Mohammed al-Refai
Andrew Trumbull
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Andrew Trumbull
When Syria’s dictatorship fell in early December, a celebration broke out almost 6,000 miles away in Toledo, Ohio. On the parking zone of a Kroger grocery store, households danced and sang to Syrian music. Girls ululated, and males wrapped themselves within the flag of their dwelling nation. Folks leaned on their automobile horns, expressing their pleasure on the finish of a regime that relied on brutality and terror as a way of governing Syria for greater than half a century and waged a civil battle that compelled thousands and thousands of individuals to grow to be refugees.
The primary time I visited Toledo to satisfy Syrian refugees was almost a decade in the past, on my very first reporting journey as a bunch of All Issues Thought of. On the time, a 22-year-old named Mohammed al-Refai had simply arrived within the metropolis of 265,000. His scenario was uncommon. After his household fled Syria throughout the border to Jordan, Mohammed received a visa to return to the USA. His mother and father and siblings didn’t. No one might clarify why; the State Division often retains households collectively.
So in Toledo in 2015, Mohammed settled into a gaggle home with some American roommates simply out of school who took him below their wing and referred to as him Moh. He started to study English and received a job at a halal butcher store. After I first met him, a number of the few English phrases he knew had been “chicken legs, chicken breast, goat, steak, lamb.”
Mohammed dreamed of visiting his household in Jordan, however after Donald Trump was first elected president, leaving the nation appeared like a foul concept. Trump had run on a platform of stopping Muslims from coming to the US. Mohammed was afraid that if he went to Jordan, he may not be allowed to return. “I need they be safe and close to me, my family, but I can’t do anything,” he advised me simply earlier than Trump’s first inauguration in 2017. “I feel bad for they not with me.”
Later that yr, the fellows on the group home referred to as me with an replace. “I have my green card!” Mohammed stated. The roommates threw him a celebration with a inexperienced cake. When he referred to as his mother and father in Jordan to share the excellent news, they cried and shouted. “Come right now, visit us!” his mom stated. However Trump had simply banned journey from a number of Muslim majority international locations, and so Mohammed sadly advised them he would not really feel protected visiting till he had a US passport.
He grew to become eligible to use for U.S. citizenship in February of 2020. However because the coronavirus shut every part down one month later, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Providers adopted go well with. It could be one other two years till he lastly took his citizenship examination in February of 2022. That afternoon, he joyfully referred to as me from outdoors the Anthony J. Celebrezze Federal Constructing in downtown Cleveland. “Yes! Yes! Yes! I’m so glad I am now American citizen!” he stated.
And some months later, I received a voice memo from Mohammed. “Hey my friend,” he stated, “I’m with my family in Jordan. I’ve been here two weeks.” It was the primary time he had seen his household in seven years. One of many roommates from Toledo made the journey with him.
So when Bashar al-Assad’s regime fell, I instantly considered Mohammed and gave him a name in Toledo. I requested the place he was when he heard about rebels taking on Damascus and he stated, “My dad and mom were watching the news.” At first I did not perceive. “Was your family just visiting from Jordan? Are they living in Ohio now?” I requested. He defined that his complete household — mother and father, brother, and sister — obtained visas to return to the US a couple of yr in the past. All of them reside collectively now. They nonetheless usually see the roommates Mohammed lived with for years.
Because the household gathered to look at individuals dancing within the streets of Damascus, Mohammed’s household cried tears of pleasure. He referred to as the McDonald’s the place he now works as a grill supervisor to say he would not be coming in that day. A WhatsApp group of Syrians in Toledo rapidly deliberate to satisfy on the Kroger parking zone for an impromptu celebration.
Mohammed advised me his household does not plan to return to Syria instantly. “I don’t know how long it will take to fix everything,” he stated. “Here it’s more safe … but maybe we’ll go visit back there.”
His household is from Daraa, a metropolis in southern Syria the place the revolution started in 2011. He nonetheless has buddies and family within the nation, together with an aunt and uncle who fled their dwelling in the course of the battle. “Now they can talk anything about Syria,” he says. “They’re not scared about anything.” They just lately returned dwelling. “They opened the house, they cleaned it,” Mohammed advised me.
After so a few years of uncertainty and separation from his household, residing along with his mother and father and siblings in Ohio feels surreal. “We got here and safe. No one killed. No one in jail. That was the dream,” he says. “And we find a good life in the United States.”
Mohammed says he may return to Syria in 10 or 20 years. However even when he does, “We will love America because she is saving us, and she took care of us.”
