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Amal Saleh and her husband, Abdulhamit Saleh, wait at the airport in Istanbul, Turkey, for their flight to the U.S. in July 2015. The Syrian couple fled their home in Aleppo as the peak of the country's civil war but are now living in South Florida after winning refugee status for themselves and their four children.(Photo: Family handout)
When the bombs started falling near her family's<span style="color: Red;">*</span>apartment building in Aleppo, Syria, Amal Saleh was too scared to leave their home.
Now, after a 21-month journey that scattered her<span style="color: Red;">*</span>family around the world and left one of them dead, the Syrian refugee finds herself scared to leave her new home near Fort Lauderdale. This time, it's the Americans she's scared of.
Saleh said she's watched in horror as Americans have focused their fears following the Paris terrorist attacks on Syrian refugees trying to find safety.<span style="color: Red;">*</span>"The same way that Americans are afraid of us, now we are afraid of them," said Saleh, 45, from the home she shares with her husband and their four teenage children. "I would tell them that we, the Syrian people, are very peaceful. These are children, women and elderly who have no blame for what's happening.<span style="color: Red;">*</span>We have been vetted very thoroughly.
"We deserve to live."
The Salehs don't even have an Internet connection in their home yet, but it's been impossible for them to miss the widespread reaction around the country to people trying to follow in their footsteps.
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House Speaker Paul Ryan, R-Wis., has called for a "pause" in President Obama's plan to resettle 10,000 Syrian refugees in the U.S. by next year and to enhance the screening process for would-be refugees.<span style="color: Red;">*</span>At least 31 governors have written to the administration asking that Syrian refugees not be sent to their states. And members of Congress demanded a confidential briefing from the administration to outline the vetting process for those refugees.
"I am very curious to see what the administration thinks is thorough vetting and thorough interviews," Rep. Jason Chaffetz, R-Utah, chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, said on Fox News on Wednesday. "Generally these happen in maybe less than half an hour, these discussions. It's not good enough."
Saleh said the vetting process her family went through was far more rigorous.
Their screening took place<span style="color: Red;">*</span>in Istanbul, Turkey. After the family home in Aleppo was destroyed — one they had bought just a few weeks before — they paid about $200 each for a smuggler to take them to the Turkish border. Her husband, who suffered multiple strokes after Syria's civil war erupted,<span style="color: Red;">*</span>was unable to walk by that point. After waiting for a Turkish police patrol to move past, the family rushed across the border, a friend carrying her husband on his back.
They reached a small city and bought bus tickets to Istanbul, where they spent the next 21 months trying to find a home.
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Saleh said the family had three different interviews that lasted several hours each with the Office of United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, the group that has been screening<span style="color: Red;">*</span>refugees across Europe and helps place them in host countries. After that, she was sent to another building for three more interviews with different officials.
Each time, Saleh said, people questioned them about their entire family history. Much of the questioning focused on whether they had any ties to terrorist organizations, whether they supported them, whether they gave them financial support.
"They even asked us if we ever supported a terrorist ... with a plate of food," she said.
Sometimes, the family was questioned together. Sometimes, each member of the family was separated and interrogated individually. She said many of the questions made it clear that her interviewers had checked their backstory and asked about specifics about their lives in Syria.<span style="color: Red;">*</span>"They asked us so many details so many times that it's almost impossible for anyone to get into this country unless they're very well-vetted," she said.
Doured Daghistani, a Syria native who has lived in South Florida for more than 30 years, said he hears the same story from other Syrian refugees fleeing the war-torn country. Despite that intense process that can last up to two years, Daghistani said he knew a backlash was coming the moment he heard about the Paris terrorist attacks.
The physician and board member of the Syrian American Council said he had barely started mourning the attacks before his mind wandered to the expected response from Americans.<span style="color: Red;">*</span>"After World War II, we put the Japanese in camps, as if they were responsible for what happened in Pearl Harbor. After 9-11, Muslims got marginalized in this country," he said. "So yes, I'm anxious."
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Saleh simply hopes that America's politicians learn about the vetting process and understand what refugees like her have gone through to reach the U.S.
Her family is now scattered around the world. She has three brothers in Germany, two sisters in Sweden, one sister in Lebanon, another in Turkey, and her parents still in Aleppo, too old and too tired to run.<span style="color: Red;">*</span>Just last month, she learned that her 27-year-old niece drowned when a boat carrying her family and other refugees capsized in the Mediterranean Sea.
Just like so many other recent arrivals to the U.S., the family is struggling to get by. Her husband receives<span style="color: Red;">*</span>medical treatment for the series of strokes he experienced while fleeing the country. The war exacerbated her medical troubles as well.<span style="color: Red;">*</span>Saleh was diagnosed with breast cancer and underwent a mastectomy, chemotherapy and radiation treatments. But as her medications became increasingly difficult to find amid<span style="color: Red;">*</span>the civil war, the cancer spread to her bones and her lungs.
Now, the family is relying on their eldest daughter, the only one who speaks any English, to navigate their new homeland.<span style="color: Red;">*</span>The family has been helped by the International Catholic Migration Commission, which paid for their rent and other basics for their first three months in the U.S. Syrian-Americans in South Florida are now taking over, helping the family with groceries, utility bills and a laptop for the family.
Saleh repeatedly praises God for her family's good fortune and says she looks forward to the day that her family can become legal permanent residents and eventually U.S. citizens. But for now, she won't even go outside out of fear that her neighbors will hear her speak or figure out that a Syrian family is living next door. She panics whenever she thinks about her children starting in their new schools and her classmates figure out their history.
"We used to go for a walk, the whole family," she said. "Even if it was dark, I used to feel safe. Now, I don't dare do that anymore."
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