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Many Syrians have been optimistic that the president-elect of the United States, Joe Biden, will fulfill his promise and cancel the travel ban imposed by the current president, Donald Trump, on citizens of several countries, including Syria.
The “Times Union” website reported that Syrians residing in Albany County, New York state, hope to be reunited with their families as soon as Biden arrives at the White House on January 20.
The website quoted a Syrian refugee, Ibrahim Al-Kahraman, as saying that he arrived in the United States on January 4, 2017 with his wife and five of his children, but left some of his children in Jordan pending the issuance of his entry visa.
Ibrahim continues his story, pointing to the issue of attending the rest of his family, which was supposed to take around three months, but almost four years have passed since Trump’s decision to ban Syrians from traveling to the United States.
Ibrahim indicated that he owned abundant vineyards in his hometown of Al-Bab city, in the north-western province of Aleppo, and that his financial conditions were very good before the outbreak of popular protests against the Bashar al-Assad regime in 2011, and that his eldest son was studying Arabic-language literature at the University of Damascus. .
With the intensification of violence and the transformation of the protests into a bloody war and the use by the regime of violent repression methods, his son was detained by Military Intelligence and subjected to brutal torture, as he himself described it, and three of his sons were called up for military service in the ranks of the regime forces.
And then, and the conversation continues with Ibrahim, he realized the need for him to leave the country to preserve his life and the lives of his family members, to make three trips to Jordan in 2012, through which he brought his four children to avoid danger or death if they were recruited for the benefit of government forces.
Ibrahim points out that many happy occasions, such as the marriage of his children and the birth of his grandchildren, have missed him due to the dispersion of his family between America and Jordan, also pointing out his suffering with his wife, who suffers from mental illness as a result of what happened with his family.
But now he feels a ray of hope and says, “When we first heard about Biden’s promise to cancel (the travel ban), we were very happy … We felt that life had opened its hands to us again.”
“My daughter suffers alone.”
As for the refugee, Jamal Al-Mousa, he expresses his fear for the life of his daughter after he left her alone in Syria, suffering the violence of her husband, who used to beat and abuse her, taking advantage of the absence of some of his family members to protect and defend her.
He said: “My son-in-law took advantage of our absence to torture my daughter Maryam, while beating her, raping her, locking her in the bathroom and threatening to kill her.”
Al-Mousa indicated that, in light of the ban on Syrians from traveling to the United States, he cannot bring his daughter from Aleppo to save her from her suffering.
Regarding the conditions during his presence in Syria, Moussa explained that he and his family, made up of seven children and their mother, remained without sleep for long nights due to the sounds of projectiles and air strikes, explaining that they witnessed the death of many of his neighbors before his eyes, and who had suffered from hunger and thirst for long periods.
He continued: “I managed to go out with my relatives to Turkey in 2012,” adding in Arabic: “I had never imagined something like this would happen in my life.” I thought we would stay in Syria until the end of my life. I supervised a factory in a private shoe factory. My children are studying in their country … I never thought there would be a war. “
Al-Mousa did not know that leaving Syria was just the beginning of a life of challenges and surprises that he would throw in his face.
Two months after their arrival in Turkey, Al-Mousa and his wife discovered that their newborn daughter had three benign tumors on her heart. And she needs a heart transplant, but she can’t be put on Turkey’s donor waiting list because they are foreign
His only option, traveling to the United States, became his choice, as they all arrived there on January 19, 2017, with the exception of his married daughter Maryam, who remained in Aleppo.
Maryam was supposed to join them as soon as her US entry visa was issued, but the ban decision prevented her from attending until now, so she would continue to suffer violence and cruelty and her husband, her father said.
Al-Mousa concluded: “I feel like I die every day because I left my daughter suffering in Syria and I can’t do anything to her … But with the arrival of Biden, I hope things improve.”
