Faiz Khalil was a colonel in the Iraqi Army whose work with the United States military may have provoked the killing of his 8-year-old daughter. Mohamed Sharif was a student in Mogadishu, Somalia, an urban war zone terrorized by rival militias.
Both arrived in the United States as refugees, through a yearslong process that involved hours of interviews and over a dozen background checks. In late January, President Trump signed an executive order to suspend that program, after months of claiming that the vetting process needed re-examination.
The State Department notes that refugees are the most rigorously examined travelers. As the program’s future hangs in limbo — last weekend refugees began coming in again, after a legal challenge to the order — we trace the existing steps.
Mr. Khalil, 54, now resides in Twin Falls, Idaho, as an American citizen, while Mr. Sharif, 26, lives in Aurora, Colo., as a legal permanent resident.
Faiz Khalil was a colonel in the Iraqi Army whose work with the United States military may have provoked the killing of his 8-year-old daughter. Mohamed Sharif was a student in Mogadishu, Somalia, an urban war zone terrorized by rival militias.
Both arrived in the United States as refugees, through a yearslong process that involved hours of interviews and over a dozen background checks. In late January, President Trump signed an executive order to suspend that program, after months of claiming that the vetting process needed re-examination.
The State Department notes that refugees are the most rigorously examined travelers. As the program’s future hangs in limbo — last weekend refugees began coming in again, after a legal challenge to the order — we trace the existing steps.
Mr. Khalil, 54, now resides in Twin Falls, Idaho, as an American citizen, while Mr. Sharif, 26, lives in Aurora, Colo., as a legal permanent resident.
Registering With the United Nations as Refugees
The United Nations gathers the names of people who have fled persecution.
Faiz Khalil
Mr. Khalil was in a daze when he arrived in Amman, Jordan, from Baghdad in July 2006 — he had been unable to think clearly ever since his daughter Maha had not returned from school one day.
Mr. Khalil had tried to keep his work with the United States military a secret, knowing it could make his family a target. But the day after Maha disappeared in 2004, he received a call from someone claiming to be from Al Qaeda. The man said that Mr. Khalil had been found out and would have to pay with Maha’s life.
After learning that Maha was, indeed, dead, the family tried to stay in Baghdad. But they felt that the other children could be in danger, so, in 2006, Mr. Khalil left Iraq with his wife, Nahida Mohammad, their 8-year-old son, Mamoon Jumah, and 4-year-old daughter, Maryam Jumah.
As unauthorized immigrants, they could not work and had to send the children to private school. Knowing that their savings would not last, Mr. Khalil registered them as refugees.
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Mohamed Sharif
At age 16, Mr. Sharif arrived alone at Kakuma, a desert camp for refugees in northwest Kenya, in 2007. Somalia had gone through more than a dozen attempts to form a government in his lifetime, and it was dangerous for him to return.
Mr. Sharif moved into a sheet-metal hut in the camp, where the temperature often topped 100 degrees, and registered as a refugee.
There, he met Bisharo, a single mother from Somalia with two children, Adnan and Hodan. He picked up work as an electrician. They married, but there was no big wedding. “We didn’t have enough money,” he said.
Interviewing With the United Nations
An officer hired by the United Nations asks questions about the applicant’s life. Then two officials review the case to determine if the person faces serious persecution back home. If concerns arise, the person is interviewed again or the case is closed.
Faiz Khalil
Mr. Khalil and his family arrived with their birth certificates, proof of Iraqi citizenship and marriage certificate, at a building in Amman. Armed guards were posted outside.
Over seven hours, they were photographed, fingerprinted and interviewed. There were tears, yelling, frustration as other Iraqis were denied refugee status.
When an official asked Mr. Khalil through an Arabic interpreter about Maha, he broke down in tears.
“I could not control myself,” he said.
As they waited for word, the family began to unravel. No one could sleep through the night. The parents walked their children to and from school each day, fearing something could happen.
Then the call came. Mr. Khalil was to return with more documents, including Maha’s death certificate.
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Mohamed Sharif
It was a big day. By 2012, Mr. Sharif had waited years at Kakuma before an official arrived for an interview. Mr. Sharif wore a football T-shirt — he had no dress clothes, and the camp was sweltering.
Why did he leave, he was asked. Mr. Sharif described in Somali the way he had fled his home, fearing death.
“I don’t have a home to go back to,” he later recalled having said.
Months later, Bisharo gave birth to a girl, Nimo. But then Bisharo died. At 22, Mr. Sharif was the single father of three children.
Interviewing With State Department Contractors
American contractors conduct in-person interviews to prepare for a visit from Homeland Security. Background checks begin.
Faiz Khalil
Mr. Khalil was asked about his time in the Iraqi Army. Why did he enlist? Because of the promise of a stable life. Why did he become an officer? There were benefits: a new car and some land.
He described teaching American soldiers about the Iraqi chain of command, and telling them to request receipts with serial numbers for deliveries of items like batteries or tires. Otherwise, he said, some could end up for sale on the Iraqi black market.
Mr. Khalil answered his interrogators “like a robot,” he said.
“I lost my daughter, I lost my house — everything,” he said.
During this time, Mr. Khalil and his family watched nervously as their bank accounts dwindled. They had to pay $3 a day per person to the Jordanian government to live there without authorization. They could not afford enough diesel fuel to heat their apartment through the winter, so the parents took turns waking up in the middle of the night to turn on the heater an hour at a time.
