Together at last: Iraqi refugee reunites with family
 At around 10 o’clock on a morning much like any other, thirtysomething Basma (pictured right) walked out the door of her Baghdad apartment and hopped in her car. In a rush to run a few quick errands, she decided to take the side roads, hoping to avoid the usual traffic congestion along the main street. What seemed like a good idea at first, turned into a nightmare.
From a distance she could barely make out what appeared to be a group of men blocking the road she was driving on. As she came closer, she saw that the men were armed, their guns pointing right at her and signaling her to stop. One of the armed men came up to the driver’s window and instructed Basma to get out of her vehicle. The men then took her car and drove off, leaving her stranded in the middle of the road.
She never saw her car again.
That incident was just one example of the constant struggle and obstacles Iraqis have to endure just to make it through the day. “We were suffocating on a daily basis,” she said. “Everything you do is a big hassle.” Just going to work and coming home becomes an ordeal.
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Dearborn: a home away from home for Iraqi refugees
“There are parts of the city that for many Iraqis and other Arabs feel like being back home,” said Veronica Marroki (pictured left with colleague Asra Musaibli), an employee of the Dearborn, Mich., field office of the U.S. Committee for Refugees and Immigrants (USCRI), which helps refugees start a new life in the greater Detroit area. “It’s a close-knit community,” she said of the 300,000 some Arabs living in the Detroit area. “Most store owners in Arab parts of town will speak to you in Arabic when you enter their shop.”
Since 2003, more than 45,000 Iraqis have been resettled in the United States as refugees or special immigrant visa (SIV) cases. While most of the Iraqi refugees are spread out thinly across the United States—in areas where they often lack a support network of fellow expatriates to lean back on—those arriving in the Detroit area enter a home away from home. With over 30 percent of its residents being of Arab descent, it is no wonder that Dearborn is dubbed the Arab capital of North America. The city boasts an array of mosques, Islamic schools, the Arab American National Museum, Arab festivals, as well as ethnic businesses and shops.
As soon as they arrive in the United States, refugees face an enormous task: to become self-sufficient within a few months. USCRI Dearborn tries to make the adjustment process as smooth and easy as possible from the moment the refugees set foot in America. The resettlement agency’s staff and volunteers, most of whom speak fluent English, Arabic, and some Chaldean, meet the arriving families at the airport and from there on assist them in finding housing, health care, and enrolling their children in school.
But life in America is not without challenges...
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