San Diego’s Chaldean Christian community conflicted over Trump’s travel ban
They came from Iraq or their parents came from Iraq, and now they have made their lives in San Diego. The members of the region’s large Chaldean Christian community all have roots planted in the same place. But on the day that a federal appeals court refused to reinstate President Donald Trump’s travel ban, their feelings were all over the map.
Thursday’s ruling is likely to be appealed to the Supreme Court. For now, the ban is suspended, and the refugees and foreign visitors who had been barred from entering the United States can make their way back. But the fate of Trump’s order suspending travel from seven predominantly Muslim countries is far from resolved. So are the Chaldean community’s opinions about it.
It’s an outrage. It’s a safeguard. It’s a necessary evil to keep us safe. It is just plain evil. From markets and restaurants in El Cajon to the offices of the Bishop of St. Peter Chaldean Catholic Church, the Chaldeans were speaking. And like every other group in our fractured country, they were not speaking in unison about anything.
“It’s stressful, even though for me, the ban doesn’t really matter,” said Emily Salem, settling in for lunch at Sahara Taste of the Middle East in El Cajon, one of several restaurants her family owns. “We don’t have any people in Iraq, but I feel for the people who are trying to get away. But I think it’s very important to secure our borders. You can’t let just anybody in.
“I feel torn,” said Salem, who came to the U.S. from Iraq in 1975. “I want the people who are suffering to come here, but we have to be secure first before they can come in.”
As Christians living in a Muslim country, Chaldeans are victims of violence, abuse and death at the hands of ISIS fighters, who consider the Chaldeans to be infidels. In January, Trump said persecuted Christians would be given priority over other refugees seeking to enter the United States. But the executive order that Trump signed late last month did not make any exceptions for Christians, leaving some local Chaldeans feeling like a vital promise had been broken.
“The mood is conflicted,” said James Elia, a native San Diegan whose father was born in Iraq. “The message that was solidified by Trump was, ‘We are going to help Christians and refugees.’ A lot of people bought into that and a lot of people depended on that idea. A lot of people here were supportive of Trump because of that, and now there is a feeling of betrayal. In the same breath, he says he wants to help Christian refugees, but he won’t let them in.”
One of those Christians is Elia’s uncle, Ibraham Shemami, who started his visa process three years ago. Shemami came to San Diego last year to see his American relatives and weigh his relocation options. The plan was for Shemami, his daughter and his grandchild to come to San Diego. But when he was traveling to Jordan for business recently, authorities told him his American visa was suspended, and he would have to go back to Iraq without going into Jordan.
Elia is hoping that the court’s ruling on Trump’s ban means that his uncle will not be forced to stay in a country where it is so dangerous to be who he is. He just wishes he could be more sure about it.
“We are told we can do business as usual now, but you can never tell,” Elia said after the court’s ruling was announced. “There is no time to waste. I’m going to tell him, ‘You can’t wait any longer. If you want to get out of there, you have to get out now.’
“ISIS has radicalized a lot of people, so if you are a Christian, you are a double target,” said Elia, who lives in El Cajon and works as an accountant in Miramar. “ISIS is killing Muslims as well, but being a Christian gives them incentive. It’s a death sentence to stay there.”
Trump’s promise to give Christian refugees priority also put Chaldeans in the uncomfortable situation of heading to the front of a line filled with equally desperate people from their own country. It may look like a lifeline, but for some Chaldeans it is full of moral knots.
“Our commitment has been to go shoulder to shoulder with every refugee,” said Mark Arabo, a first-generation Iraqi-American and the president of the San Diego-based Minority Humanitarian Foundation. “There is no difference when it comes to religion. A refugee is a refugee, period. The entire refugee ban is just wrong. It sends the wrong signal to the world. America was founded upon refugees fleeing other nations to start anew as Americans.”
In the 1970s, Emily Salem and her eight siblings came to America with their parents to start anew. They all flourished, but the memories of being from a country that seemed to be perpetually in turmoil got under their skin and stayed there.
Trump’s travel ban and his promise of more rigorous vetting of immigrants hoping to enter the U.S. resonated with Salem and her family. Still, she has some doubts about the particulars.
“I voted for Trump, but at the same time, he’s banning all these countries and Iraq was one of them,” Salem said. “Well, Iraq has never done anything. None of the Iraqis. You know, they love life. Even the Muslims, Christians, Yazidis, all of them. They’re not radicals.”
St. Peter Chaldean Catholic Church is in El Cajon, where some 60,000 Chaldeans live. Bishop Bawai Soro does not see much agitation in his congregation over Trump’s ban, and he doesn’t feel it himself.
His people have been persecuted for centuries as their population in Iraq and Syria has been painfully losing ground, losing churches and losing people. Since the invasion of Iraq in 2003, the population of Christians living there has fallen from 1.4 million to 275,000 in 2016.
For the sake of religion and history, he wishes more people would stay. He also understands why they don’t. But when it comes to the hurdles immigrants may have to negotiate to get here, he is not in favor of taking them away. For people from war-torn Iraq, America is worth fighting for.
“Before the ban, we were stuck for years and years waiting to come here. Being delayed is not a new thing. I think no one in the Chaldean community minds being vetted. I don’t think one Chaldean in the world is a terrorist, so let them vet as much as they want,” said Soro, who came to the United States in 1973.
“We escape for freedom, and freedom must contain security. I think Chaldeans don’t mind waiting a few months more for that.”
Twitter: @karla_peterson
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