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Mohamed Sharif
This round, in 2013, took three days. In the first interview, Mr. Sharif and his interviewer cried as he spoke. In the second and third, he had to repeat his story.
They asked about his birthplace, his parents, their marriage, his schooling, his journey to the camp, his religion. Had extremists tried to recruit him? Would he do anything against the law?
“The answer is no,” he said later. “The reason we are here is to get a better life.”
The interviewers requested documents. “I didn’t have any,” he said. “Most of our people,” he said, “they didn’t go to school, they weren’t born in the hospital.”
That year, Mr. Sharif met Ubah Isse Mohamed, a camp neighbor, and they married. “She was loving,” he said. “The right person for my kids.”
Interviewing With Homeland Security
Officers visit the camp to verify stories and take fingerprints. Some nations skip this step and rely on United Nations interviews during the process.
Faiz Khalil
Winter receded and the family was called back for a 12-hour appointment.
Ms. Mohammad and the children were interviewed together; he was questioned alone.
American immigration officials asked hundreds of questions — many of them repeats from before — but they wanted even more detail.
The family was fingerprinted again and their retinas were scanned.
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Mohamed Sharif
In the summer of 2014, American officials went to Kakuma.
Mr. Sharif had to tell his story again. Then came several yes-or-no questions. Had he ever been recruited by terrorist agencies? By radical groups? No, he said. No.
Then he waited.
Getting Approval and a Health Screening
A medical exam is conducted to identify needs and ensure that people with a contagious disease do not enter the United States until they have been cleared.
Faiz Khalil
By the summer of 2007, the Khalil children had begun to speak Arabic with a Jordanian accent. The family was sent to a clinic for three days of health evaluations that included X-rays, blood work and immunizations. Mr. Khalil and his children received post-traumatic stress disorder diagnoses.
In early 2008, Mr. Khalil got a call. “Congratulations,” he recalled an official saying. “You’re moving to Twin Falls, Idaho.”
Mr. Khalil had never heard of it. “I said, ‘This is in the U.S.?’”
He did a quick search online: “It really scared me more, because I said, ‘I am going to nowhere.’”
They were scheduled to leave in September. As the day drew nearer, Mr. Khalil felt conflicted. Maybe they would fail, he thought. He had heard that life in America was difficult.
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Mohamed Sharif
Later that year, he got a letter. The United States wanted to welcome him. His family, which was further behind in the process, would have to stay behind.
Then came a three-day medical checkup at Kakuma. In early December, he left for a local airport and flew to Nairobi. On Dec. 10, at midnight, he left Kenya for good.
Arriving in the United States
Nine nonprofit organizations help refugees resettle. They decide where these new immigrants will live, often opting for more affordable midsize cities.
Faiz Khalil
On the morning they were set to leave, Mr. Khalil woke up in tears, and he struggled to compose himself. At one point, overcome by fear, he asked their taxi driver to turn around. “Don’t listen to him!” Ms. Mohammad shouted.
At the airport, something changed. “I had to be strong to support the family,” Mr. Khalil explained later.
They traveled for 36 hours on four planes: first to Frankfurt, then Chicago, Salt Lake City and, finally, Twin Falls.
It was close to midnight when they arrived. The children were exhausted.
“It was just dark, nobody in the streets, so I was kind of like, ‘Where we are?’” he said.
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Mohamed Sharif
He touched down at the Denver airport on Dec. 12, in the early evening. A man from Lutheran Family Services took him to a new apartment. The following night, Mr. Sharif walked outside to take in his first snowflakes.
“I looked up at the skies, and got it in my eyes,” he recalled. “It was really just something amazing for me.”
“Some refugees who were in my neighborhood have been in the camp from 1991 until now,” he said. “For me, I can say this: I was the luckiest guy ever. Ever.”
Living in the United States
Refugees can receive federal cash assistance for up to eight months. They can tap into federally funded language instruction courses, employment services and social adjustment programs for up to five years. They are required to apply for permanent residence after their first year.
Faiz Khalil
In the morning light, Twin Falls did not appear as foreboding.
The children learned English quickly, while Mr. Khalil and Ms. Mohammad practiced by watching “Grey’s Anatomy” and “Titanic.” Both work as interpreters for a refugee resettlement center, and Mr. Khalil still advises United States military troops on working in Iraq.
Mr. Khalil and Ms. Mohammad are registered independents and voted for Hillary Clinton. Mr. Trump’s executive order on refugees was unfair, Mr. Khalil said — other Iraqis would suffer after working to help the American military.
Maryam is now 14, but acts as if she were much older, her father said. Mamoon, 19, is “very American,” Mr. Khalil said — sometimes speaking to his parents with a “sharpness” to which they are unaccustomed.
When Mr. Khalil thinks of Maha, he likes to look at old family photos. His children rarely bring her up in front of him. But when they do not know he is listening, he occasionally overhears them talking about her.
“They have a good life, better than I had,” Mr. Khalil said.
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Mohamed Sharif
He is on the road constantly, working long hours as a truck driver to save for his family’s arrival. They live in Nairobi, but cannot go to school because they do not have Kenyan documents. Without them, he said, “I am alone.”
Mr. Sharif hoped to see them by Feb. 16, Nimo’s fourth birthday. His sister-in-law in Indianapolis has already bought them toys.
But a week into his presidency, Mr. Trump threw the future of Mr. Sharif’s family into uncertainty when he signed the refugee order.
“My kids keep asking, ‘Daddy when are we coming?’”
Mr. Sharif has not told them yet. “They cannot know,” he said. “I don’t want to make them hopeless.”
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