Fusion: “Undocumented victims of Orlando shooting face unique challenges and fears”

Among the many affected by the tragic mass shooting in Orlando last week are undocumented immigrants. While all those recovering from the horrific tragedy face obstacles and challenges, undocumented immigrants have their own unique problems due to their legal status. “In addition to the uncertainty about whether they qualify for state and federal assistance programs,” Fusion reports, “the undocumented immigrants have to worry about whether their legal status puts them at additional risk, and what it means to be outed from the shadows by a violent tragedy.”

Out of the three undocumented immigrants who have been identified as such, one is Victor, a twenty-four-year-old Salvadoran who was shot twice. With no relatives nearby and no idea when he will be able to return to work, he’s worried about how he’s going to pay for his hospital bills. Another undocumented immigrant recovering is a thirty-three-year-old Mexican man named Javier Nava, who was shot in the abdomen. Juan Sabines, the Mexico Consul General in Orlando, met with Javier and suggested he apply for a U visa, which are for victims of certain crimes who assist law enforcement or government officials in the investigation or prosecution of criminal activity. While Nava would like to eventually pursue American citizenship if given the chance, what he wants most right now is to see his mother and child, which he hasn’t been able to do for many years since he came to the United States. During the hospital visit with the Mexican consul, Nava discussed how his family could apply for humanitarian visas to visit him from Mexico. 

A third undocumented man, a thirty-one-year-old Mexican, died earlier this week from his injuries, one of three Mexicans killed in the attack. For undocumented immigrants who die in the US, repatriating and burying the body can be especially expensive. For this Mexican man who died, it will cost approximately $6,000 to repatriate and bury the body in the coastal state of Veracruz. While the Mexican Consulate insists it will pay the estimated $3,000 to repatriate the body to Veracruz, friends and family of the victim still aren’t sure how they’ll afford the rest. Carmen, a friend of the victim, says that even with the consulate’s help it “won’t cover the funeral costs.”

“It’s very expensive to send their bodies back, people aren’t prepared for that,” Yesica Ramirez, an organizer with The Farmworker Association of Florida, tells Fusion. Since a trip to the United States is not possible for many families, repatriation of the body is often the only way that families can see their loved ones one time and attend the funeral. “For many families, no matter how much money they raise they still may not be able to get permission to come to the US,” Ramirez says. “For the family to be watching this back in their countries and not be able to help their sons is painful; this all hurts the family back home too.”

Immigrant rights activists have launched the website SomosOrlando.info to help immigrants find resources in their own language. The Hispanic Federation says many Spanish-speaking volunteer attorneys and mental health professionals have come forward to offer their services, which will be essential as undocumented immigrants are not eligible for Florida state health programs beyond emergency care. A crowd-funded effort by Equality Florida, an LGBT advocacy organization, is also raising funds to help all victims, regardless of legal status. “Victimization knows no status,” Jeff Dion, deputy executive director of the National Center for Victims of Crime, tells Fusion. “All of these [victims] and their families will be treated equally…Every situation is different and if we need to make adjustments for certain people...we will.”

The Ongoing Syrian Refugee Crisis

With more than half of the nation’s governors opposing the resettlement of Syrians in their states, and the House of Representatives passing legislation that would increase security checks and make it even more difficult for refugees from Syria and Iraq to enter the US, there is a wave of anti-refugee and anti-immigrant fervor sweeping parts of the country. Presidential candidates and elected officials have even suggested closing mosques, detaining Syrian refugees already in the country, and creating a government registry for Muslims. Airline passengers with Middle Eastern and “Muslim” sounding-names have experienced an increase in racial profiling after the Paris attacks, and Syrians already in the US are fearing a backlash.

With all this fear and negativity, comedian John Olivier has taken on the critics of refugee resettlement with great intelligence and verve by explaining the extensive security screening process for refugees and also importantly by sharing the story of one Syrian migrant girl. In this vein, here are a few more stories of Syrian refugees.

Radwan and Sanaa

In late 2011, as the government of President Bashar al-Assad cracked down on the rebellious city of Homs, Syria, Radwan Mughrbel and his wife Sanaa Hammadeh decided to leave their country. The war, the bombings, snipers and random violence had forced many residents indoors, and Sanaa was afraid to leave their home to shop for fresh food. The family resorted to eating moldy bread on some days, and they were especially afraid their sons, Soubei and Ahmad, who were then in their early teens, would be kidnapped. “The government would see kids on the street and take them, beat them,” she says in the New York Times. We didn’t want them to kidnap our children.”

They left Syria in November 2011, with only a single change of clothes, and spent years in Jordan trying to obtain refugee status. When the United Nations refugee agency asked where they wanted to resettle, the answer to them was clear. “America,” Radwan says. “They brought us here, and I feel safe, like nothing bad can happen to us. Now we have a beautiful life.” He became upset at the suggestion that refugees like him could be a threat. “We didn’t cross illegally,” he says. “We went through hell to get here.”

On their first morning in their new Michigan apartment, they admired the lawns and trees. “We didn’t walk around because we were afraid we would get lost,” Radwan says. “When I saw all the grass,” Sanaa adds. “I felt that I was reborn.”

