CLEVELAND, Ohio – Abdul Terkawi has been working hard on a house in Solon to get it ready for his wife, Houda, and four children, who were preparing to leave Jordan for a new life in America, after the family fled from their home in war-torn Syria.
He’s been sanding and staining wood floors, painting walls and ceilings, cleaning everything. She sold most of the furniture in her apartment, pulled the kids out of school and made sure they learned some English.
House almost ready but family stranded overseas
They were ready to re-unite, in eager anticipation, last month.
Then, President Donald Trump signed an executive order limiting immigration that has put all those plans and preparation on hold for an unknown period of time.
Terkawi, 50, a green-card holder who runs a business here and in Jordan, recently sat in his kitchen and sighed. “I’m very sad, because I make everything for my family here,” he said.
His sister, Laila Ezziddin, who bought the house for Terkawi, said his wife had passed all the medical and security screening and was told last November that she and her children had been accepted for immigration. The Catholic Charities resettlement office in Cleveland is handling the arrangements.
“She’s devastated, very upset,” Ezziddin said. “Her apartment lease expired and she is staying with a friend for the time being. Now everything is on hold. We don’t know what is going to happen.”
She said Trump’s executive order came as a shock. “It was a very, very big surprise,” she sad. “He didn’t look at all the facts before he made this decision.”
Ezziddin said Terkawi’s wife was told by immigration officials that if she applied for refugee status, the process of coming here could be quicker. “Legally, he has a green card. He should be able to bring his wife and kids to join him,” she added.
Terkawi came to this country 20 years ago and has made frequent return trips to Syria and then Jordan to visit his family. Now, with the changes in immigration, he’s afraid to leave for fear he won’t be able to return to the U.S.
Since the onset of the new immigration policy, some 872 people initially denied entry into the U.S. will be allowed into the country, according to news reports.
“Hopefully, something will change in the law to where she is legally supposed to come,” Ezziddin said. “Call the Congress to change this law. This law is not going to make us safer because these people have been vetted for two years. They were not smuggling in. They were coming the legal way.”
However, one of the provisions of the order bars Syrian refugees indefinitely. Citizens of seven predominantly Muslin countries are barred for 90 days, and all refugees for 120 days.
Other Northeast Ohioans wonder if their plans for family reunifications will be affected by the new policy.
Felix Tuunganwe, 36, of Cleveland, has been waiting for almost seven years to reunite with his two children from Mozambique, in southeast Africa.
The case worker at the US Together refugee resettlement agency in Cleveland said his son Jonh Wilondja and daughter Eliza Mwanuke, ages 21 and 15, are due to fly here sometime between December and March. Both of his children from a previous marriage have cleared all medical and security screening, he said.
But the recently imposed 120-day ban on all refugee coming to the U.S. may have stymied those plans.
Tuunganwe is a U.S. citizen now after coming here six years ago, and is living with his wife, Shaona, and two daughters who were born here.
“I don’t know what to do. I have been ready to bring them here for a long, long time,” he said. “This is very painful. I’m feeling sad. I called them (his children) yesterday and they were crying.”
Malwila Jossy Kasole, 41, who came to Cleveland in 2013 after fleeing from the Democratic Republic of the Congo, was expecting his 14-year-old son, Rajabu, to fly from a refugee camp in Tanzania to Cleveland this month.
“I never see him since he was born,” said Kasole, who is also waiting for his wife, Tenda, to come here from Tanzania.
He noted that when he called his to tell him about the new immigration policy, “he feels very bad. Very bad. He fall down when I tell him he can’t come, and they took him to a hospital.”
Kasole has three other sons here, and works at a local car parts manufacturer. He said he enjoys being here because “I like my job and I’m living in peace.”
When asked what he thought of the new immigration policy, Kasole said he could understand efforts to keep terrorists out of the U.S., but “some persons are victims of the law because they are not terrorists. Like my son. He is a victim of the law.”
For now, Kasole said all he can do is hope.
And hope is what keeps Abdul Terkawi refurbishing that four-bedroom house for his family, even though the future is uncertain.
As his sister noted, “He hopes they will look into this decision with a heart. He wants America safe, but the decision was done so quickly.
“He left his country because of war,” she added. “Now, he just wants peace.”
Our editors found this article on this site using Google and regenerated it for our readers.
