Monday February 20, 2017
A welcome sign on blue poster board lays on a small desk just inside the front door. Scrawled across the bottom, in block letters, it reads: "Rochester Love!!!" In the living room, a 2-year-old girl sits mesmerized by an action movie on TV.
The sparsely furnished house on Cottage Street south of downtown is nothing like the place Mumina Hassan Aden and her children left last week.
That place, called Dagahaley, was home to Aden and her family for 25 years. Located outside Dadaab in eastern Kenya, it is the largest refugee complex in the world. It is where Aden, now 40, gave birth to her eight children, and where their father died.
Kenyan authorities want Dagahaley shut down, claiming the camp is a launching pad for terrorists — a charge the United Nation denies. Most of the estimated 250,000 to 300,000 residents are Somali, like Aden. And after President Donald Trump signed an executive order last month temporarily banning refugees from Somalia and six other muslim-majority countries, it seemed that is where the family would stay.
"President for America did not want anyone," Aden said through a translator. "President say, 'No come in. You go back.' ... Then he changed mind."
They had planned to travel days earlier, but were stopped in Nairobi because of illness. Something with Aden's blood requiring medication. Trip postponed. Then the order. Then the court-ordered stay. The family arrived in Rochester last Wednesday night, reuniting with Aden's oldest child. At 22, Deko Hujale "aged out" while waiting on her family's application. Her case was processed separately, and she got here two months ago.
February is shaping up to be a busy month for refugee arrivals in the Rochester area, with 66 scheduled. Aden and the remaining children — ranging in age from 2-year-old Eyman to 19-year-old Ayan — are the only ones from the seven targeted countries, save for those who aided the military and have arrived with special immigrant visas.
Trump has said he plans to issue a new executive order this week. The earlier order banned travel from Iran, Iraq, Libya, Somalia, Syria, Sudan and Yemen for 90 days, and suspended all refugee admission for 120 days.
While the administration said it needed the time to develop more extensive vetting, and recalled Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, critics and protesters noted that no refugee from the seven countries had carried out a deadly terrorist act on American soil in decades, and likened the effort to Trump's campaign pledge to ban Muslims.
Whether Aden is aware of the controversy surrounding refugees and Trump is not clear.
Soft spoken, she sat at the dining room table Sunday with her two middle sons and Deko. A small vase with delicate, artificial white flowers adorned the table, and a nondescript painting of a house was perched on a small stool in the corner. It was Deko's roommate, herself a recent refugee, who translated a conversation that was halted, with answers limited or sometimes not matching questions.
Aden and her husband applied to the refugee program in May 1998, but were only approved by United States Citizenship and Immigration Services in February 2016. There were stops and starts. A neighbor made it over, she said. But no other friends, nor her 77-year-old father have gotten clearance.
They talk about Dadaab as "rough" but also nice and safe. Her husband, the children's father, died in 2014. He was 52. Deko explained only that he went to mosque, then was dead. That led to another family interview.
Trump's order almost derailed them again, as their medical screenings were done on Aug. 15, and good only for six months, meaning Wednesday was the last day they could travel.
"Only scared, no cry," Aden said of that period in limbo. "I have a hope to come here."
They came with only clothes for luggage, Aden said. Records show little Eyman will celebrate her third birthday this May. Deko, her mother, and the second and third-oldest children all are marked as having birthdays on Jan. 1 — the default when no birth record exists.
Now the children are looking forward to school, with one of the boys already bored. Aden talks about work, as refugees must pay back the expense of their air travel. Asked how she explained to her children what was happening with the refugee ban and debate, Aden said she did not; that only she watched TV. Later, however, she said she did tell them.
"I feel afraid, because I miss mom, and my brothers and sisters," Deko said of those days when it appeared her family could not travel. And now? "Thank you, president, because I am happy to see my mom again."
As for Aden, the biggest adjustment to Rochester is the cold. Back in Kenya, it was hot, "like summer," she said. But she felt sick.
"Here," she said, "I feel free right now. I feel good."
Get involved
If you would like to help with local refugee settlement, contact the Catholic Family Center's Refugee, Immigration & Language Services Department at (585) 546-7220, and ask for the refugee volunteer coordinator.