The green light
A Syrian family arrives in New Jersey
“IT WAS a difficult decision to leave Syria, but [one] I had to make,” says Ahmad Abdulhamid. “At any time, a missile could drop on my house. At any time they could take away my children.” Homs, his home city, had been reduced to rubble, with thousands killed. So on March 31st 2013 he, his wife and their three boys, then all under nine, left Syria. He paid smugglers to take them to Jordan.
There, they registered with the UN’s refugee agency. After more than two years of screenings and investigations from many agencies, including the FBI and the Departments of Homeland Security and Defence, and after thorough medical examinations, the family heard they had been cleared. They arrived in Jersey City, now with a new baby girl, the day before the fifth anniversary of the start of Syria’s civil war.
This article appeared in the United States section of the print edition under the headline "The green light"
From the March 19th 2016 edition
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