As Trump takes office, refugees nervously await clearer policies
With Donald Trump taking office Friday, asylum seekers and refugees to the U.S. -- long portrayed as sinister bogeyman while the president-elect was on the campaign trail -- are anxiously awaiting clarity on their future.
“We always know that these things, we should not take them for granted,” Ali Tehrani, a political activist and refugee from Iran, told CBS News. Tehrani was granted asylum in the U.S. a few years ago after he publicly contested the results of Iran’s 2009 presidential election as rigged.
“Unfortunately, Trump’s campaign made a political weapon” out of refugees, he said. “And now we’ve been to a very dangerous path and we’re not very clear what will be the next step.”
Maikel Nabil Sanad, a 31-year-old writer and activist who moved to the U.S. in 2014 seeking asylum after he suffered political persecution in his native Egypt, also counts himself among those wary of what the future will bring for refugees.
“I’m a person who was tortured in my home country,” Nabil told CBS, relaying the time he spent jailed after he participated in the Egyptian revolution. “The idea of being sent back to Egypt is a scary idea...and the lack of knowledge about my future for a long time is totally uncomfortable. I think everyone who’s fleeing conflict, everyone who’s fleeing war, everyone who’s fleeing torture and oppression, feels fear as long as their asylum is hanging.”
These were prevalent thoughts for the refugees that gathered at Washington, D.C.’s Sixth & I synagogue Tuesday, where a so-called Refugee Ball was staged earlier this week.
The “ball” -- organized by the attorneys at Dzubow & Pilcher, a low-bono firm that specializes in refugee and asylum cases -- was a boisterous party where refugees were the featured musical performers, artists, and food vendors. An Iranian rapper took the stage that night, along with Sudanese percussionists and a local immigration lawyer who moonlighted as a jazz singer. The dinner spread was a smorgasbord of Ethiopian injera, South Asian momos, and Middle Eastern ma’amoul cookies for dessert.
But the outwardly festive ball had tense undercurrents, fueled by Mr. Trump’s past statements about refugees and his inauguration to the presidency Friday.
“A lot of our clients are from the Middle East and I think a lot of people were feeling worried,” said Sameen Ahmadnia, a Dzubow & Pilcher attorney who first pitched the idea of throwing an alternative ball to coincide with Mr. Trump’s inauguration week. “They had heard things concerning Muslim registries and [asked] what does this mean for my family who is not yet with me? I’m applying for asylum but my family is still in Afghanistan?”
Unlike some of the campaign promises that have been scaled back since his election win, Mr. Trump hasn’t not modified his stance on the refugee crisis. During the campaign, he repeatedly warned that Syrian refugees could be “Trojan horses” for terrorists intent on harming the U.S. Mr. Trump hammered away at the issue after the Paris slaughter in November 2015, when it was revealed that one attacker held a Syrian passport.
And the president-elect’s latest statements have done little to reassure asylum seekers.
To the Times of London earlier this month, Mr. Trump blasted Mideast refugees as “all of these illegals.” He further attributed Britain’s recent split from the European Union to the continent’s embrace of refugees.
Because refugees had been “somewhat denigrated during the election,” Jason Dzubow, a partner at Dzubow & Pilcher, had pushed the Refugee Ball as a positive way to “celebrate the humanitarian system in the United States” that takes in refugees.
But the president-elect has left others wondering what he’ll do in the White House.
Advocates can offer few assurances. For those already in the country asking for asylum protections, thought, Dzubow has some optimism.
Even if their case is pending, they have “due process protection,” Dzubow says. “You can’t just be removed from the country without an involved procedure where you can present your asylum case… that’s not a possibility under the law.”