“Nations around the world pledge to take in so many refugees each year.Our government just promised to take in a hundred and twenty-five thousand this fiscal year, which is a significant leap from last year and still not even a rounding error in how many people need sanctuary.”
I nod to show I’m paying attention, then brush a cockroach off the wall.Honestly, I just cleaned there.
“In the US, the Office of Refugee Resettlement works with designated resettlement agencies to get the families into the US and handles all the basics.Background checks, medical exams, in-person interviews.Lots of shots.You have no idea how many people I see whose entire concept of the American medical system is a military doc armed with a needle.”
“Military doc?”
“Entry point is generally a military base where the families will spend their first six to eight months.”
“Six to eightmonths?”
“Nobody ever accused the government of moving quickly.”
“Touché.”
“From there, the larger resettlement agency will start doling out families.Each state has already agreed to take X many bodies.Some bureaucrat with a red pen—well, more like outdated modeling software—arbitrarily sticks in random information, gets back a random location.Tucson!Welcome, Ahmadi family of three, to your new town.”
“What if they don’t want to go to Tucson or, say, have family elsewhere?”
Ashley shrugs.Countertop done, she moves on to the lowerdrawers.The top one opens with a sharp screeching sound.Three cockroaches pour out.Without missing a beat, Ashley grabs a rag from the countertop, rolls it tight, then snaps it out, one, two, three.The cockroaches fall dazed to the ground.She raises her foot and stomps them dead.
“Do you make house calls?”I murmur.“And what are your thoughts on snakes?”
“What?”
“Never mind.Family learns they’re headed to Tucson, but don’t want to go there.”
“For the Afghans, there are significant communities in San Francisco and northern Virginia, so many would prefer to relocate there.But you go rogue, you lose your three months of federal aid.And given those cities have high costs of living, not to mention you think it’s hard to find an apartment here…” Ashley gives me a look.I get her point.
“So Sabera, her husband, and daughter start researching Tucson.”I almost get it now.
“Please, half the time they’re told their destination as they’re boarding the plane.”
“Seriously?”
“‘For we live by faith, not by sight,’” she informs me.
I hear her, which brings me to another point.“Your resettlement agency is obviously faith-based.Does this create issues?”
“Actually, it’s the one thing that gives me hope.I might be the first Christian some of these families have ever met, while my friends from the Jewish Family and Children’s Services agency—also an excellent agency—are the first Jews.But person to person, no one cares.We’re neighbors helping neighbors, and that’s what matters.If only the rest of the world got that memo.”
Makes sense to me.“So the Ahmadi family arrives in Tucson,” I prod.
Ashley nods while tending to the kitchen drawer.“Step one, meet the family at the airport.This is something I like to do personally if I can.The families are always dazed and confused—no idea where they are, no clue what’s going to happen next.The kids are exhausted, clinging to their parents, who are standing there with nothing but the clothes on their backs.And yet, they always have this set to their shoulders, a smile plastered on their faces.They might not know where they are, but they already know it’s better than where they’ve been.”
“Sabera and her family?”
“She was holding their daughter, Zahra—a petite little thing with huge gray eyes and the world’s most serious expression.Honestly, I took one look at the girl and would’ve gotten them a penthouse suite if possible.Zahra’s like the poster child for displaced children everywhere.”Ashley scowls.“Which is a terrible thing for someone like me to say.”
“Kabul fell in 2021.Sabera’s family has been in a refugee camp the entire time since then?”
“Most likely several different camps.There’s a whole global system most refugees process through.”
“So Sabera gave birth while in one of the camps?”
“Much less than ideal,” Ashley assures me.“Pregnant women, women with infants are particularly vulnerable in such places.Way too many people, not enough resources to go around, violence a daily occurrence.First rule of refugees, they will almost nevereverspeak of their time in the camps.”
Which returns us to Ashley’s original point—it would be foolish to think anyone knows what Sabera has gone, is going,through.And Aliah’s conviction that her friend would never leave her child is also premature.
