America must open its arms to Syrian refugees

In India, I met this week with a Ph.D. psychologist from Chicago. Dr. Shaifali Sandhya is an American with roots in India. She was visiting in India to care for her parents.

Her work in Chicago has been focused on refugees. Using her own money, she went to refugee camps in Germany to interview recently arrived refugees from Syria. She has interviewed about two-dozen men. Dr. Sandhya says, in the U.S., we focus on religious affiliations but ignore psychological factors many refugees share. Having grown up with friends of my parents who were refugees from the Holocaust, I certainly understand that.

What is different, says Dr. Sandhya, is now, in the 21st century, many people are connected by technology and have contact with their last remaining relatives. This has presented a new set of challenges that were not seen after World War II.

She asks, "How are you going to integrate a huge section of people when their minds are hearts are someplace else?" She sent me the following story form one of the refugees she interviewed:

As far as he can remember, 32-year-old Hassan (whose name has been changed to protect his identity) has been a tailor. He was born into a Kurdish family of seven siblings in Afrin, a land wild with olive groves known as "liquid gold" in northern Syria. Apprenticed to a tailor at the age of seven, he would mop floors, repair hems, mend broken zippers, oil the sewing machines and make tea for the other tailors.

TRENDING: Montana lawmaker follows Trump's lead, moves to designate Antifa as domestic terror group

"I had a normal life," he said. "After my marriage, I stayed with my wife and children."

His normal life changed in 2006 when Syrian President Bashar-al-Assad's forces pulled Hassan from his shop and from his life. He was detained in a secret prison for his "political activities," and his quest for a new life began

Dr. Sandhya said, "The upheaval in the lives of refugees like Hassan can cause trauma that manifests it in ways that have profound effects on both refugees and the countries where they settle."

She said many suffer from somatic pain, such as headaches, and many of these male refugees suffer from them.

"I have huge headaches," Hassan said. "I feel sad, but I don't cry. … I am living with men, and I cannot have them see me cry."

Six months after his detention, as part of a presidential pardon Assad called "a present to the population," Hassan was released under the condition that he register at a security location within five years. He and his wife fled Syria before he was to register. He fled to Turkey and lived with his family in a relative's apartment.

Later, he went to sea from Izmir, Turkey, headed for Kos, Greece, in a small rubber dinghy without any belongings, a life vest, water or food. He sat crouched with his knees to his chest amid nearly 70 fellow refugees in a vessel made for 20. Before they escaped Turkish waters, they were stopped by the coast guard and returned to shore. Twice more, Hassan tried to cross by sea. Each time, he was caught. He left his family behind.

Undeterred, he abandoned the sea route and walked east to Greece, then north to Macedonia, covering the distance of 70 kilometers by foot. He then took a train "as close to the (Serbian) border as possible" without drawing the attention of the border police, hopping off the train and walking again to Hungary and then Germany.

By the time he arrived in a host country, the average asylum seeker had spent 8,000 euros, traveled through six countries and many cities, endured two years of intense hardship and attempted unsuccessfully to settle in a safe haven at least twice. But, most significantly, he had likely witnessed repeated brutalities directed at family members, loved ones and traveling companions.

Dr. Sandhya asked, "Have you spoken to Aliya and Imran since you left?"

"No," he said, although he now has access to a mobile phone and Internet. "It is not enough to talk," he said as his voice broke and tears poured down his face.

Right after Dr. Sandhya asked this question, Hassan had a severe headache and could not say more. He told her he wanted to say more, but he could not.

We know that refugees from Cambodia and Vietnam arrived with similar stories and problems. Syrians, unlike other refugees, are often highly educated.

The time is not to shut our borders to these people from Syria, but to open them. As Dr. Sandhya says, Americans and American cities need to adopt refugee camps so people are fed, medical care obtained and families are educated. We have done it before, and morality calls for us to do it again.

Media wishing to interview Ellen Ratner, please contact [email protected].