As Indiana governor, Pence failed to stop Syrian refugees. His administration is trying again

INDIANAPOLIS — When the Trump administration unveiled an executive order trying to bar Syrian refugees from coming to the United States, many who have resettled here in the American heartland felt a familiar sense of dread: Mike Pence is trying to ban us. Again.

Fadi Lababidi was shocked. He and his family arrived here in October 2014, greeted with a banner at the airport and kindness from strangers. Lababidi and his wife have made a life for themselves in Indiana, where they work at a hospital cafeteria. Their children attend public schools and now speak in fluent English to their month-old sister, a U.S. citizen named Selena.

Now the Lababidis and other families who have come to live here during the past few years are angry and shaken, worried that they might be forced to leave the country. Over plates of sweets, they discuss the anguish of knowing that it is possible their loved ones will not be able to join them in their adopted U.S. home, and they fret about their children, their jobs, their future.

"I don't know what they will do to us here. Will they deport us back? Will they send us back? Will they keep us here?" asked Lababidi, a genial 48-year-old. "I started questioning my presence here and what will happen to me and my family."

The national ban has a familiar feel to Lababidi. It was a little more than a year after he and his family arrived in the United States that a terrorist attack in Paris spurred Pence — then Indiana's governor — to direct state agencies to stop the resettlement of Syrian migrants in his state.

Pence's decision was "a surprise to us because it did not represent the American people, the way we were welcomed and the way we were treated in public," he said.

Exodus Refugee Immigration and the American Civil Liberties Union of Indiana sued Pence, claiming he did not have constitutional authority to bar people from the state. Pence lost, with a federal appeals court ruling in October thatthe governor's directive was "discrimination on the basis of nationality."

The influx never stopped, and now more than 200 Syrian refugees live in this sprawling Midwestern city of more than 850,000. But now, Pence is vice president, and the administration moved to make a ban on Syrian refugees nationwide and permanent. The apprehension and fear Lababidi felt in 2015 is back at levels he never imagined.

"This time it was the entire country, and it was specifically toward Muslims," he said.

And it has rocked the small Syrian community here, a city that is home to a fast-growing immigrant population and booming number of refugees, a blue dot smack in the middle of a deeply red state.

"We won the battle, but we're losing the war," said Cole Varga, executive director of Exodus.

Exodus resettled 947 refugees here during the past fiscal year, including 556 from Myanmar, 146 from Congo and 122 from Syria. From Oct. 1 to Jan. 31, another 83 Syrian refugees have arrived in Indianapolis through Exodus, and a total of 108 statewide. At least one Syrian family did not come to Indianapolis because of Trump's order, but another arrived recently after a federal appeals court struck down the administration's decree. A spokesman for Pence did not respond to requests for comment.

Pence at the time said he was trying to block Syrian refugees in the name of security, and some here agree.

"I've never met them," said Steve Munn, a 66-year-old woodworker. "Supposedly we've got our fair share."

At a McDonald's on the city's south side, a traditionally white, working-class enclave that is home to a cluster of Burmese refugees, 61-year-old Warren Gregory said he has not worked in a year. He is studying for his MBA and a degree in natural health, exalting about the properties of myrrh oil and qigong. He will soon move 75 miles south, to a cabin where he can live for less than $300 a month.

"The refugees are treated better than normal folks," Gregory said. "I have nothing against them. I have something against them being able to come here and make more money than us and not even have to worry."

Gregory said that the United States has "no proof" of who the Syrian refugees are and does not think vetting is strong enough.

"I don't trust the State Department right now, and I don't like the U.N.," he said of the two agencies that conduct extensive vetting of Syrian refugees.

Syrian refugees are subject to an enhanced security review, a process that can take years and includes numerous interviews, biometric checks, a medical screening and security check by multiple federal agencies that is active throughout the entire process.

