Fear was their guide out of Iraq

Salam knew the risks.

As a Christian in Iraq, he already faced persecution by extremist Muslim insurgents. Working for the U.S. military placed him in even more danger.

But the contract his family’s company had to supply water for the U.S. base at Ramadi was lucrative. Salam also respected the Americans for helping the Iraqi people and wanted to support the effort.

On Feb. 1, 2006, Salam was leaving the base, beginning his seven-hour drive home after 17 days away. He rode in one car with two co-workers while two colleagues rode in another. About five minutes down the road, two cars pulled out from a side street and tried to block them.

The car in which Salam was riding escaped, but the car behind didn’t. Two days later, back in his village, Salam’s cellphone rang. The caller told him that they would find him and kill him.

Then Salam received the news that the two co-workers who were in the other car had been killed.

Salam decided that he and his family had to flee. He contacted a smuggler who had guided friends and neighbors out of Iraq. Salam told the man that he, his wife, Jehan, and their two sons needed to get to Athens, where her parents had already relocated. They agreed on a price: $10,000.

They hoped life in Athens would work out. But if it didn’t, the family would set their sights on America, where Jehan’s brother lived. The journey to either destination presented enormous risks. But there would be no turning back.

“I had to leave Iraq,” Salam said. “I had no other choice.”

More than 2 million Iraqis are believed to have escaped since the U.S.-led invasion in 2003. Many are waiting in Syria and Jordan, hoping to be admitted to the United States as refugees. But in the last five fiscal years, the U.S. government has resettled only 2,372 refugees from Iraq. Most are Christian.

Other Iraqis have taken matters into their own hands, paying smugglers tens of thousands of dollars to travel to the United States, where they hope for asylum.

“These people have lost everything,” said Joseph Kassab, executive director of the Chaldean Federation of America, a nonprofit group that helps Eastern Rite Catholics outside of Iraq. “People are desperate. They will do anything to be resettled and to be safe.”

On March 31, 2006, Salam and Jehan, whose last name is being withheld for the safety of their relatives in Iraq, packed one bag each, small enough to carry on their shoulders. They only took clothing, warned by a smuggler that the journey would be muddy and dirty. They tried to explain to their sons, Stavro and Paolo, who are now 3 and 8, that they all had to flee.

After saying goodbye to their relatives, the family met the smuggler at an arranged spot in the city of Duhok. They rode in a car for a few days to the Turkish border, pretending to sleep when they passed checkpoints. Stavro cried all the time. Paolo couldn’t stop shaking. Once across the border, the family boarded a bus to Istanbul. There, they stayed in a safe house until the smuggler came for them.

Because the Greek-Turkish border is closely watched, a crucial part of their journey would have to be on foot. Over one long night, the family walked for hours through a mosquito-infested forest, watching for police and bandits. They didn’t eat, but food was the last thing on their mind.

“We knew it was dangerous,” Salam said through a Chaldean interpreter. “I was thinking, ‘I have to do it to save my life.’ ”

In the darkness, the smuggler, Ahmed, led them through hidden routes and past check stations. When they came to a deep, narrow waterway, the smuggler pulled out a small raft and inflated it. Salam, Jehan and their sons got in and Ahmed led them across. The water wasn’t deep at the crossing, but Salam still worried. He was the only one in the family who knew how to swim.

“I had my hand on my heart,” Jehan said. Each part of the trip was worse than the other. “When I was in the water, I was afraid I might drown with the kids,” she said. “In the forest, I was scared of animals and police.”

Salam tried not to think about the dangers. He knew Iraqis trying to cross illegally into Greece had been shot, that others had drowned or been abandoned by their guides.

“The smuggler was ahead of us,” he said. “We were following him, because if something happened, the smuggler would be the first one to run.”

Finally, Ahmed told them they had reached Greece. He took them to an abandoned house. The boys, who were exhausted, slept on the cold floor. Salam and Jehan kept quiet, knowing that if anyone heard or saw them, the family could be discovered and sent back.

Later that afternoon, they were led onto a bus, then a train, and another. They made it to Athens on April 9.

Upon the family’s arrival, Jehan’s parents celebrated with a feast of soup, stuffed grape leaves and rice.

“There was a lot of crying, happy tears,” Salam said. “When you get to a country like Greece and you see the spring in that country and no more Christian-Muslim issues, you feel good.”

Salam and Jehan turned themselves in to authorities, but were denied documents entitling them to live and work in Greece. So Salam worked illegally as a day laborer, mixing cement, moving furniture and laying brick.

Some weeks, he worked nearly every day. Others, he was hired for only a couple of days. He ran when he saw police.

The family rented a house, but Salam’s earnings barely covered their bills. They felt safe but unsettled.

“Life in Greece is good, but you cannot work, you cannot make a living,” Salam said.

After about eight months in Athens, Salam and Jehan decided to leave. Jehan’s brother had received asylum the previous year and was living in El Cajon, near San Diego. They knew of America only from his descriptions, and from movies.