Fayez and Shaza

Fayez and his wife Shaza fled from Daraa, Syria to Jordan in 2013, where they applied for refugee status in the US. After the two-year application process, they moved near Dallas this past February and are now raising two daughters—an infant and a toddler.

"I am happy because I live [in] America," Fayez, who works at Walmart, told CBS News. While the couple was concerned about their own safety after protesters at a mosque in Dallas, Fayez said in his opinion “it's impossible that any terrorist can come to America through a refugee program, which requires a six- or seven-month-long background check.”

Nidal Alhayak

Nidal Alhayak fled Syria with his wife in 2012, where he’d been tortured and imprisoned by the Assad regime, and crossed over the border to Jordan where he applied for asylum to the US. He explains the refugee application process to NPR: "There are six different interviews with the Homeland Security committee where they asked us the same questions just to check for consistency in the story…So, it would be impossible for me to make up a story or lie about it because they would vet us out and make sure everything was right."

After more than two years of the application process, he got a phone call telling him that he and his wife would be resettled in the United States. "Before I got the phone call, I was the kind of person who had given up on life. But then this phone call was like a breath of fresh air that blew life back into me," he says. "First of all, I consider myself fortunate that I made it to the United States," he says. "I consider it the number one country for democracy and freedom for humanity, worldwide." 

Nidal, who now works at a factory in Michigan and is still learning English, says he understands how some might be concerned about ISIS infiltrating the refugee program. "I totally understand their fear," he says. "I want to assure them we're not like that. We went through a lot. We went through terror ourselves. And there's no way in the world we'd do such a horrible act."

These are just a few stories out of the millions of Syrian refugees, and there are many more sharing heartbreaking tales of their escape from their country’s brutal civil war. Despite the anti-refugee sentiment popular among many political leaders, not everyone in the US wants to turn Syrians away. Aid groups are continuing to assist in resettling refugees, and doumentary filmmaker Michael Moore says they can live at his house.

The Guardian: “G20 to discuss threat of ISIS infiltrators among EU migrants after Paris attacks”

After the horrific recent terrorist attacks and bombings by the Islamic State, or ISIS, world leaders at the G20 summit in Turkey are not only discussing their joint response to the global threat posed by ISIS but also the supposed fear of terrorists infiltrating the stream of migrants fleeing into the EU and elsewhere. This fear was sparked by the discovery of a Syrian refugee passport found near or on the body of one suicide bomber in Paris and has led many to speculate on the danger in accepting Syrians and refugees of other nationalities, even though there are still many unanswered questions about who the passport belonged to, whether it was stolen, and other key details. 

The Most Vulnerable

EU chief Jean-Claude Juncker said in the Guardian: “We should not mix the different categories of people coming to Europe. The one responsible for the attacks in Paris…he is a criminal and not a refugee and not an asylum seeker.” At the G20 summit, President Obama said: "The people who are fleeing Syria are the most harmed by terrorism. They are the most vulnerable as a consequence of civil war and strife. They are parents. They are children. They are orphans and it is very important...that we do not close our hearts to these victims of such violence and somehow start equating the issue of refugees with the issue of terrorism."

If there is no end to the Syrian civil war, the EU is predicting that as many as three million refugees will arrive in the next year. UK Prime Minister David Cameron has proposed that more refugees be given jobs and education in the semi-permanent camps on the border of Syria to discourage them from making the dangerous journey to the EU. Poland’s new government has already stated they won’t accept the EU migrant quotas. “In the wake of the tragic events in Paris, Poland doesn’t see the political possibilities to implement a decision on the relocation of refugees,” Konrad Szymanski, the nation’s future minister for European affairs, was quoted as saying on Wpolityce.pl website. “The attacks mean there’s a need for an even deeper revision of the European policy regarding the migrant crisis.”  

Anti-Refugee Backlash

As EU leaders continue to deal with the influx of Syrian migrants, many are fearing an anti-immigrant and refugee backlash, including in Germany which has taken in the majority of Syrian refugees and has seen a dramatic surge in attacks against migrants and refugee shelters. American Muslim communities are also fearing a backlash after the Paris attacks. 

In the US meanwhile, more than twenty-five states have declared they will not accept the resettlement of Syrian refugees, even though the security vetting process can take approximately twenty-four months, and many states have yet to receive any refugees. One South Carolina town even preemptively passed a resolution against the resettlement of refugees in their county limits, even though no Syrian refugees have been resettled in the entire state. The move to not accept Syrian refugees is more symbolic, given that out of the millions fleeing their country’s civil war, only 2,000 Syrian refugees have been granted entrance to the US in the past four years; moreover, it is unclear what effect these announcements will have, since it is President Obama not state governors who “has explicit statutory authorization to accept foreign refugees into the United States.” House Republicans are also creating a task force on Syrian refugees to pursue possible legislation to "pause" the flow of refugees into the US.

Religious Test for Refugees?

In a slightly different proposal, presidential candidates Jeb Bush and Ted Cruz suggested that the US prioritize and accept only Christian Syrian refugees, a move which President Obama condemned. “When I hear political leaders suggesting that there should be a religious test for admitting which person fleeing which country,” Obama said in the Guardian, “when some of these folks themselves come from other countries, that’s shameful. That’s not America. That’s not who we are. We don’t have religious tests to our compassion.”