What’s it like to be a refugee in America?

From the moment she set foot in America, Bedrija Jazic was struck by the friendliness of the country – at least the people who met her at the airport from the refugee resettlement agency.

“When you come here, you’ve been through very difficult times,” said Jazic, who landed in Columbia in 1996 after her family fled war in her native Bosnia. “You have to start over where everything is different; you leave your family and friends behind. So to have someone come and welcome you at the airport and say ‘Welcome to South Carolina’ and know they will be here to help you ... that helped tremendously.”

In the 20 years since she came as an international war refugee, the program that helped her start a new life in the United States has become a political flashpoint.

President Obama’s plans to admit 10,000 refugees from the world’s latest devastating conflict – a Syrian civil war with ethnic and religious overtones that has displaced half of the nation’s population of 22 million people – have sparked passionate opposition.

Some fear the masses fleeing the war could include terrorists from the Islamic State group, which controls large portions of Syria. Thirty state governors – including South Carolina’s Nikki Haley – have asked the federal government not to send Syrian refugees to their states. Multiple counties in South Carolina have also passed resolutions opposing resettlement efforts. York County will consider its own resolution on Monday.

The questions being asked include: Who is responsible for making sure the people coming into the country won’t pose a danger to those already here? How do they get approved to enter the country? What happens to them after they get here?

‘They deserve sympathy’

Jazic, as director of refugee resettlement services for Lutheran Services Carolinas in Columbia, has helped hundreds of foreign families find new homes in this country since 2004. She knows what they need once they get here. Two decades ago her family needed the same help.

Her daughter was nine months old when the shelling started. Her hometown of Sarajevo, where she taught high school English and her husband was a veterinarian, was attacked by Serbian forces, an assault that lasted four years.

“We were there the entire time,” Jazic said. “There was no water, no power, no food, no wood to burn. But we survived somehow.”

Because of the near constant bombardment and the threat of sniper fire, “when someone left the house, you didn’t know whether they would come home,” she said.

When the siege finally lifted, the family fled to neighboring Croatia, staying at a friend’s home for almost two years.

“We were very lucky, because other people had to stay at the organizing center,” makeshift mass shelters for people fleeing the conflict, she said.

Similar camps house millions today in places such as Jordan, Lebanon and Turkey, countries bordering Syria.

“I sympathize with anyone in any conflict,” she said. “Anyone who has to leave their home, leave everything they’ve ever known, their family, their friends, their life. They all deserve sympathy, from me or anyone else.”

Moratorium on refugees

Two weeks ago, the York County Council asked county attorney Michael Kendree to write a resolution modeled on a letter Haley sent to the U.S. Department of State in the aftermath of the Nov. 13 Paris terror attacks. It asked that Syrians not be sent to South Carolina.

“While I agree that the United States should try to assist individuals in such dire situations, it is precisely because of the situation in Syria that makes their admission into the United States a potential threat to our national security,” Haley wrote.

The language isn’t strong enough for Michael Reed, chairman of the Palmetto Christian Defense group based in Columbia.

Reed came to York County in early November to support a resolution by Councilman Bruce Henderson that would call on South Carolina to suspend refugee resettlement in the state, specifically citing refugees “from North Africa, and the Middle East, including Syria.” The resolution died when no other council member seconded the motion.

Reed and other supporters have spoken twice more at subsequent council meetings, calling on York County to adopt the measure. He says a narrower ban on Syrian refugees won’t solve what he sees as a looming security threat.

“I think the county council is missing the point,” Reed said. “They should call on a moratorium on all refugees.”

The Herald interviewed Reed before it was announced that two Syrian refugees had already been resettled in South Carolina this month by Lutheran Services Carolinas. The resettlement, and the possibility of more Syrians entering South Carolina, shows state and local government have little control over a federal resettlement program.

Syrians make up a small portion of the thousands of refugees admitted to the United States each year. Jason Lee, director of World Relief Spartanburg – along with Lutheran Services, one of two nonprofits that assists refugees in South Carolina –said his organization is unlikely to resettle Syrians in the state because their sister offices in North Carolina and Georgia have more experience handling refugees from the region.

“We just don’t have Syrians here,” Lee said. “Because the others have served more Syrians, there’s more of a population there already.”

Of the refugees Lee said he has helped resettle in the Upstate, 84 percent are Christians. About 80 percent have fled conflicts in Myanmar and the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

Because refugees are often resettled with family members, Lee says the Upstate has a sizable number of Ukrainians, who fled recent fighting and reunited with those who left after the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991.

