Susan, a 50-year old Iraqi-American in Chicago, will proudly tell you she worked at the US Embassy in Baghdad before fleeing to the United States in 2007 for the safety of herself and her two daughters.
However, she will not reveal her last name. In the current political climate, she fears she could be singled out and targeted.
Her relatives also have been forced to seek refuge in the United States after being threatened with violence in Iraq because Susan and her sister helped Americans there.
The family remains divided — and President Donald Trump’s signing of an executive order Friday limiting immigration from Iraq and half a dozen other Muslim-majority nations has thrown a wrench in the already complicated process.
“Everyone in the family is nervous now, we don’t know what’s happening. The executive order itself is not clear. Everyone is worried; we don’t know what will happen,” Susan said.
Complicated story
Susan’s story — like those of many people fleeing conflict or persecution to seek refuge in the United States and elsewhere — is complicated.
She and her family lived in Baghdad’s Al-Adhamiya neighborhood, “one of the most hostile regions” in Iraq, she said, before she began working with American forces, first the Coalition Provisional Authority and then the US Embassy.
Her sister worked for another American company, she said, and her brother drove them both to work in Baghdad every day.
This, she said, made them all targets of “the terrorists, or the people working against the existence of the US forces in Iraq.”
After a rocket hit her house in early 2007, Susan realized she and her daughters had to leave. Helped by the US Embassy, they moved to Virginia later that year.
Such was the continued threat to the family that Susan’s mother and sister followed her to Virginia in 2008.
In 2014, her brother’s wife, who does not want to be named, came to the United States to file asylum papers with their three children, 9-year-old twins and a 7-year-old. She has gone through the arduous interview process and still has not been granted asylum, Susan said, although she has a work permit.
Brother stranded in Jordan
Meanwhile, Susan’s brother, Ahmed, has been living alone in Jordan for three years, waiting to start the process of applying for asylum to join his family once his wife and children are granted it.
“He is the only brother we have. He is younger than me by three years. He is a good person; he is good to his family. I wish he could come here to live with his family,” Susan said.
“Always when they call their father, they cry because they miss him. … They are so attached between them as a family.”
Susan said she cannot understand why the Trump administration would want to ban them.
“My sister (who worked for an American company), she is a teacher, she is teaching young kids. We all are part of society, part of America itself. We are good citizens. I don’t know what happened, why this ban against people who are Muslims or from Iraq?”
‘Why does Trump do this?’
Susan said she is baffled by the actions of Trump, whose wife, Melania, comes from Slovenia.
“(Trump) has family, and his wife is (an) immigrant whether Muslim, Christian or Jewish. Why he does this to people? Why he has an immigrant wife, but at the same time doesn’t want families to live together?” she asks.
“We have family living outside the United States — just as he loves his wife, we feel the same to our fathers and brothers and family outside the country. He doesn’t consider other people’s feelings.”
The executive order signed by Trump bans all people from seven countries from entering the United States for 90 days.
The text of the order doesn’t name the countries, but a White House official said that besides Iraq, they are Iran, Syria, Sudan, Libya, Yemen and Somalia.
The same order also suspends the US Refugee Admissions Program for 120 days until it is reinstated for nationals of countries that Trump’s Cabinet believes can be properly vetted.