They successfully integrated and remained loyal to their country of origin
Syrians in America .. a difficult number in the upcoming presidential elections
A Syrian family in front of their home in Michigan. ■ Archives
Many families settled in the suburbs of Detroit.
Archives
A restaurant in Dearborn that serves oriental meals.
Archives
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President Donald Trump won Michigan in 2016 with nearly 11,000 votes.
Now, there are about 27,000 Americans of Syrian descent in Michigan;
But they are divided over who to vote for, and they monitor both campaigns closely, with an emphasis on foreign policy, which makes this segment of the American electorate so important.
For more than a century, the state attracted Syrians, first coming to Henry Ford's factories, then the government halting federal immigration quotas that allowed Syrians to flee the 1960s wars.
For these voters, the problem is troublesome;
President Donald Trump has done little to stop the massacre in the Syrian civil war, which has claimed the lives of about 600,000 people, yet the administration of his rival, Joe Biden, can promise more red lines, and has hinted at a settlement with the Bashar al-Assad regime, to rebuild the country.
The head of the "Americans for a Free Syria", Ismail Pasha, who fled his homeland, says: "There is no Syrian who does not have family members who were not killed, imprisoned, or kidnapped by Assad."
Basha sought refuge in the suburb of Bloomfield Hills, Detroit, during the 1980s, fearing persecution of former president Hafez al-Assad.
Trump withdrew US forces from Syria, except for the forces needed to "take the oil", while some voters believe that Biden was hesitant about his willingness to confront Iran's proxies in places like Syria.
"They are between a rock and a hard place," Basha said, adding, "We would like to see Biden tougher, in his references to Iran."
More hesitation
Biden was mostly silent about Syria in digital speeches, which replaced gatherings, due to the Coronavirus pandemic.
But he sparked controversy last month by launching a plan calling for the mobilization of other countries to help rebuild President Bashar al-Assad of the country.
Biden's reliance on former President Barack Obama's officials, including former Deputy National Security Adviser Anthony Blinken, raised fears in the Syrian-American community that the Democratic White House would lead to more hesitation about Syria.
The Obama administration said, in 2012, that the use of chemical weapons by the Assad regime would be a "red line" that would elicit a response from the United States.
When Damascus attacked civilians with gasps, Obama hesitated and later authorized a failed training program for Syrian rebels, overseen by the CIA, which Trump eventually canceled.
"It is clear that there are different opinions in the Biden camp about how to solve the Syrian problem," said a non-resident colleague at the Atlantic Council and an advisor to Biden's Syrian-American Support Group, explaining: "I do not think that a position will win before Biden takes office." ».
Syrian Americans are part of an amalgamation of Michigan's Arab diaspora groups, divided between hard and soft foreign policy drives.
The number of the Arab American community in the state more than doubled between 1980 and 2000, and the elections held two years ago, which saw Democrats restore the US House of Representatives, made Rashida Tlaib from Detroit the first Palestinian American woman in Congress, which made Michigan strongly criticize Trump.
Margin of error
While most American voters view the United States' participation in Syria with concern, Assad's brutal rule, and the recent collapse of Lebanon;
Hizbullah, which is backed by Iran, has great influence, still leaving the Syrian diaspora, wanting to see the United States engaging in the Middle East conflict.
In this, Wael Al-Zayat, a former State Department official during the Obama administration, says: "The Syrian-American community is completely against regime change, randomly, and reckless adventures, but we feel that there is a role for the American army and American diplomacy to support human rights."
"We have strong interests in limiting the impunity of autocrats," added Al-Zayat, who now chairs Image Action, a non-profit organization focused on encouraging Muslim voter turnout.
For many Syrian Americans, Trump's perceived challenges to American democratic norms and short-term travel bans against seven Muslim-majority countries, including Syria, have made him a political pariah.
But in this crucial case, the margin for error is slim, and many remain lukewarm in their enthusiasm for Biden.
Following her victory in the primaries last month, Tlaib pledged to help Biden win votes in Detroit, but fell short of his endorsement.
And in elections dominated, so far, by the epidemic and economic meltdown, the Supreme Court's approval of Judge Amy Comey Barrett, and Trump's taxes, some key voters have not made up their minds yet to choose who can end the bloodshed in Syria.
"From now until the elections, Trump can make a statement about Syria, and he can win the support of the people, and Biden can make a statement and move them to another direction," Basha said.
He continued: "They are watching."
not clear
According to Ayman Abdel-Nour, who heads the non-profit Syrian Christians for Peace organization, the Syrian diaspora in the United States has varying support for both Trump and Biden, explaining that a number of Muslim community leaders held foreign policy meetings with Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden, Late July, then in August;
Many Syrian Americans joined the Biden campaign.
Abdel-Nour said: “At the beginning, many Syrians felt optimistic, but in the first paper on his Arab American agenda, there was no mention of Syria, and then (the campaign) came back and added a Syrian paragraph to the bottom;
But for many, that was not enough. ”He added,“ We need more clarification, and some are concerned that there are still many Biden associates who support Iran. ”
The power of diversity
Michigan has the second largest number of Syrian refugees, in the United States, with most of them residing in Troy and Dearborn.
The state has the largest Arab population in the country.
The director of the US Committee for Refugees and Immigrants in Detroit, Tawfiq Al-Azm, says that the committee is assisting in resettling refugees in Wayne and Macomb counties.
They are areas with a large number of residents of the Middle East, Iraqis and Chaldeans.
"Michigan is a state that welcomes newcomers, and immigration is a really great opportunity to develop our state," Al-Azm added. "I really believe that diversity is a force for Michigan, and the Metro Detroit area, in particular, is one of the largest concentrations of residents in the Middle East, in America."
Board member of the Syrian American Rescue Network, Patrick MacLean, explains that many refugees settle in Michigan through the network of former Syrian immigrants, and refers to Dearborn as "the heart of Arab American culture."
On January 25, Ann Harbour City Council passed a resolution to protect immigrants from federal investigations.
However, the city did not declare itself a "city of refuge."
This was in response to the executive order, which President Donald Trump issued the same day against "safe zones", which could lose federal funding.
Success and resilience
The suburb of Dearborn, in Detroit, is today a completely different place. It is home to about 45,000 Arabs, and it is the largest concentration in America.
And along Michigan Avenue, which runs through the heart of Dearborn, large restaurant signs written in Arabic appear to be in an Arab country.
The Arab American Museum is at the fore on Michigan Avenue, in recognition of the success and resilience of the Arab community in America.
The Arab diaspora has not thrived, as it is here in South Detroit.
Over the past decade, nearly 30,000 refugees, most of them from the Middle East, have settled in southeast Michigan.
In addition to Dearborn, Detroit's northern suburbs such as Stirling Heights and Troy welcome hundreds of new arrivals every year.
And in 2016 alone, the last year of President Barack Obama's administration, 4,200 refugees moved to the region.
Inside the Dearborn Fresh supermarket, a huge food store devoted to Middle Eastern foods and products, the Syrian dialect can be heard, and women speaking with a Yemeni accent in a corridor full of falafel and Argentine "mate" packages.
The vendors say the local economy is booming, and Arab families travel there from as far away as southern Ohio and Pennsylvania - a 660-kilometer round-trip - to pick up bulgur, thyme, and various types of coffee.
27,000
An American of Syrian origin, living in the state of Michigan.
- Syrian Americans are part of an amalgamation of Michigan's Arab diaspora groups, divided between soft and hard foreign policy drives.
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