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Refugee ban leaves an apartment empty

Hannah Sparling
hsparling@enquirer.com
Refugee resettlement caseworker for Catholic Charities of Southwest Ohio Stephanie Dagher explains the new challenges facing refugee and immigrant families at an apartment in the Roselawn neighborhood of Cincinnati, on Wednesday, Feb. 1, 2017. The apartment had been prepared for a mother and her child, refugees from Syria, to move in over the weekend, but due to the president's executive order to stop refugee and immigrant resettlement, the family was denied entry to the United States.

Apartment No. 4 sits empty.

There are dishes in a kitchen cabinet, unopened toiletries on the bathroom sink, some dining chairs but no table.

This was to be the new home for a family of Syrian refugees, a 38-year-old mother and her daughters, ages 3 and 4. They were supposed to arrive in Cincinnati on Monday, but after President Donald Trump’s Executive Order on immigration, they were stuck in Turkey.

“I imagine (what she felt) when she heard she cannot come,” said Stephanie Dagher, standing in what would have been the family’s kitchen. Dagher, herself an immigrant from Lebanon, is a refugee resettlement caseworker for Catholic Charities Southwest Ohio, the official resettlement agency for the region.

“I really empathize with them,” Dagher said. “The struggle. The hardships to come here.”

On January 27, Trump signed an Executive Order that shuts down the U.S. refugee resettlement program for 120 days; suspends for three months entry for any resident from Iraq, Syria, Iran, Sudan, Libya, Somalia or Yemen; and bans, indefinitely, refugees from Syria.

The order is facing numerous legal challenges and massive protests. Trump and others have accused protestors of “fake tears” and “phony outrage.” But while that battle plays out nationwide, the apartment in Roselawn sits empty. The first month’s rent was already paid by Catholic Charities.

A child's room is set up awaiting a resident at an apartment in the Roselawn neighborhood of Cincinnati, on Wednesday, Feb. 1, 2017. The apartment had been prepared for a mother and her child, refugees from Syria, to move in over the weekend, but due to the president's executive order to stop refugee and immigrant resettlement, the family was denied entry to the United States.

Syrians here are on edge, Dagher said. They’re afraid they’ll be kicked out of the country, and they’re worried about their family members who live elsewhere. Some were counting on loved ones following them to Ohio, but now that seems impossible.

Shortly after Trump's announcement, Dagher went to a Syrian refugee couple's home to pick up the wife for a doctor's appointment. She knocked on the door, but no one answered.

She knocked again. Still no answer. Odd, she thought.

It turned out the wife had blockaded the door with a chair and wasn’t answering to anyone. She was afraid of being deported.

“We try to comfort them as much as we can,” Dagher said. “… They’re not here to make trouble. They’re here for a better life.”

The fight is fierce                                                                                          

Cincinnati’s first Syrian refugees from the current crisis arrived on Oct. 20, 2015. They are a family of nine, a mother, father and seven children. Ahlam Alhamoud, the mother, just got her driver's license. The family is doing well, she said, and while she is aware of Trump's order, she's not focusing on it. She has hope refugees will be able to find new homes in Canada or Europe if they can't come here.

At school, the Alhamoud children talked briefly about the order with their teachers. They say, "Don't be scared," said Hasan, 14. "You have people behind you."

Ahlam Alhamoud, 36, swipes through photos taken on an iPhone by her daughter Rimas, 5, (right) while Zina, 7, peeks over from her homework at their home in Cincinnati, on Monday, Jan. 30, 2017. The Alhamoud family moved to Cincinnati as refugees from Syria in November 2015.

To date, Cincinnati has resettled 60 Syrians. They remain a small percentage of the local refugee population, but numbers were expected to increase as more Syrians made their way through the U.S.’ years-long vetting process. A specific number was not available, but Cincinnati was expecting more Syrians in the coming months.

“It takes two years to vet the families. They were just starting to arrive,” said Ted Bergh, Catholic Charities Southwest Ohio executive director.

Bergh called Trump’s order “heartless and cruel.” He is trying to get messages to the refugees who were supposed to arrive in Cincinnati this past week, but he's not sure if that will be possible. The way resettlement works, he said, no one in Cincinnati has contact with the refugees until they land.

Bergh wants to tell them how sorry he is and encourage them to keep hope.

“Maybe we can take them later,” he said. “… I feel very bad that we as Americans have done this to people who are fleeing for their lives.”

Ashraf Traboulsi, of the local Syrian American Foundation, said the order punishes victims. The U.S. vetting process is already extremely rigorous, Traboulsi said.

“These are the people who are in need of help rather than being stereotyped as a terrorist,” he said. “I really wish people would understand the plight of the refugees.”

But Mark Krikorian, executive director of the Washington, D.C-based Center for Immigration studies, thinks the entire U.S. immigration system needs to be overhauled. Until that happens, he said, Trump’s order makes sense as an interim measure.

And while it’s sad to hear and read stories of refugees, it’s reasonable to stop immigration from Syria, Krikorian said. The refugees aren't being sent back to war zones, he said; they're already in refugee camps in places like Turkey or Jordan.

“The risk is too great,” Krikorian said. “Since Syrians are such a big part of the potential refugee flow – and since it’s such a hotbed for jihadists – it makes sense to put the brakes on that indefinitely.”

U.S. Rep. Bill Johnson, R-Marietta, points to polls that show the majority of Americans agree with Trump’s decision. The U.S. remains a welcoming nation, Johnson said, but the federal government owes its people safety and security.

“I think the roll-out of the order could have been smoother,” Johnson said, “but that doesn’t mean it wasn’t the proper action to take.”

‘This is not in our hands’

In an apartment complex north of Downtown, Ahmad and Mohamed Al Mealak sit in a living room. The brothers arrived in Cincinnati just two days before Christmas, with their wives and, among them, four children.

They were surprised by Trump’s order, Mohamed said. He’s not sure what it means. And he’s afraid.

“We’ve only been here a month; we don’t know anything yet,” he said in Arabic, through an interpreter. “Can we still go home and visit our families in Jordan and Syria? We’re just worried.”

The Al-Mealak brothers lived in Damascus before fleeing to Jordan in 2013, using their passports to cross the border legally. They stayed in Jordan until just a few months ago, and now, they’re trying to figure out life here.

They try not to worry about politics, Ahmad said, and they try to stay positive. They repeat a common Arabic refrain: “La hawla wala quwwata illa billah.” There is no power but God.

They focus on what they can control.

“This is not in our hands,” Ahmed said. “What are we going to do?”