Some Middle Eastern refugees in South Carolina came on “special immigrant visas” offered to Afghans and Iraqis who assisted the U.S. military forces in their home countries and now face retribution. Jazic said there is a “growing community” of both nationalities in the Midlands. These refugees are now bringing over their family members.

Lee and Jazic say it’s hard to determine an exact number of refugees because agencies don’t track them long-term. Lutheran Services helps resettle around 200 people a year, and World Relief assisted 69 people in the past year. An estimated 1.8 million people have entered the United States since the Refugee Act of 1980, according to the charity Bridging Refugee Youth and Children’s Services.

Reed says it’s too dangerous for the United States to admit refugees without a stronger program to investigate who comes into the country. He said he worries that stopping Syrians alone won’t stop terrorists from slipping in from other countries.

“I favor a moratorium until the vetting problems are addressed and settled,” Reed said. “We have no background on these folks and we’re going to wind up with something like what happened in France happening here.”

How they get here

Supporters say the investigation process for refugees is already extensive, with most applicants waiting up to two years before they reach the United States.

“Refugees are subject to some of the highest scrutiny of any traveler,” said Jazic, who remembers her own investigation.

“You’re questioned multiple times by officers asking all kinds of questions. It feels like you’re being interrogated,” she said. “For people who are already struggling, going through that process can just be additional stress.”

Jazic also knows the hardship of waiting. She’s processed Burmese people who faced the same conditions as many other refugees when they crossed the border into Thailand and were placed by the government in camps.

“They’re in the jungle, they can’t leave, they can’t work. The schools are all provided in the camp,” she said. “You have thousands of people in a dozen square miles. It’s not a permanent solution.”

Lee said the U.S. Department of State operates nine refugee support centers around the world, where applicants undergo 13 separate health and security screenings before they can be sent to the United States. They undergo biometric checks where DNA and fingerprints are run through databases operated by the international police agency Interpol.

“People complain that there’s no database (of Syrians), but there’s no database of any refugees,” Lee said. “Each one has to do an in-person interview with a U.S. Department of Homeland Security agent, and if he doesn’t like the way your hair is parted, you can be denied entry.”

Once refugees arrive in the United States, public support doesn’t last long. Each refugee receives a one-time payment of $1,125 to set up their new life in a new country. “Reception and placement” services from aid agencies last for the first 90 days in the country. Employment assistance lasts 180 days, or until a refugee is offered the first available job, separate from any public assistance they may be able to draw once they are here.

Refugees are required to pay back the airfare for the flight to the United States. “Delta doesn’t have a discount because they’re refugees,” Lee said.

Both faith-based organizations depend on public support, be it from member churches or just good Samaritans. Lutheran Services seeks out American “mentors” to help their clients adapt to their new country, while World Relief sets up “good neighbor teams” to provide assistance.

Since the concern over Syrian refugees, both agencies say they have received mostly positive feedback from the community and offers to help.

“When I tell some people we don’t help Syrians here, they’re disappointed,” Lee said.

With Christian organizations helping Muslim refugees resettle, religion is often part of the discussion. Reed, chairman of Palmetto Christian Defense, said the problem is those “raised in the Islamic culture.”

“I know someone’s going to say I’m the bad guy for pointing that out,” Reed said, “but there’s a pattern of these incidents coming from people who have an Islamic or Muslim background.”

A statement by Palmetto Christian Defense after the Paris attacks said, “Muslims have lands for their people in the Middle East, just as Christians have lands colonized, settled, developed and designed for our people in the western world. It is in everybody’s best interest that these two diametrically opposed cultures, governmental structures, religions and people stay separated and in their own respective lands.

“Jesus Christ and the Bible are the pillars of America, not Muhammad, Allah or the Koran,” it continued. “One is for Christ, the other antiChrist.”

Reed said he is “not opposed” to a proposal by presidential candidate Donald Trump to stop any Muslim from entering the United States, but he said the plan is “probably not workable.”

“Do I hate those people? No, but I love my country enough to take this seriously,” he said.

Those who support refugee resettlement work hard against that attitude, whether it’s in public forums or in day-to-day life.

“We want to make sure people understand Muslims are coming here to flee terrorists, not to be terrorists,” Lee said.

This story was originally published December 19, 2015 at 8:12 PM with the headline "What’s it like to be a refugee in America?."