Asylum for Saamir: An Iraqi Finds Refuge in New York

By Jesse Andrews Ellison and Tina Shah

It is Saturday evening and Saamir A-Ali is driving his bronze Ford Explorer from his home in Middle Village, Queens, to midtown Manhattan. On the dirt-caked rear window, someone has traced the words "IRAQ" and "USA"—his homeland and his adopted refuge, respectively.

A-Ali’s Bluetooth earpiece flashes.

"Hello?" he answers. It is the U.S. Army captain for whom A-Ali used to translate when both worked in Iraq. A-Ali is visibly excited.

"Hello Sir! How are you? … I miss you too! I miss you very much… You're going back to Iraq?… To Baghdad?… Ah. . . I wish I could come with you… I’m gonna take care for America when you left, sir…. Everything is O.K. cause I’m in America. Nothing I have to worry.”

A-Ali hasn’t been back to his homeland since he left to get medical treatment in the United States a year and a half ago. He thought his visit would be temporary, but once he heard about deadly threats to his family in Iraq, it became clear that it would be too dangerous for him to return.

But this is not only the story of A-Ali. Since the 2003 invasion of Iraq, hundreds of Iraqi citizens have sought political asylum in the United States. Thousands more have applied to resettle in the United States, but only a fraction of those applicants have been let in to the country. A-Ali is a rare case, his entry made possible in large part because he had connections with the U.S. government. In 2005, only 194 Iraqis were granted asylum in the United States, down from 5,776 in 1997.

Tall and broad, with close-cropped hair and a round belly, A-Ali wears a fleece sweatshirt that says “Old Navy” across the chest. He is 37 and has an easy laugh. Today, he wears glasses, but he didn't always.

On February 24, 2004, A-Ali was on his way home to Baghdad from Fallujah when the van he was driving was attacked by insurgents. His friend, riding in the passenger seat, was shot 28 times and died. A-Ali took a bullet in the arm. Another one entered his right cheek and exited through his left.

A-Ali believes that he was deliberately targeted because of his work as a translator for the U.S. Army. Days before he was shot, three other translators he knew also were attacked, either in their own homes or while traveling in a convoy. In the midst of Iraq’s daily violence, civilian deaths are common. But those who work with the U.S. government, like A-Ali, are in particular danger – targeted by insurgents who accuse them of “collaboration” with American occupiers.

A-Ali spent four months and $10,000 in a Baghdad hospital undergoing 23 operations. Doctors repaired his face with metal plates and screws that can still be felt under the skin of his right cheek. But the hospital was unable to treat all of his injuries. Until the summer of 2005, when he came to New York, he had a hole in the roof of his mouth that went through to his nose.

A businessman and the son of a general in Saddam Hussein’s army, A-Ali could afford the costly medical bills in Iraq. In the summer of 2005, he went back to work as a translator for the U.S. Army, earning $600 a month, while waiting for a medical visa that would let him come to the United States for further treatment. A-Ali believes it was easier for him to get approval because he worked for the U.S. Army. After he left, he said, his Baghdad neighbors became suspicious.

“Oh, Saamir got shot and he is going to America. Maybe they gonna teach him CIA. He be a CIA when he come to Iraq,” A-Ali says, imitating the neighbors’ gossip.

After a month in New York, A-Ali learned that his 40-year-old brother Jamal had been shot and killed in front of his family, including his young son. His family did not know the gunmen, but A-Ali is convinced that they were members of Al Qaeda; he believes they targeted his family because of his work with the U.S. Army. A-Ali’s younger brother was also shot at while visiting the family home, but he managed to escape the gunmen and now lives in Turkey with A-Ali’s mother.

The attacks on his family convinced A-Ali that he could not return home – not with neighbors speculating about what he was up to in the U.S. He hired a lawyer, applied for political asylum, and received it seven months later. His wife and two daughters, ages 14 and 5, joined him in Queens last August.

A-Ali and his family live in a modest two-family building. On a recent Saturday, A-Ali agreed to talk about his journey from Iraq to America as he drove back and forth between Queens and Manhattan, transporting pushcart food stands. He worked 13 hours that day, earning $20 off the books for each pushcart. But he doesn’t do this everyday. Because of his injuries, A-Ali has had trouble securing a steady job; he cobbles together an income doing whatever work comes his way.

Despite his success in gaining asylum, A-Ali says he feels abandoned here. He says his needs are modest and the U.S. government should feel obligated to meet them. “I don’t need something for retirement,” he says. “I need a job to feed my family.”

A-Ali wrote a letter to Senator Hillary Clinton soon after he arrived in the U.S. Her office helped him arrange the surgery to repair the hole in the roof of his mouth, with the doctor waiving any fees. But he still needs five or six more procedures, and A-Ali says he has no money for them.

Still, A-Ali is reluctant to blame the U.S. for his injuries, or for the state of his homeland, which he believes he will never see again. When asked about Iraq’s future, his answer is immediate. “Nothing. I see nothing,” he says. A-Ali predicts that violence eventually will lead to the splintering of Iraq into three separate countries.