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"I hate being a refugee": a Somali mother on the newly reinstated travel ban
kainaz amaria
Nov 12, 2018
Getting chosen to come to America was her
dream come true. Then Trump won.
"I knew once he is the president, I would never go to the United States."
Istarlin Abdi Halane was thrilled when she found out last year that she’d been chosen to resettle in the United States.
“Maybe after all, my dream is really valid and it’s going to come true,” she thought.
The dream had been a long time coming. Abdi Halane, 28, fled war in her native Somalia as a child. She’d spent most of her life in Kakuma, a refugee camp in Kenya: marrying at 15, a mother of two by 20, divorced by 25. All that time, waiting to find out where she’d be able to build her life.
Finally she got an answer.
“I was so happy when I got the letter,” she said. “I had many friends from America. I saw they’re really nice people. If I’m going to America, then it’s the best thing.”
But this week, her future looks much different. She's just found out that Donald Trump's immigration order will finally go into effect after months of legal challenges. As a Somali citizen and a refugee, the order affects her doubly — she and her daughters will be barred from entering the country for at least 120 days.
"I hate being a refugee," she said. "Every time you see a ray of hope it shatters in front of your eyes."
The immigration order is the realization of her worst fears about Donald Trump’s presidency. During the campaign, she was troubled by what the Republican candidate had to say about immigrants — refugees and Muslims in particular. He kicked off his campaign declaring Mexican immigrants “rapists” and “criminals”; he later called for "a total and complete shutdown of Muslims entering the United States.”
Abdi Halane thought, “If he can think like this now in an election, what will happen if he becomes a president?”
She soon found out when President Trump issued his “travel ban” during his first weeks in office.
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"I hate being a refugee": a Somali mother on the newly reinstated travel ban
Getting chosen to come to America was her dream come true. Then Trump won.
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