The news in Egypt isn’t great right now. Inflation of food prices was 31% in the past year and it continues to increase right now. Egyptians’ main grain source is wheat, usually baked as aish, Egyptian flatbread. Aish also means “life” in Arabic, which gives you an idea of that bread’s importance here, but most of Egypt’s wheat is imported from Russia and Ukraine and everyone worries if there will be enough aish here soon. 19 Egyptians just drowned in the Mediterranean Sea. 192 people drowned trying to cross the Mediterranean in January and February of this year. Do we even think about them anymore?
We’re moving from Egypt in a few months after four years here. An Egyptian friend told me that she wished she were a refugee because she thought it would be easier for her to move to the US. A South Sudanese friend told me about trying to find enough food for her three children when her husband was in prison because he wouldn’t fight in the war. When he finally got out of prison, they fled but had to leave their two oldest children behind. Her husband told me about when he was an IDP as a child and fleeing from southern Sudan and seeing other children get caught by animals and his nightmares about that. An American friend told me that refugees here just need to work smarter and set up their own businesses and they’d be fine. Another American friend who is a psychologist volunteering with a refugee organization tells me about the experiences of refugees in Egypt who are HIV+. I see Syrian refugees everywhere in Cairo, trying to eke out a living. I’ve also seen a few friends get resettled, after at least 15 years here. I watch the children who moved here at the same time I did and know that they’re not going anywhere for at least 10 years, unless it’s back to South Sudan. And I wonder why the system is so dysfunctional, and especially why countries like Uganda and Pakistan and Lebanon and Bangladesh are left to host so many people.
We’ll be leaving with lots of memories. And we’ve changed. I’ve volunteered with and known refugees and asylum seekers in lots of countries, and Egypt isn’t Lebanon or Uganda, and it’s certainly not South Sudan or Somalia or Palestine, but it’s not where you want to be a refugee. I’ve rarely been able to spend so much time with people who are stuck in the waiting phase of being a refugee, or who are second- or third- or even fourth-generation refugees. At least when you’re in a resettlement country, you feel like you can help new friends get on their feet and move forward with life.
But how do you move forward when being a refugee is your entire lived reality? We like to say that being a refugee is only temporary, but for a lot of people, it isn’t. It certainly doesn’t define them and it shouldn’t limit them, but at some point, it feels like your refugee status will never change. How do we talk about that? How do we find opportunities for people stuck in protracted refugee situations? How do we make sure it’s really temporary? I don’t know, and I wish there were good answers to these questions.
My First Asylum Case: An Attorney's Perspective on Asylum in the United States
I took my first asylum case in 2016, when our national dialog on immigration took a decidedly negative turn. As a corporate attorney, I had no experience in immigration law, but my license allowed me to represent individuals fleeing severe persecution and I signed with a local non-profit to offer my help. My first asylum client was a young mother and her two small daughters. I could see myself in Saba.
Their Story is Our Story Applauds the Signing of Virginia House Bill 995 and Continues Efforts to Open Doors for Foreign-trained Medical Professionals in Other States
Their Story is Our Story (TSOS), a non-profit organization that collects and shares the experiences of refugees to deepen understanding and influence action, applauds the signing of Virginia House Bill 995 into law by Governor Glenn Youngkin, after its unanimous passage through the Virginia House of Delegates and Senate. It will create a pathway for foreign-trained doctors who have immigrated to the state, including those whose careers were interrupted by forcible displacement, to fill workforce gaps in medically underserved communities.
Idaho One Refugee Conference
Last fall I was able to attend the 1Refugee Conference in Idaho. The event was well organized and everyone who approached our table was interested in what we did and wanted to know how to get involved. There were at least 100 students majoring in a variety of things who attended the event and we had 20 students give us their contact information. Most were interested in our internship programs.