“We had an impression that everything was perfect,” Salam said of the U.S.

Without documents and unsure of how to make the journey alone, the family hired another smuggler to get them passports and guide them on their trip. The cost to get to the United States was much higher, $35,000 for the whole family. Salam would have to borrow from relatives.

Again, the family said their farewells. With fake Greek passports, the family boarded a flight west.

The destination was Guatemala, where entry documents could be obtained. Once they arrived, Jehan felt better knowing that they were closer to their final destination, but anxious about what was to come.

“It was hard to believe that we would make it,” she said. “When you are on a journey like this, you are scared every step.”

Over the next few weeks, they spent hours on buses and passenger vans traveling through Guatemala and Mexico.

They passed through cities they had never heard of -- Flores, Palenque and Mazatlan. They tried to blend in as tourists, feeling lucky that their features weren’t too Arabic. They avoided police for fear that they would be arrested and deported.

“These countries are good for tourists, but not for us,” Salam said. “We feel we are different from everybody else.”

The smuggler had advised them on how to behave at hotels and restaurants: Be quiet, but polite. Occasionally, they had to say “Hello” or “Good morning.” But most of the time, he spoke for them.

The stops at hotels helped break up the journey. They could shower and sleep, and speak in their own language. When they arrived in Mazatlan, a ferry took them to La Paz and the bus rides resumed. One lasted more than 20 hours. Paolo became motion sick. Stavro often cried.

“The younger one, we had a lot of trouble taking care of him,” Jehan said. “For a little kid who is dreaming about being able to play, to eat in a timely manner, he would cry a lot. And I would be afraid they might find out we were here illegally.”

The family arrived in Tijuana on Jan. 3, 2007. The smuggler took them to the U.S.-Mexico border. He pointed toward a line of people waiting to cross.

Jehan held a blue-beaded rosary and a small book of prayers. Salam carried one of his sons and clasped the other’s hand.

“I said, ‘Thank God we are here,’ ” Jehan recalled.

When the family reached the front of the line, a man in uniform said something in English they didn’t understand.

Salam held out his hands and uttered three words: “Asylum. From Iraq.”

The family knew there was one last step -- proving to the U.S. government that they weren’t terrorists, but rather Christians brutalized by Islamic extremists.

U.S. Border Patrol took them into custody, separating Salam from his family. Authorities searched them and took their fingerprints. Salam said there were no windows, so they didn’t know whether it was day or night.

Stavro’s temperature rose sharply. Jehan couldn’t tell authorities what was wrong but put her hand to her son’s forehead to let them know he needed a doctor. They let her give him a cool bath.

A few days later, U.S. immigration officials escorted the family onto an airplane. Salam and Jehan didn’t know where they were going. Everyone was speaking English.

“I was thinking, ‘My God, I hope they are not taking us back,’ ” Jehan said.

Instead, the plane landed in Pennsylvania, and U.S. officials took them to a detention center for families in Berks County. They were separated again. During their four months there, Salam said, guards were “watching you every step of the way.”

They met with an asylum officer, telling him their story through a Chaldean interpreter. Through Iraqi friends, they found an attorney, Michele R. Pistone, a law professor at Villanova University.

Pistone tracked down copies of the couple’s Iraqi passports through Jehan’s brother and she filed their asylum applications.

After two court hearings, a judge granted Salam, Jehan and their sons asylum.

“I felt like I was born again,” Salam said.

They were released April 23 and flew to San Diego the next week.

“All this journey, out of jail, and I see my own brother,” she said. “Imagine. It was a very happy moment.”

The family settled into a neighborhood in El Cajon, filled with other Chaldeans, many of whom left Iraq years earlier. They joined a church, where the sermons are in Chaldean.

They enrolled Paolo in school, where he is already excelling, his father said. Salam found a job at a liquor store and Jehan enrolled in English classes. They lived with her brother, but recently moved out on their own.

They get by on the little English they know, but Salam said they still don’t know what to do with all the mail they get.

“We don’t know which ones to tear up and which ones to keep,” he said.

The couple often watch news of Iraq on Arabic and English news stations.

They call their family members back home every few weeks. “This is a shame that this is happening to our country,” Salam said.

Salam doesn’t blame America for what has become of Iraq. He blames the terrorists. He and Jehan fear for relatives back home. Salam is one of 10 brothers and sisters, all of whom are still in Iraq.

“We keep praying they will come one day,” he said. “We are always worrying about them.”

Jehan continues to hold on to her rosary and her book of prayers, which she believes helped watch over her family during the long trip.

Salam said he wishes there were an easier way out for Iraqi Christians, especially those who work for Americans. To smuggle the rest of his family out of Iraq would cost a fortune, he said. He is still paying off his smuggling debt to relatives.

“I wish [the Americans] had helped me get out,” he said. “But what can I do? The important thing is that I have my freedom.”

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anna.gorman@latimes.com