This is a fictional story based on the real process of coming to the United States.

Belinda’s Story

               When I arrived to the United States, everyone thought it was just so easy for my family to get here. What they did not know is that we lived in the refugee camp for 5 years, and suffered so much while we were there. I decided to tell them my story.

               One night my mother came into my

room screaming, “Belinda it’s time to go!” At first I didn’t understand what was happening, but then I remembered what my parents had told me – we might have to flee our country because they want to kill us for our religion. The journey to the refugee camp was scary, and took us 2 months to get there. Once we arrived, we were surprised to find out that we would have to live here before gaining our refugee status. At the time, we thought this would be a quick process, but little did we know that we would live here for 5 years before finally getting our refugee status.

               Once my family was finally approved of our refugee status we had to go through the background check which took around 18 months. My parents and I were split up, and interviewed by different people – I am not sure who they were, but they were intensive about the questions they were asking me. They first asked me simple questions like my name, where my family have lived, birth date, etc. But then, these people started asking if I or my family had any ties to drug dealing, or terrorist. I was confused when they asked me these questions because those are the reasons is why we fled our country, those people who did those things wanted to kill my family! Once I started to cry, the people became nice again and asked me easier questions again. They gathered my finger print for something they called a biometric check. Later, I found out that a biometric check is a way that can look up my ethnic background, and see if I had gotten into trouble somewhere with my fingerprints.

               My mother, and myself were approved soon after our interviews. But, my father was put on a wait list because as a teenager he had moved around a lot. His extra screening process took a couple of months to come back clean. After we all had met the U.S. admissions criteria, we were approved for resettlement! We then had to go through a medical screening, to make sure my family and I were healthy to travel. The doctors took blood samples of mine, took my temperature, checked my hair and asked if I had ever been sick before. The medical screening took even longer to come back that my family and I were all healthy to travel to America.

               This became the happiest news for my family, we were finally going to be matched with a sponsor! We were lucky to be paired with World Relief, everyone in the camp said they were one of the best agency to be paired with. It took another couple of weeks but we found out that we would be going to the Fox Valley in the U.S. We then had an option to take a cultural orientation to learn about the U.S. and the Fox Valley. My mother and I wanted to go, but my father said it would be too dangerous and that we could become targets if people found out that we were leaving.

               I was so happy; my family was finally going to America! We had gotten our tickets, packed our bags, said our goodbyes – to only find out that we had to go through a second security clearance! This took another two weeks! We were finally all set to go after our second security check. We were taken to the airport, went through security check and on the plane to America. We had a layover in Chicago, and when we were going through security check my father was taken to a room to be screened! My mother busted into tears saying that we all would be shipped back to the camp! I didn’t understand what was happening, and no one would tell me. I had to calm my mother down and told her everything was going to be okay, that he would come back just fine. After waiting 4 hours, my dad came back and said we should board the plane. Which we were lucky, our layover was for 5 hours!

               Finally, after all we went through as we landed in the Fox Valley I could breathe out relaxed. I looked at my parents and said, “Momma, poppa, look we are home!” Walking through the gates we could see people holding a sign saying, “Welcome Home,” and “World Relief.” I just thought to myself, after everything, we finally were welcomed into a place we could call home.

 

To be continued….

 

Resources

http://refugees.org/explore-the-issues/our-work-with-refugees/refugee-resettlement-faqs/

http://www.unhcr.org/en-us/resettlement-in-the-united-states.html

https://www.state.gov/documents/organization/266671.pdf