Syrians in Houston rebuke refugee controversy

Luke Skywalker · Nov 20, 2015

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[h=4]Syrians in Houston rebuke refugee controversy[/h]HOUSTON -- Souleman Jarrah*wishes the TV newscasts would stop flashing images of Syrian refugees forging rivers or running across borders and show more of the Syrians he knows: lawyers, doctors, entrepreneurs.

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Eddie Jarrah, left, and Souleman Jarrah run the Mazaj Hookah Bar & Grill in Houston. Originally from Damascus, the brothers oppose the restrictions being proposed on new Syrian refugees.(Photo: Rick Jervis)

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There are millions of Syrians who are fleeing from persecution and death. Watch this video for some fast facts about the crisis in Syria. Sean Heisey, York Daily Record

HOUSTON -- Souleman Jarrah*wishes the TV newscasts would stop flashing images of Syrian refugees forging rivers or running across borders and show more of the Syrians he knows: lawyers, doctors, entrepreneurs.
“Syrian people are good people, hardworking people,” said Jarrah, 47, originally from Damascus and now a restaurant owner living in Houston. “We’ve never had a problem here.”
News that 30 state governors and members of Congress want to restrict*Syrian refugees from entering the U.S. was particularly jarring in this Texan city, which resettles more Syrian refugees than any other U.S. city: 115 since 2011, according to the State Department.
President Obama plans to bring up to 10,000 Syrian refugees into the USA over the next year. Roughly 4 million Syrians have fled the ongoing violence sparked by a civil war and terror by the group known as ISIS. The White House said 2,174 Syrian refugees have been admitted to the United States since Sept. 11, 2001, and “not a single one has been arrested or deported on terrorism-related grounds.”
But in the wake of last week’s Paris terror attacks, some in Congress say even that is too much. The House on Thursday passed a bill, 289-137, to halt the admission of Syrian refugees until they undergo a more stringent vetting process. The bill still needs Senate*approval, though Obama has said he would veto it.
Syrians have resettled into Houston for decades. While the presence of Lebanese, Vietnamese, Korean and other ethnic groups are more succinctly felt in the scores of cafes, bakeries and restaurants throughout the city, Syrians' presence is less overt.
Sara Kauffman, area director at the Refugee Services of Texas in Houston, said Syrians make up a small portion of the scores of refugees that relocate to Houston each year. This past fiscal year, her office processed 185 refugees, of which 21 were Syrian, she said.
Syrian refugees are mostly*families with small children and have gone through several rounds of rigorous*screenings and interviews by groups such as*the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), the International Organization for Migration (IOM), Homeland Security and the State Department before reaching the U.S., Kauffman said. The vetting process often takes several years, she said.
“There’s a lot of confusion about the resettlement program just because people don’t know what it is,” Kauffman said. “There is a very formal bureaucracy with long background checks, screening and vetting process.”
The refugees have often spent more than*a year in camps in places like Turkey and*Jordan before beginning the vetting process by*U.S. officials, said Jim Townsend, a spokesman with Catholic Charities of the Archdiocese of Galveston-Houston, which helps relocate refugees. Thus, an*ISIS operative hoping to enter the U.S. as a refugee*could be locked in the process for several years, he said. Also, the UNHCR regularly*assigns the refugee their host country, meaning there's no guarantee the applicant winds up where they want to.
“It doesn’t seem the most efficient way to infiltrate other countries,” Townsend said.

Ahmed Mohammad Wajak, left, speaks with Chalak Qahraman, a case manager with Refugee Services of Texas, about his relocation in Houston. Wajak fled the fighting in his native Homs, Syria, four years ago.*(Photo: Rick Jervis)

Ahmed Mohammad Wajak, 26, a travel and tourism student from Homs, in western Syria, fled his country*four years ago when the fighting between jihadists, Syrian opposition and government forces there became too intense. He relocated to Saudi Arabia then Jordan, where he applied for refugee status. He spent more than two years shuttling between interviews with UNHCR, IOM, the State Department and*Homeland Security. Finally, he was told he would be going to the U.S. He arrived in Houston last month.
"It was a surprise for me when they said, 'Do you want to go to America?'"*he said through an interpreter.
Wajak said he is taking intensive English classes to learn the language, then wants to find a job and later have his mom and three*sisters join him in Houston. They, too,*fled Syria and are living in Jordan.
The new*efforts to block Syrians from coming to the USA*are disheartening, he said. “We, as Syrians, have lost so much to the terrorists,” Wajak said, adding that several family members have been killed in the fighting. “Unfortunately, they’re judging us and putting us all in the same category.”
Bassel Nounou, 46, arrived to Houston from Damascus in February. His Damascus import business allowed him to enter with a B1 business visa, and he’s hired a lawyer to help him get his wife and kids to join him, as well. Nounou, who now works as an administrator at the El-Farouq Mosque in southwest Houston, said U.S. agents should be extra vigilant about who gets into the country, but assuming everyone from Syria is a terrorist is wrong.
“They have to investigate each one,” Nounou said. “But stop them? No.”
Jarrah arrived in the USA in 2001 and worked for a while as a sleep disorder technician in Milwaukee. When that company folded, he pooled his savings with*his two brothers and opened a restaurant in Houston. Today, he and his brothers run the Mazaj Hookah Bar and Grill, a 400-seat open-air eatery serving ethnic Syrian dishes and hookahs, a traditional Middle Eastern waterpipe.
The Paris attacks stunned and sickened him, as it did his family and friends. Denying Syrian refugees entry to the USA is a mistake, he said.
“In every country there are twisted people and there are normal people,” Jarrah said. “These [refugees], they suffered already and everybody in this world is trying to make them suffer more.”
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Syrians in Houston rebuke refugee controversy

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