DAYTON — The United Nations say more than two million Ukrainians have fled their home country since Russia invaded. Around the world, there are more refugees and displaced people than ever with estimates of more than 70 million.
Despite Dayton being a “Welcome City,” Mohamed Al-Hamdani, a local immigration attorney in Dayton, told News Center 7′s Candace Price that he’s not sure if the Miami Valley will get any Ukrainian refugees.
Al-Hamdani said he has a couple of clients with loved ones in Ukraine.
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“It’s going to be a while before we figure it out,” he said.
His caseload has grown in recent month; something Al-Hamdani said was “stressful to say the least.”
“We have more refugees today than anytime in human history,” Al-Hamdani said.
The already slow refugee process had only gotten slower due to Covid-19 and the other refugee crises around the world.
In some cases, it can take several years for refugees to be resettled and may take several steps such as getting refugee status, a referral to the United States, background checks, in-person interviews, a medical screening and a match with a sponsor agency.
“People don’t realize that refugees are literally fleeing for their lives from famine, war, natural disaster,” Al-Hamdani said.
Al-Hamdani spoke from experience, as a refugee himself. He told WHIO that his father was part of the uprising in Iraq in the 1990s and said he, himself, had spent 18 months in a refugee camp when he was 10 years old.
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Its that experience that led him to advocate so strongly for Dayton to become a “Welcome City,” meaning it is immigrant friendly.
“It doesn’t mean that we get more refugees resettled here,” Al-Hamdani said. “It just means there are programs that are designed to help.”
He said he hopes the current crisis will encourage more people to help and shared a message that he hopes will reach refugees fleeing for their lives right now.
“It will get easier over time [and] that people are thing about them all over the world. They may not be able to rebuild their homes, [but] they can rebuild their lives. The sun will come out soon enough,” he said.
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