find welcome in city
Fear that the gates will be closed to other refugees
Hewad Jhan Hemat served as an interpreter for the U.S. Army in his native Afghanistan until the terrorists threatened him and killed his uncle.
Shihabeldin was tortured in Sudan, his wrists were bound and he was blindfolded as a gun was held to his head. He faced a similar fate when he escaped to Egypt.
Sarah, a U.S. citizen from Iraq, will graduate in May from Southern Connecticut State University with a master’s degree in women’s studies. Her thesis focuses on Syrian refugee women.
All three were refugees. All face a degree of danger if they return to their native countries, or have families back home that do. That’s why Shihabeldin and Sarah asked that their last names and picture not be publicized, despite becoming permanent U.S. residents.
Thousands more refugees hope to get a visa to this country, waiting two or more years in refugee camps, under threat in their home countries or in unfamiliar lands. But, at least for the next four months, no refugees will be allowed into the United States, not even from nations like Colombia or the Democratic Republic of Congo, according to Chris George, executive director of Integrated Refugee and Immigrant Services, which sponsored 530 refugee arrivals in Connecticut in 2016.
The shutdown, which was delayed a week so that those refugees already in transit could reach their destinations, is part of President Donald Trump’s executive order temporarily banning immigration from seven majority-Muslim countries.
FROM PAGE 1 IRIS’s last family landed in New Haven late Thursday night. George called the suspension “the worst assault on the refugee-resettlement program we have ever seen.”
On Friday night, a federal judge stayed Trump’s order nationwide, and the Department of Homeland Security stopped enforcing it. The Justice Department appealed the stay Saturday.
Once the resettlement program is restarted, “the biggest concern is the executive order has slashed the total number of refugees to be welcome in the United States from 110,000 to 50,000,” George said. As many as 15,000 families will be left waiting for a ticket to safety and freedom.
“That’s a huge reduction, and it comes at a time when the world is witnessing the worst refugee disaster ever,” George said. According to the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees, there are 21.3 million refugees worldwide. Syrians, who are indefinitely barred from entering the United States, number 4.9 million.