Greet all refugees with grace, kindness, and open arms | Our View

TIMES-NEWS EDITORIAL BOARD

Our community is honored to welcome refugees. Let’s get resettlement going again for people all around the world who depend on it.

We first met Ro (a pseudonym) the day she arrived in Twin Falls after spending several years at a refugee camp in the north-central African country of Chad. She had been violently forced from her home in Sudan because she belonged to the wrong tribe.

Ro’s life changed when she was welcomed to the U.S. through the refugee resettlement program. She has three beautiful children. The family quickly learned to speak English and, like other refugees before and since, began contributing to the community. Her children are growing up in a country where they will have the opportunity to learn, work hard, and accomplish whatever they can dream.

They might even follow a path like Chandra Upreti and his wife, who both came to Twin Falls as refugees more than 15 years ago, having spent most of their lives to that point in a refugee camp in Nepal. Now, they are pillars of our community. They own a business, and he is the director of the U.S. Committee for Refugees and Immigrants field office (USCRI) in Twin Falls. He is leading the office with skill and grace, but through difficult times.

By executive order, on his first day in office, President Trump abruptly slammed the door on almost all refugees entering the U.S. — even those who had spent years in the arduous approval process and had the assurance from our government that they would be welcomed.

But then, almost immediately, Mr. Trump made an exception to allow a small group of people from South Africa to rapidly immigrate to the U.S. The Twin Falls Refugee office received two families from this group last week.

There’s controversy about Mr. Trump’s approach, and rightly so.

What about the people who had been waiting their turn, winding their way through the slow and meticulous process of screening and vetting, with background and security checks, and medical evaluations? These people — forced from their homes as victims of war and violence — finally had hope for a better life. Some of them even had plane tickets in hand, prepared to unite with family members already here in Idaho.

But with the stroke of his pen, Mr. Trump has effectively shoved these people aside, bypassed the normal processes, and escorted a group of people he deemed more worthy — a group of people he liked, a group of people who looked like him, people of European ancestry — straight to the head of the line.

That isn’t right. It has not gone unnoticed that they happen to have white skin.

But in our community, we must set such controversy aside. We don’t decide where refugees come from. Our government does that.

What we can do is decide to receive all refugees — no matter where they are from and no matter the color of their skin — with grace and kindness, and with welcoming and open arms.

“Twin Falls is a welcoming community, and we have opened our doors and our hearts to people from all over the world for the last 45 years,” Upreti told the Spokesman-Review. “As the director of the refugee center, I’m dedicated to offer the same warm welcome my family was fortunate to receive 17 years ago, and we remain committed to providing services to our newcomers, just like any other refugees that have resettled.”

We should all pledge to do the same.

Twin Falls “has both the capacity and community support to welcome people from around the world,” Upreti said.

That’s good. Because refugees in desperate need “from around the world” are still waiting for their turn. We are so blessed here in the Magic Valley. We certainly have the capacity to welcome a few people, helping them fulfill the hope of a peaceful life. We’ve been doing this for decades.

We call on leaders to lift the ban on refugee resettlement. Let communities like Twin Falls get back to our job of welcoming newcomers, providing a safe landing for them, offering economic and educational opportunities, and being kind, caring neighbors.

We need the USCRI refugee field office in Twin Falls, and we need refugees in our community. There are a lot of reasons why: to help us witness the reality that horrible circumstances exist in this world, and to allow us, in a very personal way — and with the help of USCRI — to help transform the terrible into something beautiful and good. Like the Upretis, like Ro and her children.

We can do this.

We can’t help but think of something Jesus said. “Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me.”

We need to continue to be a welcoming community for refugees, for their sake — and ours.

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This article was written by the Magic Valley Times-News Editorial Board and published with their permission.