[Congressional Record Volume 161, Number 98 (Thursday, June 18, 2015)]
[Senate]
[Pages S4304-S4306]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
WORLD REFUGEE DAY
Mr. LEAHY. Mr. President, the United States has long been a safe and
welcoming home for those fleeing persecution around the world. The
refugees and asylum seekers who join our communities help to create new
businesses, build more vibrant neighborhoods, and enrich us all. They
are also a reminder of our history as a nation of immigrants and our
American values of generosity and compassion. Saturday marks World
Refugee Day, and to honor it we must renew our commitment to the ideal
of America as a beacon of hope for so many who face human rights abuses
abroad.
Millions of refugees remain displaced and warehoused in refugee camps
in Eastern Africa, Southeast Asia, and other parts of the world.
Ongoing political struggles and military conflicts in the Middle East
and North Africa are dislocating large populations. Too many are
without their families or safe places to find refuge. Some, though far
too few, have been able to flee and rebuild their lives.
Peter Keny, one of the ``Lost Boys'' of South Sudan, is one of those
inspiring refugees who escaped a civil war in his home country and has
rebuilt his life in my home State of Vermont. He is just one of
thousands of refugees Vermonters have welcomed over the years. Peter
was 19 when he came to Burlington in 2001, and in the years since he
has learned English, completed high school, and is earning a college
degree. In describing his voyage to the United States and ultimately to
Vermont, Peter told ``The Burlington Free Press'' that arriving here
``was like a dream come true.'' I ask unanimous consent to have printed
in the Record the article, ``A Found Man Returns to South Sudan.''
I am proud of Vermont's long history of supporting refugees by
opening its communities, schools, and homes to those in need. It is not
always easy, but it is a powerful example of our belief in the most
basic ideals of human dignity and hope, and our commitment to
responding to the suffering of others. We are fortunate to have
remarkable organizations like the Vermont Refugee Resettlement Program
leading the effort with its decades of experience and award-winning
volunteer program, and the tremendous legal advocacy provided by the
Vermont Immigration and Asylum Advocates. The hard work of these and
other organizations and the daily welcoming gestures of Vermonters all
over the State have made Vermont a role model for the rest of the
country.
On this year's World Refugee Day, it is also important to acknowledge
that there is more that we as a country can and must do. I remain
deeply concerned about the administration's expanded family detention
policy. The women and children it is placing in prolonged detention
have fled extreme violence and persecution in Central America. They
come seeking refuge from three of the most dangerous countries in the
world, countries where women and girls face shocking rates of domestic
and sexual violence and murder. Here in the United States, we recently
celebrated the 20th anniversary of the Violence Against Women Act, a
law we hold out as an example of our commitment to take these crimes
seriously and to protect all victims. The ongoing detention of asylum-
seeking mothers and children who have made credible claims that they
have been victims of these very same crimes is unacceptable. I again
urge the administration to end the misguided policy of family
detention.
We must also do more to address the humanitarian crisis in Syria.
Almost 4 million Syrians are officially recognized as refugees by the
UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR). The vast majority of these
are women and children, including hundreds of thousands of children
under the age of 5. The United States traditionally accepts at least 50
percent of resettlement cases from UNHCR. However, we
[[Page S4305]]
have accepted only approximately 700 refugees since the beginning of
the Syrian conflict, an unacceptably low number.
Congress also plays an important role. Soon I will reintroduce the
Refugee Protection Act to improve protections for refugees and asylum
seekers and provide additional support and improvement to the national
resettlement program and groups such as the Vermont Refugee
Resettlement Program. This bill, which I have long championed with
Representative Zoe Lofgren, reaffirms the commitments made in ratifying
the 1951 Refugee Convention, and will help to restore the United States
to its rightful role as a safe and welcoming home for those suffering
from persecution around the world.
As we pause to take stock on World Refugee Day, let each of us
reflect on what this great country means to those escaping persecution.
Let us now and always live by and burnish the light of Lady Liberty's
torch, our eternal beacon of hope to those struggling to breathe free.
There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in
the Record, as follows:
[From the Burlington Free Press, June 7, 2015]
A Found Man Returns to South Sudan
(By Zach Despart)
Peter Keny sat on the side of the road in late December as
the sun disappeared behind the acacia trees. He had traveled
more than 7,000 miles from Burlington, only to be stranded
just north of the South Sudanese capital of Juba.
The taxi he hired an hour earlier had broken down, and he
was still 50 miles south of his destination, his native
village of Kalthok. The driver walked back to Juba five hours
earlier and had yet to return.
Keny took another delay in stride, as he had waited to
return home since fleeing his country's civil war 25 years
earlier. That decade-long journey, forged in tragedy and
perseverance, took Keny on a dangerous trek through the
Sudanese bush to a series of refugee camps and, finally, to a
new start in America.
For most of his life, Keny has straddled two worlds. Each
day he reconciles his life of opportunity in the United
States with a longing for his war-torn homeland. For years,
Keny balanced work to put himself through school and to save
for a trip to Kalthok, the village of his brief childhood and
keeper of the only memories of his parents.
Exhausted from two flights and a 12-hour bus ride from
Uganda, Keny tried to imagine what the reunion would be like.
As he peered through darkness toward Kalthok, he wondered if
anyone would remember him.
A child of war
Keny was born in Kalthok in 1982, the youngest of four
sons. He lived with his mother and father, who like many in
the village were sorghum farmers. The Kenys belonged to the
Dinka tribe, the largest ethnic group in southern Sudan.
In November 1989, farmers had finished the annual harvest
as the wet season came to a close. One afternoon, 6-year-old
Keny and a group of boys played on the banks of the White
Nile north of Kalthok, as they often did when little else
occupied their time. Around five o'clock, the boys heard
gunfire and saw smoke in the village's direction. They rushed
toward home but were intercepted by a villager who told them
returning was unsafe. The boys, some of whom were Keny's
cousins, hid along a riverbank that night. Keny would never
again see his parents.
