The green light

“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.

Not all get the green light. “Syrian refugees are screened far more extensively than other[s]”, says Mahmoud Mahmoud, who runs the Jersey City office of the Church World Service. CWS is one of nine non-profits which arrange housing and support for displaced people. They also provide language classes, financial advice and help to find jobs. After 90 days, the refugees must fend for themselves. Some also get assistance from churches and charities. Rutgers Presbyterian Church, based in nearby Manhattan, furnished the Abdulhamids’ new flat and donated clothes, toys, schoolbags and halal food.

President Barack Obama intends to accept 10,000 refugees this year, angering many governors. But other politicians are more welcoming. Bill Pascrell, a New Jersey congressman, along with 37 other lawmakers, sent a letter to Mr Obama last week urging him to accept more. The United States has taken in fewer than 3,000 refugees from Syria since 2011.