Syrian refugee watches, waits in Lancaster

LANCASTER - After a week of rising rhetoric against Syrian refugees and congressional action that could halt their resettlement, refugee Farhan Alqadri, 55, wants to be the Syrian who alters perceptions.

Just as any jihadi who hides in the flow of desperate refugees "spoils it for a million," he said in Arabic through an interpreter Friday, "I hope I can be the one person on the opposite side who changes millions of minds."

He arrived here in June, with his wife, Muna, and four of their nine children - a Muslim family fleeing violence, resettled in this city near Amish farms, by Church World Service, a philanthropic cooperative of Christian denominations. The other children, some of whom are married, live now in Europe and the Persian Gulf.

Choosing to leave Daraa, their hometown south of Damascus, was an agonizing decision.

"We had a good life," said Alqadri, who owned a house, two cars, an olive grove, and a shop selling sundries before the outbreak of Syria's civil war in 2011. All had to be abandoned.

For one dangerous year the family had tried to hold on amid the intensifying battles between Syria's army and the armed rebel groups opposed to the rule of President Bashar al-Assad.

"The fighters used to attack the army convoys," he said, "and the army would raid the villages, searching house-to-house . . . detaining people, bombing, shelling," dropping barrels of explosives from helicopter gunships.

Then, on a single day in 2012, 70 mortars hit the town, and three landed on Alqadri's house, he said, "so we had to flee." Thousands of others in the town ran for their lives, too, he said.

The family's only valid passport was in his name, he said. All the others had expired. So the family would have to leave through unofficial channels.

Traveling mostly on foot, with just one suitcase each, all but Alqadri took a day to walk to the border with Jordan, where millions of Syrians have sought refuge in camps. They waited for dark to cross and stifled fears that they could be shot.

Alqadri said he stayed behind to wrap up unspecified business and joined them in Jordan a month later. The family lived very briefly in a camp, then got an apartment in the Jordanian town of Irbid. They registered with the United Nations, which authenticates the status of refugees.

As a refugee in Jordan, Alqadri was not permitted to work. He said he stayed close to home fearing arrest if he ranged too far and wondering if he would see Syria again.

Now the notion of returning seems absurd.

"It is impossible because there is more than one government in my country," he said. "There is ISIS, al Nusra [al-Qaeda in Syria], the Free Syrian Army [made up of military defectors], the Syrian government, and they all will kill you. There is no safety."

Because his eldest son, Sami, 32, has a development disability, the family was considered especially vulnerable, which prioritized its refugee file, but still it took more than two years to process.

When the family started its application, Ahmad, a middle son, was 19. After he turned 21, he was no longer eligible to be resettled with the family as a dependent child. So he remains behind in Jordan and will have to apply on his own.

"My wife is so sad and depressed," said Alqadri. "She talks about going back to Jordan if she cannot bring her son here."

Including the Alqadris, there are three recently arrived Syrian refugee families in Lancaster. Sheila Mastropietro, head of the local Church World Service office of immigration and refugee resettlement, anticipates receiving four or five Syrian families in the coming year. They will join the 161 Syrian refugees resettled in Pennsylvania since the March 2011 start of the civil war.

Making his way in America, Alqadri has a $10.50-an-hour job cleaning machinery at an egg-packing plant, and a can-do attitude.

He said he was ready to take any job.

"We didn't come here to sleep," he said. "We came here to work. Even though I am not young anymore, I still want to improve my life. . . . We are here to be part of this country."

But the toxic atmosphere since the attacks in Paris, he said, had him and others wondering if America is about to withdraw its welcome mat.

"I know the American people. They really care for others," he said, citing the help his family has received in finding a rowhouse to rent and medical care, "but the politicians are really hurting the image of the American people."

He said he had received calls from some friends whose refugee applications were in process.

"They are fearing they will not be treated well" in the United States, he said. But he tells them the American people are welcoming, despite caustic comments from some elected officials.

"We are all against what happened in France. And we feel sad in our hearts for the ordinary people who suffered because of what happened," said Alqadri.

"We are here to contribute to this country. Not to harm this country. . . . We escaped war to live in peace," he said. "We hate the ones that are causing all the trouble, all the bloodshed, and all the violence. We don't want that."

Regarding the vetting, Alqadri said it was very thorough, with redundant interviews and background checks by the International Organization for Migration and the office of the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees.

For all refugees, security checks expire after 15 months, medical screenings after six months. If families are not resettled within those time frames, they have to start over.

Because his son Ahmad is the same age as military combatants, Alqadri knows he will get the strictest scrutiny, even though he is a civilian with nothing to hide.

mmatza@phillynews.com

215-854-2541@MichaelMatza1