Reflections for World Refugee Day

May 2025

 I took a trip to East Africa last month to get some urgent work done that had to completed in person. Planned on about a week’s notice, I was in-country for two weeks, part of that time spent listening to refugee stories waiting resettlement.

There is no single refugee flight path. Some flee to another part of their home country, some run to a second country and eventually return home. Some stay in that second country long-term. Some are resettled to a third country. I was working with refugees who were waiting resettlement, many to the US. That process takes years. Essentially, the UN decides where you will be resettled and refugees work through legal processes with the UN and the third-country government. It includes background checks, verifications, document gathering, medical appointments and lots and lots of time. 

One family I met with fled their home country because their head of household died, and their uncle took over the family, planning to force the daughters into marriages of his choosing and take their dowries. One woman fled after her husband was killed and she survived, but only after her attackers cut off her leg. She lifted her skirts to show me her crude prosthetic. She fled again after her second husband was also killed, this time pregnant and with a young child. A third person was being hunted for working for a government that was overthrown. Another woman was waiting resettlement with her three children in a limbo state for five years after her husband, whose name was on the application for asylum, disappeared.

One by one, I met with these people and heard their stories. All but one were in process of resettlement to the US. The same question was asked of me, every time. The similarity in their expressions was striking: pleading eyes, faces afraid.

“Is there any hope?”

The first time I was asked, I had to take a deep breath and think about how I could honestly respond.

The US stopped processing asylum applications, regardless of how far along in the process they were, as a result of an Executive Order signed on Trump’s first day in office. Even people who were approved for asylum, including those with tickets in hand were summarily denied, flights cancelled. Lawsuits were filed and judges ordered the administration to restart the asylum process, but there has been little movement. The language coming out of the administration has been cruel, demeaning, uncaring. The public eye has moved on from the issue as domestic cuts to services and ICE raids have consumed the headlines.

I had to check what I truly believed. What I realized in those moments is that that while I have no faith in this administration to do the right thing, I did have faith in the people in front of me. I did have faith in the movement that isn’t giving up, that is fighting for the protection of people and is challenging the administration on their behaviors.

So I said this: “You have come too far, fought for too long and survived too much to give up hope now. I need you to be prepared that things are moving slower than we want, and the process has already been terribly slow for you. But I don’t want you to give up hope. You can get through this.”

My response was met with a combination of sadness and relief, and a palatable sense that people needed something, anything, to hang on to.

In the two weeks since I’ve been back to the US, I’ve also had to tell myself the same thing. Since I have been back, Trump has issued a travel ban for most of the countries that the people I talked to fled from. He’s threatening more bans, mostly for people living in countries across Africa. 

The faces of people fleeing violence and death are in my mind every time I show up to a protest, carrying my sign that’s getting a little battered. They are in my mind with every email I send or postcard I write, demanding justice, due process, mercy, compassion. 

We’ve come too far to give up hope now. 

“People speak of hope as if it is this delicate, ephemeral thing made of whispers and spider's webs. It's not. Hope has dirt on her face, blood on her knuckles, the grit of the cobblestones in her hair, and just spat out a tooth as she rises for another go.” -attributed to Matthew @Crowsfault.