But the Syrians living in Indianapolis said they have become accustomed to what people call "Hoosier hospitality." Volunteers drive refugees to appointments and an international store, where they can buy the closest thing Indiana has to Syrian bread. Families use apartment courtyards for weekend get-togethers filled with kebabs, dancing and children. Schools ensure Syrian refugee families are connected.

"We feel like we are not by ourselves," said Alan Omar, who noted that he had to look up the city on Google because he had never heard of it before learning he would move there. "There are good people around."

Omar, 21, fled Aleppo - where he remembers fighter jet attacks and bombs exploding "all around" — for a small Syrian village in 2012 and Turkey the following year. After nine vetting interviews where he was asked "every single detail" about his life, the United States granted him refugee status.

When he arrived here in May 2015, Omar barely spoke English and could not figure out where to take out the trash at his apartment complex. He found employment sorting packages in a warehouse and delivering pizzas. But he prides himself on his work ethic and wanted more.

He now works full time as a recruiter at a staffing agency, where colleagues "treat me like part of the family." He speaks fluent English, attends adult high school classes at night with plans to continue to college and helps other Syrians navigate their new lives in the United States.

"This is our second country," Omar said. "It's our responsibility to take care of it."

But Trump's executive order has instilled trepidation in him and his family. His siblings are scattered around Europe; one still lives in Syria. Omar's mother recently received a green card and had planned to visit a sister who recently had a baby in Germany. Heartbroken, she put her plans on hold because the family is afraid that if she leaves she will not be able to re-enter the United States.

Lababidi's father, who is ill, is living in Jordan and is in the final steps of the U.S. refugee process. The two speak every day, the father asking the son for the latest news on the president's decree and the son trying to maintain calm.

"Because of Trump, we cannot see him or take care of him or treat him here," Lababidi said. "My father is old - 72 years old. Does this make him a terrorist?"

As Lababidi spoke, his eldest child, 14-year-old Ebrahim, wearing bright silver sneakers, quietly listened. Twelve-year-old Shimaa and 10-year-old Mohammad played with a cellphone, Snapchatting and posting to Instagram. Eight-year-old Hamzeh alternated between rocking Selena in her car seat and snuggling under his father's arm. Lababidi jokes that his children now speak so quickly in their new language, peppering their sentences with "cool" and "awesome," that he needs an interpreter to understand them.

In school last month, one of Shimaa's teachers told her class about Trump's order and singled out the girl as an example of the kind of person the law would keep out of the country - an innocent sixth-grade girl.

"He said that no one can come to America no more, and he stopped and he said, 'Shimaa's Muslim. Is she racist? Is she a terrorist or something?' " the girl recounted.

"They said 'no,' " Shimaa said, biting her hot-pink hoodie. She said she was a little scared and it was embarrassing, but said she felt good letting people know she is Arab.

Hamzeh said hearing Trump's voice makes him scared and sometimes makes him want to cry. Mohammad, in a Captain America sweatshirt, said he finally feels safe in the United States and likes speaking two languages.

Trump's order has spurred some here to respond in ways they never planned. Galen Denney, a 36-year-old Indianapolis native studying electrical engineering, was so incensed after Trump's order that he started a Facebook event for a rally at the Indianapolis Airport. Hundreds of people showed up.

"The same outpouring of support that was perhaps more reserved during Pence's attempts at legislating discrimination are now simply amplified by the attempts to move from state-level politics to the national stage," Denney said.

There is some optimism after the court struck down Trump's order. Varga, the director of Exodus, says there will be more battles to win, and Omar said it allowed him to see "the equality in America again."

While Omar, Lababidi and others have nothing but thanks and gratitude for Americans, transitioning to a new life is difficult and not everyone has been welcoming.

Ebrahim Lababidi said he ignores nasty comments at school. Sixteen-year-old Rama Batman has dealt with students insulting her. Her mother, Lona Al Moghrabi, said two students got into a fistfight over Trump at her son's middle school and the police had to be called.

"It was very scary, especially at the school," she said as her daughter interpreted in their living room. "Trump took a lot of votes from Indiana."