U.S. shuts door on desperate friends, family of many here

Images of airport outrage around the globe greeted President Donald Trump’s executive order blocking refugees and citizens of seven Middle Eastern countries. But away from the crowds, in homes and coffee shops, a note of desperation and sense of betrayal can be heard in the reaction of immigrants already here.

“This is my home,” said Modesto Junior College math major Reza Lakestani, 21, whose family immigrated from Iran in 2011 when he was 16. “This is really hard for me to understand. I’ve done nothing wrong.”

Lakestani’s father had been jailed as a political dissident in Iran. “He was in jail for opposing the government. After the 2009 election (in Iran), he was afraid of a lot more than being in jail. He applied for refugee status and we came here,” Lakestani said. “Right now I can’t leave – well, I can leave, but I can’t come back.”

“I think it’s really separating families from each other,” said fellow Iranian immigrant Ramtin Zamiri, 23. “If you’re going to fight terrorism, there are better ways.”

Zamiri’s aunt was scheduled to come to the United States this month, her visa granted after a 12-year wait. “She finally got the visa, and now she’s banned. Her visa will expire (before the 90 days is up). She may have to apply all over again,” said Zamiri, who became a U.S. citizen in November. It took 20 years for Zamiri’s immediate family to get a visa to come to America.

In Turlock, the large Assyrian community is calling the fallout from the order a humanitarian crisis. Assyrians lived in Mesopotamia – what is now Iran, Iraq, Syria, Lebanon and Turkey – and have long faced persecution for their Christian beliefs. Assyrian refugees fled to the region as the Islamic Revolution swept Iran and as secular violence was unleashed in Iraq. Any now fleeing the Syrian civil war face the limbo of the order.

“It’s unfortunate. Assyrian Christians are again becoming collateral damage,” said Carmen Morad of the Assyrian American Civic Club of Turlock. “It just breaks my heart – even though refugees go through 36 months of screening. They are the most vetted people ever to enter this country. Right now all they want is safety and the ability to worship without danger.”

For Afghan interpreter Wahidullah Wahed, the order means U.S. armed forces are leaving good men behind. Wahed walked alongside Army soldiers and special ops teams, calling out translations during community meetings and making first contact with residents during door-to-door raids.

“You’re facing a lot of people. Your face gets recognized,” said Wahed, who arrived in the United States on Jan. 17 on a special immigrant visa granted to those who risked their lives to help U.S. troops. “I barely got in,” he said. “If they cancel this program, if they don’t get (other linguists) out, they’re going to be killing them.”

The executive order enacted Jan. 27 blocks refugees from any country for 120 days, and Syrian refugees indefinitely. It caps 2017 refugees at 50,000, less than half the number pledged by the previous administration. Regular immigrants from seven majority Muslim countries – Iran, Iraq, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria and Yemen – will have to wait 90 days. It does allow for case-by-case reviews and exemptions for undue hardship.

The delays are described in the order as necessary to draft a new immigration process and implement a biometric entry-exit tracking system, such as fingerprints or iris scans, for all foreigners. While the order does not actually ban Muslims, it does say the new rules must give priority to minority religions from those majority Muslim nations, most of whom would be Christian. (Find the full order, with reporter notes, at www.NPR.org.)

Democrats in Congress came out forcefully against the order. One, Rep. Jim Costa of Fresno, is supporting a Los Banos man’s fight to be reunited with his daughter. Eman Ali, 12, of Yemen had her immigrant visa in hand when Trump signed the order, leaving her stranded while her father, Ahmed Ali, a naturalized U.S. citizen, tries to secure her passage.

Rep. Jerry McNerney, D-Stockton, called the order a destructive policy. “It unfairly targets individuals based on their religion and country of origin, hurting both refugees who are fleeing persecution and others who have been valuable aides to our military in the fight against terrorism. This policy has already started tearing apart families and will hurt our national security by giving terrorist groups a significant recruiting tool,” McNerney said in a statement.

“I agree with the pause on entry from these countries of concern, as I did under the previous administration,” said Rep. Jeff Denham, R-Turlock, via email. He also has tweeted. “The safety and security of our communities always come first, but the way this recent executive order is playing out has created a lot of uncertainty and unintended consequences. As we have seen with previous administrations, EOs (executive orders) are not the way to resolve ongoing problems.”

Denham said he is working with green card holders, and others who have passed background checks to reunite with their families, and urged constituents to call his office for assistance.

Trump’s order may push long-stalled congressional action on immigration reform forward. Dozens of bills already are in the pipeline, including one to promote better electronic screening at borders.

“I continue to believe that we must secure our border, and I support building the wall, amongst many other fixes,” Denham wrote. Among the bills he has authored is one he has proposed before to create a faster path to citizenship for those who serve in the military. His ENLIST (Encourage New Legalized Immigrants to Start Training) Act, HR 60, was reintroduced Jan. 3.

Asked what he would say to concerns raised by Wahed about fellow interpreters, Denham said, “As a veteran myself, I would say, ‘Thank you for your service to our country.’ I have worked with many of these brave interpreters in Afghanistan and while I was serving in the Gulf War. I share his concerns and am encouraged that individuals with (special immigrant visas) have been deemed to be in the national interest, making them eligible for entry on a case-by-case basis.”

Wahed first applied to the SIV program in 2009, as a single man. Interview after interview, polygraph tests and counterintelligence screenings were part of the vetting process that at last sent him stateside as a married man with a 5-year-old son and 1-year-old daughter. His widowed mother remains in Afghanistan. He said he fears for her but had to get his family to safety.

“I want to have a better life. I want to sleep without worry somebody’s going to knock on my door and kill me and my family,” Wahed said, sitting in a Modesto coffee shop. Despite the danger, he is weighing a career with the Army. “I want to do something useful,” he said.

Before leaving Afghanistan, Wahed supervised up to 85 linguists helping the Americans. The work of a linguist meant moving house to house, town to town, not seeing his family for months at a time to keep them safe from Taliban reprisals. Many co-workers and friends fled after getting “night letters,” threatening notes left on doors, or phone calls from Taliban members who somehow got their numbers.

Wahed, who speaks Urdu, Hindi, Pashto, Dari and Farsi, started working with U.S. Army troops in 2004 when he was 17. “As you know, we (Afghans) have been through a lot. The Americans were there to protect us. They were being killed because of us. We wanted to help,” he said.

Hired when he came of age, he was on duty at the front gate of the U.S. base in Bagram in 2007 when a suicide bomber detonated himself only 6 feet away. The blast killed 23 and wounded 20. Wahed spent more than two months in a coma, lost a kidney, and the open wounds in his abdomen took a year to heal.

“As a Muslim, I believe all things happen from the law of God, but it was the U.S. Army hospital that saved me. If they wouldn’t be there, I would be dead. That’s something I can never forget in my life,” Wahed said. When he recovered, he returned to work, this time beside troops in the field.

“They were professionals. Personally, I felt more secure with those troops than standing at a gate. I knew that they got my back. There was no fear – we were trying to save lives,” he said. “Where they were going, there were all bad people, but still they wanted to save lives.”

Wahed struggles to reconcile the American ethos of doing good he has known with the Trump order.

“Since I was born, I knew right from wrong, like my left or right hand,” he said. “America is already great by helping other countries for human rights against dictatorship, global terror and keeping their promises. Now they want to turn their back on those who stood on their side and let them be killed.”

This story was originally published February 2, 2017 at 6:52 PM with the headline "U.S. shuts door on desperate friends, family of many here."