What Does it Mean to Be a Refugee?‎

Refugees cross deserts, seas, and jungles to escape persecution, violence, and certain death. They risk their lives and the lives of their families for the incomprehensibly small chance that they will finally find a place to lay down their heads and their roots. But stateless people don’t stop existing when they find a place to claim as a refuge. They walk among us, carrying the unimaginable weight of war, violence, disease, and famine. No matter how far they venture or how productive they are as citizens in their new homes, being stateless is woven into the fabric of their consciousness. It unites them with the millions around the world who endure the same so that those who have experienced it share a common language between them

Many years ago, on the eve of Desert Storm, the sequence of my most haunting experiences began. My first memories are of Saddam Hussein’s invasion of Kuwait and the horrific aftermath of the Iraqi uprising against him. I was three years old when my family fled persecution, torture, and probable death. I remember the chaos as my parents rounded up the family to take off in the middle of the night when our city was attacked. Thousands of Iraqi families poured from their houses, sprinting towards buses and running off into the darkness, leaving their belongings behind. Why were we leaving and where were we going? I thought to myself as we left the only world we had ever known in the dust. I wouldn’t have understood what it meant to be a refugee or what circumstances would lead to such events at that time, but the experience of living in a refugee camp for many years had a profound effect on my life. I didn’t understand why it was unbearably hot or why we were not permitted to leave, yet I was very aware that I had little desire to be in such an unsanitary place, thousands confined to an uninhabitable area with limited facilities to accommodate our basic needs, our dignity, and our humanity. 

I would only come to understand the atrocities that led us to such a place as I grew older, when I became fully cognizant of the horrific realities surrounding Saddam’s “crackdown” on dissidents. Hundreds of children had their eyes gouged out. Thousands were imprisoned, brutishly tortured—including the usage of electric shock as well as having prisoners’ flesh flayed, tongues cut out, and limbs removed—and murdered. There were countless cases of permanent disfigurements and disabilities as well as cancers resulting from the chemical weapons he deployed on his own citizens. Scores of people were left destitute and forced to flee after he drained the marshes that provided life-sustaining resources for a large proportion of Iraqis. While the exact casualty count remains unknown, anywhere from tens to hundreds of thousands died from indiscriminate civilian targeting following the uprising. On top of these directly inhumane acts of cruelty, his invasion of Kuwait and campaign against Iraqis resulted in hundreds of thousands to upwards of a million deaths from the economic sanctions that were forced on Iraq in the aftermath. Perhaps more alarmingly, much of his reign of terror is still being uncovered following his death. Mass graves in Iraq continue to be discovered and exhumation is ongoing as continued instability hinders the process. Even Iraqis who fled abroad were not safe. Saddam Hussein was ruthless in his handling of regime-defying Iraqis, including the New York City torture chamber he used to viciously beat and murder Iraqis who opposed him, shipping their bodies back to Iraq in diplomatic boxes which no government had the authority to open or intervene.

I spent several years living in a crowded refugee camp in Rafha, Saudi Arabia, but there was no “refuge” to be found there. Because Saudi Arabia never signed the 1951 Convention concerning refugees or the 1967 Protocol Relating to the Status of Refugees, those being housed in Rafha were not afforded the same legal protections as other refugees under international law. While news outlets at the time focused on the availability of more resources than many other camps around the world, the bulk of information was being obtained from refugees who feared retribution for speaking freely about the conditions of the Saudi camp. Refugees faced religious indoctrination, violence, and were occasionally killed by the camp guards. A letter written by Bill Frelick on behalf of the U.S. Committee for Refugees (USCR) to former Secretary of State Colin Powell remarks, “Although the refugees receive better material assistance than many refugees elsewhere, the camp is, for all practical purposes, a prison. Refugees are not permitted to come and go from the camp. Its perimeter is secured by double barbed-wire fences and guarded by Saudi military personnel. In addition to regularly patrolling the camp, armed soldiers strictly enforce a nightly curfew and imprison those who violate it. Over the years, USCR has documented human rights violations committed by Saudi soldiers in the camp, including the arbitrary detention, rape, severe beatings, and refoulement of refugees.” The exact number of refugees who were killed by guards while living in the camps remains unknown, further complicated by an unknown number who were “returned” to Iraq. One day in early 1991, as refugees were queuing to gather water from a water truck, an argument ensued between the military personnel and the refugees when a more substantial water allowance was requested; the peaceful protest resulted in the deaths of at least nine refugees as the guards opened fire on the assembling group. 

The reality of living in a refugee camp is traumatizing, especially for a child. I saw guards shooting unarmed refugees who had only been protesting the return of the persecuted detainees to Iraq—an action that was in direct violation of international law. I had no change of clothes and walked around barefoot in one of the hottest locations on earth. My siblings and I were mere children, but we had already lived through unspeakable suffering. We played together, searching for whatever semblance of escape we could, seeking refuge in the group of kids we were confined with. We only knew that we were dirty and mistreated. We may not have fully known what our families had done to deserve such a fate, but a caged living thing knows when it is caged. That rejection is unmistakable, beating down on the broken like the unforgiving desert sun.

