PORTLAND — The journey ends with a water bottle.
Most refugees have fled war or famine. They’ve waited as long as a decade to walk the tarmac at Portland International Airport.
When they find a Catholic Charities worker waiting with the water, the relief is overwhelming.
Some drain the bottle with one gulp. A Somali man poured it all over his face. Many fall to the ground, clutching the bottle as they kiss the airport carpet.
“They drink it like they’ve never drank water before,” said Toc Soneoulay-Gillespie, who made the journey herself in the 1970s after the Vietnam War. “Overseas, water doesn’t come easy. They say, ‘What have we done to deserve this? No one has ever given us this.'”
Soneoulay-Gillespie is the Catholic Charities of Oregon’s director of refugee resettlement. Before this week, her team welcomed refugees three times a week. Another 30 were due to arrive in the next month.
Then, last Friday, President Donald Trump suspended the visas of citizens of seven majority Muslim countries for 90 days. He forbade refugees from coming to the United States for 120 days.
“We may not go to the airport anymore,” Soneoulay-Gillespie said. “We may not be able to welcome human beings into this amazing country. This changes that landscape of everything we do.”
Refugees call it “the golden ticket,” Soneoulay-Gillespie said. Of the 21.3 million refugees worldwide, only 1 percent will be resettled.
To win those improbable odds, many refugees first must leave their home countries. Somalis run to Kenya. Iraqis flee to Jordan. They contact United Nations officials, then spend years waiting for word in makeshift camps.
After the United Nations determines a person is, in fact, a refugee, applicants go before as many as eight different governmental agencies for interviews and background checks.
Ammar Abo Nidr, an Iraqi refugee who now works in Tigard, said he spent nearly three years in Jordan appearing before juries for screenings.
Eventually, refugees make it into a database. Resettlement agencies then evaluate the families.
“Not every family gets accepted,” Soneoulay-Gillespie said. Last year, three agencies elsewhere turned down a Somali family of nine because seven of the members were deemed medically fragile.
Catholic Charities of Oregon had planned to accept 660 refugees this fiscal year. They have resettled 260 since October. Two other faith groups — Lutheran Community Services Northwest and Ecumenical Ministries — also bring refugees to Portland.
Soneoulay-Gillespie said her agency looks to see if a community can support incoming refugees. Sometimes, that means looking to see what sorts of mental and medical health services a city can offer. Other times, it means looking at the existing community — Is Portland’s Syrian community strong enough to support a man paralyzed by a sniper shooter back home?
Catholic Charities of Oregon decided Portland could help the Somali family. They said yes to the Syrian man bound to a wheelchair.
“As soon as my staff clicks accept, that’s a yes to the family,” Soneoulay-Gillespie said. “That says Oregon is willing to accept you.”
The international organization of migration books airline tickets. Then, if the refugee has any family in Portland, Catholic Charities worker Amanuel Habtemariam calls to deliver the good news.
“They’re excited to hear my voice,” Habtemariam said. “I’m telling them their husband or their wife or their child is going to come.”
Students sometimes join the resettlement workers at the airport. Portland Police officers often do. Then-Mayor Charlie Hales was at the airport in 2015 when the first Syrian refugees arrived.
Earlier this month, Habtemariam helped a widower from the Congo reunite with the sister he hadn’t seen in seven years.
When an Iraqi man saw his mother for the first time in 13 years, he sobbed.
“He just kneeled down on the ground and held her legs and wouldn’t let go,” Soneoulay-Gillespie said.
Catholic Charities has 30 days from arrival to teach them how to be American. A financial wellness counselor shows them how to budget. Some refugees come from countries without toothpaste or deodorant. Case managers explain the particulars of American hygiene.
Resettlement agencies find apartments for the refugees and take them to the Immigrant and Refugee Community Organization to learn English and find jobs.
The agencies can request extensions, but after 90 days, refugees must survive on their own or with the help of community volunteers.
Soneoulay-Gillespie said the model works: The paralyzed Syrian man arrived with his family in December. They’re living in an East Portland apartment now. The medically fragile Somali family has begun to thrive.
“That was because we said yes,” Soneoulay-Gillespie said. “That’s because of our health system. That’s because of our school systems. That’s everyone in this community who came together to support this family.”
That starts, she said, at the airport.
Last Wednesday, two days before Trump signed the executive order, Habtemariam went to the airport at 10 p.m. with a Somali man.
Somalia has been embroiled in civil war since the 1990s. In recent years, the east African country has been home to al-Shabab, one of the most violent terrorist groups affiliated with al-Qaeda.
The Somali man fled the violence and hadn’t seen his wife in three years. She was pregnant when he won the golden ticket.
The man arrived in a full suit. Habtemariam teased him.
“Are you here to get married today?” he asked.
“It feels like that,” the man said. “I’m very happy to be with my wife and kid.”
Habtemariam had already called two dozen Sudanese, Somali and Iraqi families this month to announce their relatives had won the golden ticket. Last Wednesday, the same day he met the Somali family at the airport, Habtemariam told a Catholic Charities interpreter that his nephew had been approved after waiting, alone in Africa, for more than a year.
“We gave him good news on Wednesday,” Habtemariam said. “On Friday, that good news just went out the door.”
After Trump signed the executive order, Habtemariam’s phone began ringing. The only number most refugees have is his. Many said their relatives had sold all their belongings in anticipation of the trip. Others were in immediate danger.
“What do I do now?” he said they asked. “What did we do to deserve this?”
One mother who came from Yemen cried on the phone, Habtemariam said.
“She said, ‘My kids are not safe. I can’t go back because I can’t get back in. What am I supposed to do? I cannot live without my kids,'” Habtemariam said. “They’re in the middle of war. It’s really not safe where they’re from.”
He tried to explain the executive order. He told her to pray for her sons’ safety. For the next four months, at least, Habtemariam would not be able to meet them at the airport, water bottle in hand.
“Her words were, ‘Inshallah, God be with us,'” Habtemariam said. “That’s all I can say, too.”
