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REUNITED — Four years after being separated from her two daughters at the southern border, Honduran Maria Hernandez finally reunited with them last week, report Mica Rosenberg and Carlos Barria of Reuters. "I was far away but always thinking of you," Hernandez told her daughters. They had originally sought asylum together, just days after Christmas 2017. But once Maria was apprehended under the Trump administration’s "zero-tolerance" policy, authorities told her to make "an impossible choice:" Be deported with her children or leave them behind in the U.S. for their safety. When she chose the latter, her children were taken to an unaccompanied minors’ shelter in California and eventually connected with their brother and sponsor, Maynor. "The past is the past," her oldest daughter Michelle said. "Now that my mom is here, I want to make new memories." "THE DAMNED AND THE SAVED" — George Packer’s hard look at the U.S. military withdrawal from Afghanistan in The Atlantic is a must-read. "The difference between the damned and the saved came down to three factors," he writes. "The first was character — resourcefulness, doggedness, will. The second was what Afghans call wasita — connections. The third, and most important, was sheer luck." Human Rights First estimates that 90% of Special Immigrant Visa recipients, including some who had visas in their hands at the Kabul airport gate, were still left behind with their families. State Department official Mary Beth Goodman told Packer: "Bureaucracy is killing more people than the Taliban." In some good news, Axios’ Zachary Basu reports this morning that Qatar has reached a deal with the Taliban to resume evacuation flights out of Afghanistan.
WISCONSIN WOES — Although hundreds of Afghan evacuees are calling Wisconsin their new home, they’re still working through a myriad of challenges from housing to trauma, reports Marisa Wojcik of PBS Wisconsin. Many Afghans who’ve already been welcomed to the U.S. continue to fear for their loved ones left behind: "Johnny," a Special Immigrant Visa recipient, fears for his young sisters who must evacuate alone to a neighboring country for their own safety. "You know, we were promised that we will be saved and our family will be saved," he said. In the meanwhile, Johnny and other Afghans like him are stepping up by becoming translators for newly arriving Afghans in the area. "I’m not done with serving and I really want to be somewhere — so I can be proud of my family and both of my countries," he added. Today’s local welcome compilation (with one from Albania):
CULINARY SKILLS — Veteran journalist Lisa Ling is exploring different Asian cuisines across America in her new series, Take Out With Lisa Ling. "For me, one of the most exciting aspects of this was the opportunity to just learn so much about this community whose stories just haven’t been told," Ling said in an interview with CNN’s Catherine E. Shoichet. Meanwhile, NPR’s Ian Brennan profiles pizza shop owner Ibrahim Songne, who immigrated to Italy from Burkina Faso. Despite initially not feeling welcomed in Italy, his pizzeria was just named one of the top 50 in the world. "Big things start little," Songne said. "If given enough care and value, food can change the world. It’s a bridge between people — a way to pleasurably experience something new. That experience then can lead to greater tolerance and understanding." Thanks for reading, Ali |
