Local refugees fear Trump's executive order on refugees threatens their freedom

SEATTLE -- Refugees already in the United States fear what President Donald Trump's order on refugees and immigrants means for their future, some wondering if they’ll ever see their families again.

“Everyone I ask has said it’s risky to go but at the same time, I cannot wait because my mom is really ill,” said Khawla Hadi, who fled Iraq and came to the United States in 1995. Hadi is now a U.S. citizen, and she has a plane ticket to visit her mom in Iraq next week. However, she fears the executive order means she will have trouble getting back into the country.



Mustafa Mohammed is also a refugee from Iraq, who works at Lutheran Community Services Northwest as a mental health therapist. After surviving a car bomb in 2003, he said he was kidnapped, tortured and held for ransom until he finally escaped Iraq and arrived in the United States five years later. He may have survived, but he fears the refugee ban will mean others won’t.

“I’m shocked because where are refugees going to go? Because if they don’t feel safe in their country as I was, where they going to go?” said Mohammed.

Hadi and other refugees say their last hope is that Trump will hear them.

“I hope President Trump bars his own executive order,” said Anisa Ahmed, a refugee from Somalia, who arrived in the United States in 2000. “I hope he puts a stop to what he’s doing, but I’m hoping it doesn’t affect more people than it already has.”