Syrian Refugees Cling to a Longtime Haven in Michigan
In late 2011, as killings, kidnappings and sectarian strife crept across its battle-scarred city of Homs, Syria, the family of four made a sorrowful decision: to flee.
Radwan Mughrbel; his wife, Sanaa Hammadeh; and their two young sons packed their bags with only a single change of clothes per person. They took a bus to Damascus and hired a taxi to spirit them across the border into Jordan. For years, they patched together a meager life, barely making enough money to eat and desperately seeking refugee status.
When the United Nations refugee agency asked where they wanted to go, the answer was obvious.
“America,” said Mr. Mughrbel, a short, wiry Muslim man of 52, his face lighting up in a smile as he sat in his bare-walled living room in this Detroit suburb last week. “They brought us here, and I feel safe, like nothing bad can happen to us. Now we have a beautiful life.”
Yet that beautiful life has been shaken. Since the terrorist attacks in Paris, a tide of anti-refugee, anti-Muslim sentiment has swept, angrily and inexorably, across the United States. Now Mr. Mughrbel and Ms. Hammadeh say Michigan is not as welcoming a place as it was before.
Source: www.nytimes.com