'We just want to see our mum' Somali family split on two continents as U.S. slashes refugee admissions

Record ID: 1435061

  • Title: 'We just want to see our mum' Somali family split on two continents as U.S. slashes refugee admissions
  • Date: 3rd October 2019
  • Summary: VARIOUS OF NOOR SHOWING HER PHONE WITH FAMILY PHOTOGRAPHS OF ALL THREE BOYS
  • Embargoed: 17th October 2019 13:26
  • Keywords: refugees Trump immigration policy Somali Ramlo Ali Noor
  • Location: KAMPALA, UGANDA/ COLUMBUS, OHIO, UNITED STATES
  • City: KAMPALA, UGANDA/ COLUMBUS, OHIO, UNITED STATES
  • Country: USA
  • Topics: Asylum/Immigration/Refugees,Government/Politics
  • Reuters ID: LVA002AZKG1MV
  • Aspect Ratio: 16:9
  • Story Text: Somali refugee Ramlo Ali Noor will never be reunited with her 16-year-old son in her new home in Columbus, Ohio.
    She had been waiting since applying to the U.S. government in 2015 to bring over her three boys from Uganda, but their cases faced hold-ups in refugee processing under the Trump administration. On Sept. 22, the youngest of the three teenagers - Abdiaziz - died suddenly from a brain infection.
    Now Noor, 37, fears the window for her two surviving sons to make it into the United States is shrinking.
    U.S. President Trump has made curbing legal and illegal immigration a priority. Shortly after taking office, he halved his predecessor Barack Obama's plans to resettle 110,000 refugees in 2017 and has been whittling down the numbers ever since.
    The U.S. government plans to slash the refugee ceiling to 18,000, its lowest since the modern refugee program began in 1980. More than half the places for refugees in the 2020 fiscal year are reserved for Iraqis, Central Americans and religious minorities, leaving only 7,500 for everyone else, according to a White House proposal. President Donald Trump has yet to finalize the refugee number for next year.
    Noor's sons are from a previous marriage and their father is not involved in their lives. She has been separated from them since 2010 when she left strife-torn Somalia for Malaysia, where she could apply for resettlement as a refugee with the United Nations.
    "I follow the news about what is happening," Noor said in an interview through a translator, "and sometimes I hear that Somalia is one of the countries that has been banned, but there is so much up and down that all I can do is pray that they can come." She has two daughters from another marriage now in Ohio, where she has rented a larger place in anticipation of her sons' arrival.
    Meanwhile, Noor's sons, Abdirahman, 19, and Abdullahi, 18, live with an uncle in a cramped Kampala housing complex. Noor said the younger boy is so saddened by the loss of this brother that she fears he might commit suicide.
    Before his death, Abdiaziz used to say: "'I want to see mum, I want to see mum, when should we go there?'" said Abdirahman. "We were telling him, 'let us wait, we shall see mum.'"
    Abdullahi says he yearns to be by his mother's side.
    "I am dying to meet with, unite with my mom and everyday I miss her, talk to her everyday, greet her and ask her how she is feeling about her health and she also asks us about our health. And when I remember my mom the only thing I pray to God is to unite us," he said.
    Noor could only afford to travel alone, so left her children with two of their aunts in the hopes of reuniting when she found a new home. Soon after Noor left, one of the aunts was killed and the other injured in a militant attack on a village south of Mogadishu, the boys said in an interview with Reuters and Noor swore in an affidavit to the U.S. government.
    Once she was resettled in Ohio in 2015, she applied for her sons to join her. With a job as a home health aide, she was able to pay for them to move to Kampala, Uganda. But since passing a DNA test in 2016 to prove they were her sons, their cases have been stuck. In 2019, she received two requests for additional evidence to clarify inconsistencies in their applications, according to documents seen by Reuters.
    Two days after her son Abdiaziz died, Noor received notice from USCIS that all three boys were found to be eligible for reunification pending further medical and security checks, and that their cases were being deferred, a USCIS document showed.
    "At present, it is impossible to estimate how long it will take to make a determination in your case," the notice said.
    The State department declined to comment on specific cases due to privacy considerations.
    Trump, who has made curbing legal and illegal immigration a priority, has said stricter standards are needed to vet refugees who potentially pose a security threat from entering the country.
    Soon after taking office, Trump issued a travel ban on several mostly Muslim-majority countries. In December 2017, the U.S. Supreme Court allowed a modified version of the ban against Somalia, Iran, Yemen, Libya, Syria, North Korea and some officials from Venezuela to take effect.
    While the ban exempts refugees, those from all the banned countries except Venezuela have been subject to new security vetting procedures, including stricter screening extended to women and young boys.
    Of the 15,600 Somalis in the refugee resettlement pipeline to the United States, only 91 had been approved for travel as of early July.
    "You know, a son without the mother, without a father means big thing," Abdullahi said.
    The boys are also following the news.
    "We heard that Donald Trump said he doesn't need many refugees," Abdirahman said, sitting in front of the apartment where he lives. "We pray that we shall see our mum. Hopefully and too near (soon)."
    (Production: Francis Mukasa, Maddie McGarvey, Jackson Njehia, Kevin Fogarty, Arlene Eiras)
  • Copyright Holder: REUTERS
  • Copyright Notice: (c) Copyright Thomson Reuters 2019. Open For Restrictions - http://about.reuters.com/fulllegal.asp
  • Usage Terms/Restrictions: Footage contains photographs or artwork. User is responsible for obtaining additional clearances before publishing this clip.
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