“ I had never witnessed such beauty—a sea of green further than the eyes could see

and as vast as the desert sands to which I had grown so accustomed. ”

In 1994, the despair, fear, and uncertainty had perished and from their ashes rose a renewed sense of purpose. My family was granted asylum in the United States, and I had never witnessed such beauty—a sea of green further than the eyes could see and as vast as the desert sands to which I had grown so accustomed. However, adjusting to life as a new American was not straightforward. Struggling with dyslexia and thrust into an overburdened inner-city school, I did not fully learn English until I finally resorted to teaching myself as a teenager. This made my acclimation to American culture needlessly difficult, and I was an easy target for discriminatory bullies. I soon discovered that racism was rife in the U.S. when a young boy spit on me as I was riding the bus to school at 7 years old. Not speaking English, I didn’t know what he had said to me in the lead-up to that act, but I saw the hatred in his eyes as he looked at me and uttered words I could not understand. Belonging to a persecuted group in my home country as well as Saudi Arabia, I had become accustomed to that look of hatred and disgust for simply existing. However, I was no longer being discriminated against due to my family’s religious beliefs; now my identity was worn conspicuously on my skin. I was a visibly different “other”. For the first time, I was made painfully aware of the fact that I was brown—and that label was the new cross I had to bear.

The brief flashes of vitriol would continue as the years went by. Even as I became more Americanized and shed much of my past identity and cultural traditions, the racist comments continued to violate my sense of safety. I was both an American and an Iraqi, yet a vocal minority of people believed I was something else entirely—a deplorable who couldn’t possibly belong to two different cultures. Through the process of growing up as part of an invisible diaspora, I became acutely aware of one thing: being of two countries means being of no country. That sense of alienation is difficult to shake, but I persevered because I had to, as all migrants must. Our drive to adapt and survive supersedes our desire for comfort. Members of my own family would sleep on the floor of their new shop so they could establish themselves as reliable business owners for their customers, opening at dawn every day and closing well after dark. This isn’t an unusual migrant story; in fact, it’s par for the course. In a country of diasporas, they are as American as the rest of us, and no amount of fear on either side is going to change that. Immigrants are beneficial members of their communities; they frequently own businesses that provide products, services, and create more jobs. This country was built on the backs of immigrants, from Chinese laborers laying down railroad tracks to Italian, Irish, and Jewish laborers in factories and everything in between. The infrastructure that ushered in this era of prosperity was constructed by the tired, the poor, the huddled masses yearning to breathe free. And now they’re being turned away to fend off exported American problems such as gun violence and climate change.

Today I am a U.S. citizen, have a Bachelor’s degree, and work as a software engineer. I changed my name to come across as “more American” when I was a college student concerned about having my job applications tossed. After having spent the entirety of my childhood and many years of adulthood living in poverty, I would consider myself successful at this point in my life. I’m eternally grateful that this country took me in when I was stateless—if not for that show of goodwill, I likely wouldn’t be alive to share my story. That being said, healing is a process that requires continuous effort; some might say it never truly reaches a resolution. I still struggle with trauma and night terrors; others carry far worse physical and emotional scars. It’s vital to have a strong community of people surrounding me who make the hard days a little less bleak.

There have been a lot of native-born American citizens along the way that I wouldn’t have anywhere near this level of success without. They have come in all colors and creeds, cementing themselves in my life as one large extended family. I consider myself lucky to have such a supportive group of people feature so heavily in my life, to have a community of people who listen and remind me how far I’ve come. I’ve had several professors and friends who have taken the time to make me feel heard, understood, and supported. Those pure acts of kindness make all the difference. That is what the true American ideal should be.

The United States is a group of diasporas both recent and old who come together despite their differences to build a new home. The remnants of their past lives constitute the bricks which, in a just world, should then be mortared by the basic tenets we uphold as a country built by the persecuted, for the persecuted.

In spite of the few stubbornly intolerant individuals, there are still a lot of Americans who value diversity and act as major proponents of human rights not only on U.S. soil but also around the world. They give me hope for the future of progressive legislation, cultural values, and environmental justice that aims to place human lives above the reactionist appeal to fear. We need a collective push towards acceptance and inclusion if we plan to transcend the sociopolitical and environmental struggles that continue to bear down on us all, and we’re going to need to facilitate bipartisan efforts to do so—there is no other way. Immigrants and non-immigrants alike have a stake in the future of this country, regardless of race, gender, socioeconomic status, or political affiliation. We need non-immigrants to stand with us and fight against the hateful rhetoric and the scapegoating, violence, and detrimental policies it inspires. With climate catastrophe looming large on the horizon, billions will be displaced and the poor will be most negatively impacted. These refugees are facing situations not unlike the one my family did 25 years ago; they are families with small children escaping unimaginable atrocities simply to survive. How can we claim to value human lives at stake when children are being caged for an indeterminate period of time and having their human rights stripped away in the process?

The above article was featured November 3rd in the Pittsburgh Post Gazette