Sheboygan home all ready, but refugees can't come

The apartment was ready — a nice three-bedroom flat on the north side of Sheboygan.

A little tight for nine people, maybe, but volunteers from a local church had made bunk beds for the six children, while others went out shopping for furniture, laid in food and prepared “welcome bundles.”

The bundles were filled with blankets, toiletries and other things immigrants arriving in a new, strange country might need.

Then the word came down:

The nine people for whom the generous welcome was being prepared — all members of a Syrian family who had fled the killing and chaos of their country’s brutal war, had spent four years in Egypt, had gone through the rigorous vetting process and had been cleared for entry to the United States — would not be arriving.

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President Donald Trump’s executive order on Friday indefinitely banning Syrian refugees from entering the U.S. had taken effect before the family could board its scheduled flight from Egypt.

“There was an apartment,” said Lorri Steward, associate pastor of Ebenezer United Church of Christ in Sheboygan. “There were people who had all the beds put up. People were putting silver in the silverware drawers. And the call came that they couldn’t board the plane.”

That was on Saturday. On Monday, those who had helped with the effort spoke about their disappointment and their sympathy for the family.

“It was a sad, sad afternoon,” said Richard Manny, who owns the duplex, and had been willing to allow more people than normal to live there because they were refugees.

“I don’t know what to say,” said an Arabic-speaking volunteer who didn’t want her name used, but who has been active in helping refugees in Sheboygan. “I’m speechless. I’m speechless.”

Making the news more difficult to take was the fact that the family’s arrival was to re-unite them with the children’s uncle, who was able to immigrate to Sheboygan a few months ago, before the ban.

The uncle, a 21-year-old man whose first name is Mohammad, got separated from relatives five years ago because of the war, said Jenny Goodman, another volunteer.

“Everyone involved is very very hurt on behalf of Mohammad,” she said. “He got separated from his family at such a young age, and that’s a reality that’s hard to even picture and imagine what that would be like. We were all so excited for them to finally be together again.”

The family — a couple; their children, ranging in age from about eight to the late teens; and a grandmother — remains in Egypt, Steward said.

“They gave up their apartment,” she said. They gave their furniture away. They got rid of everything because they were supposed to come, and now they’re stuck there. And they’re afraid to go anywhere, because if they leave Egypt, as refugees, they might get sent back to Syria.”

“There are real people’s lives involved in all of this,” Steward said.

Sheboygan now is home to 18 Syrian refugees — three families plus Mohammad, Goodman said. The first arrived last July, she said.

Goodman has been particularly moved by the children.

“The Syrian kids, they were at my kid’s birthday party,” she said. “They played with my kids. They spent time together. And it was so good to see kids who are coming from places of war and extreme trauma, to see them be able to smile, to see them be able to laugh and live as a child.”

Others also believe the adults add to the community. Area employers have struggled to fill available job openings, and officials have looked to refugees as a partial solution, said Dane Checolinski, director of the Sheboygan County Economic Development Corp.

Ten percent of City of Sheboygan residents were born outside the U.S., more than twice the Wisconsin statewide percentage, Checolinski noted.

He said the area depends heavily on the foreign-born, and that severely curtailing immigration of refugees could hurt the economy.

“This could have some interesting consequences,” he said.

Phillip Bock of the USA TODAY NETWORK-Wisconsin contributed to this report.