Estimated read time: 5-6 minutes
- The Refugee Justice League held a press conference to show support for Utah's refugee community amid fears of increased hostility.
- One of the first actions after President Donald Trump took office was to halt a federal refugee resettlement program.
- Iraqi refugee Maram Al-Shammari says she faced bullying as a student in a Utah school during Trump's first term.
SALT LAKE CITY — During President Donald Trump's first term in office — marked early on by the implementation of his so-called Muslim travel ban — Maram Al-Shammari, then 11, remembers mean comments from her classmates.
Muslim and a refugee, originally from Iraq, who moved to the United States with her family in 2014, she had just started wearing a hijab.
"They would call me toilet paper head. They would call me a terrorist or a bomber," she said. "I tried to block out those hurtful comments, but I think as time progressed, it just continued to grow and grow and they would continue to pick on me."
Then a student at the now-closed Mill Creek Elementary, Al-Shammari said she received limited support from school officials and finally reached out to the Refugee Justice League for help, which advocated on her behalf. With Trump back in office, she worries about another uptick in discriminatory activity against refugees and has joined representatives from the organization in letting the community know support is available.
Refugees face vetting before getting permission to legally resettle in the United States, usually because they face persecution in their home countries. They are distinct from immigrants in the United States illegally, the focus of heightened deportation efforts implemented by the new Trump administration, but their advocates say they can still face hostile treatment.
"Refugees are an incredibly valuable part of our community. Unfortunately, they're also a very vulnerable part of our community," Norm McKeller, executive director of the league, said at a press conference Wednesday. "And the Refugee Justice League wants all the refugees to know that they're not in this alone, that we are here to help them, to have their backs and support them with issues that they may have."
McKeller reported a spike in calls to league offices from concerned members of Utah's refugee community and others, including Muslims, coinciding with Trump's return to the presidency on Jan. 20. Group representatives are in the process of reaching out to the refugee community in light of the increased jitters, which also prompted Wednesday's press conference, meant to shine a light on the concerns.
"I think right now it's a lot of fear. Some of that, I think, is well-grounded and some of it may be social-media driven. But we're expecting some kind of bad things coming," McKeller said. "It happened the last time (Trump) took office and it seems to be more focused this time."
In the early days of his first term in office, Trump implemented a ban on travel to the United States by people from six Muslim-majority countries, according to Amnesty International, and also slowed down refugee resettlement in the United States. On Jan. 20, the first day of his second term, Trump completely halted refugee resettlement programming in the country, determining that entry of refugees "would be detrimental to the interests of the United States."
Representatives from the Refugee Justice League, a nonprofit Saratoga Springs-based entity, pushed back Wednesday against the notion that refugees pose a threat. The organization took shape in response to Trump's win in the 2016 presidential race and the alarm his election prompted among some in the Muslim and refugee communities.
"In fact, quite the opposite. As we see from the example of Ms. Al-Shammari, they are a gift and a blessing," said Brent Ward, a former U.S. attorney for Utah who spoke Wednesday. Al-Shammari, now 18, is a student at Rice University in Houston, Texas.
What's more, the presence of refugees doesn't pose a risk to U.S. security, he went on, noting the extensive vetting refugees face before getting permission to resettle in the United States. The U.S. refugee program is geared to those who face persecution in their home countries based on race, religion or other factors.
The vetting "includes multiple layers of security checks by U.S. government agencies, both overseas and domestic. Applicants are screened by the United Nations, the U.S. Embassy, Department of Homeland Security, FBI, Department of Defense, U.S. Citizen and Immigration Services, Department of State and Office of Refugee Settlement," Ward said.
Even if they are here legally, the Refugee Justice League officials said refugees in Utah faced an uptick in public hostility and increased scrutiny from federal law enforcement authorities after Trump took office in his first term. Jim McConkie, former executive director of the organization, said they were targets of hate messages and public harassment.
"Someone would have a hijab on, they looked different, and people would shout at them and say, 'We don't want you here. Go home,'" McConkie said.
He also said FBI agents would visit the homes of refugees without notice and subject them to interviews about their home countries. Without a search warrant, though, refugees don't have to submit to such attention, one of the key messages of the Refugee Justice League officials.
Al-Shammari said the assistance of the Refugee Justice League was valuable. Apart from the bullying from classmates, she said she also faced subtle jabs in her everyday dealings with others because of her hijab. "I think having somebody who could advocate for me really helped me build that character and realize that that behavior was not acceptable," she said.
Some 70,000 refugees live in Utah, according to the Utah Department of Workforce Services' Refugee Services Office. Recent waves have come from Afghanistan and Ukraine while more have come from the Democratic Republic of the Congo, the Republic of the Congo, Venezuela and Syria.