For most of the past 60 years, Sudan has been engulfed in
civil war. By 1989, the Second Sudanese Civil War already had
raged for six years. When war ended in 2005, 1 million to 2
million people were dead and another 2 million were
displaced. Many of those killed or displaced were from the
Dinka tribe.
As a child Keny knew about the war, but until that day in
1989, fighting had never come to Kalthok.
``We were all the way to the south of the country, and the
government militia did not have a problem with the local
people,'' Keny recalled in a recent interview in Burlington.
``There was no tension.''
Unable to return to their village, Keny and his friends
faced a harrowing journey. The morning after the attack on
Kalthok, the boys crossed the river and joined a larger group
of refugees who were walking east, away from the fighting.
They walked each day until their legs could carry them no
farther. Each time the boys stopped to rest, they feared lion
attacks and roaming militias, which abducted children to use
as soldiers. Keny was shoeless and without a change of
clothing. He thought only of how to survive another day.
``The worry was, `Are you going to make it to the next
town?' '' he recalled. ``You focused on living to the next
day, and that's all. There was nothing else you could do.''
The Sudanese government was able to distribute grain to
fleeing refugees. Keny and others received two cups each,
which they made last as long as they could. Keny had nowhere
to put the grain, so he wrapped it carefully in his shirt.
When the grain ran out, the boys foraged for wild fruit and
berries whenever they stopped to rest.
Keny said he was among an estimated 20,000 ``Lost Boys of
Sudan''--children separated from their parents during the
war. As many as half died of disease and starvation during
the journey to refugee camps.
After traveling several hundred miles over three months,
Keny crossed from Sudan into Ethiopia and settled with others
at Dimma, a refugee camp established by the Ethiopian
government in 1986 to handle an enormous influx of Sudanese
refugees.
Keny remained at Dimma for about a year, until spring 1991,
when rebels overthrew Ethiopia's government in a coup. The
boys fled back across the border and camped near the Sudanese
community of Pakok until 1992, when the United Nations moved
thousands of refugees to the newly opened Kakuma refugee camp
in Kenya. Keny would live there for nine years.
At the Kakuma camp, Keny learned English and went to school
daily. He said U.N. staff members encouraged the boys to
settle into a routine. But he could not stop thinking about
his family. Keny said some of the Lost Boys tried to find
their way back to their villages, but he judged the trip back
to Kalthok too dangerous. Refugees at Kakuma relied on new
arrivals and wounded soldiers seeking care at the U.N.
hospital for news about the war.
``The hope was that I would see someone from my village, so
I might ask the situation of my family,'' Keny said. ``But no
one ever showed up. It was very difficult for me. I never
knew whether someone was still there or not.''
Keny received a surprise in 1998, when his oldest brother,
Riak, found him at the Kakuma camp. Riak had joined the
Sudanese army and had been granted a one-month leave. The
brothers had not seen each other in nine years.
``It was one of the best days of my life, after going all
that time without seeing my family,'' Keny said.
But the reunion was bittersweet. Riak brought news Keny had
long feared: Their parents and brother were killed in the
war, and remaining brother had died of disease. Keny was
devastated, but relieved finally to know the fate of his
family. Riak tried to lift his spirits.
``He was like, `Look, this is what it is. Someone has to
die for someone to live. If we all had to die, and you lived,
that's the best we can do,' '' Keny recalled his brother
saying.
Riak and Peter spent several weeks together, until the
soldier's leave expired and he returned to war. Keny never
again saw his brother. Riak died in 2006 after he succumbed
to injuries received years earlier.
A new life in America
In 2001, when he was 19, Keny moved to the U.S. through the
federal Office of Refugee Resettlement. He had several cities
to choose among, but he picked Burlington because his cousin
Abraham Awolich already had settled there. Five others from
the Kakuma camp came with him.
For the first time in his life, Keny thought about his
future.
``It was like a dream that had come true,'' he said. ``I
felt like this is the moment, if I don't have my parents,
maybe in the future I'll be able to meet my extended family.
Maybe I would be able to do something that my family would
remember me.''
In the U.S., Keny became proficient in English, earned a
high school degree and dreamed of attending college.
Now 32, Keny lives in a small apartment on Front Street in
Burlington with three other Lost Boys who immigrated to the
U.S. He works as a janitor for the University of Vermont,
where he cleans the athletic complex from 10 p.m. to 6:30
a.m., five days a week. When school is in session, he attends
classes during the day, where he is a decade older than his
peers. In the next year and a half, he hopes to complete a
degree in community development and applied economics.
Keny is able to cram in only a few hours of sleep before
walking uphill to class, but he said he must work to afford
tuition if he ever hopes to find a better-paying job.
``It's about being willing,'' he said, sitting on the front
porch of his home. ``If I don't do it, I will be stuck here.
I just tell myself I have to do it. Otherwise I don't have
options.''
Ever since moving to the U.S., Keny always hoped return to
visit Kalthok. He was able to contact several uncles by
telephone in 2002 and remained in touch with relatives
regularly. He secured a travel visa in 2006 but was unable to
use it, because a trip would have interrupted his studies at
community college.
``The biggest fact was that I was struggling with my
education,'' Keny said. ``Every time I'd say, `If I go home
while I'm trying to complete this process, I might fall
behind.' ''
While studying, Keny kept abreast of news back home.
In 2005, civil war ended with a peace agreement that many
Sudanese hoped finally would put an end to violence that had
torn apart the country for half a century. In 2011, southern
Sudanese voted overwhelmingly to break off from the north to
form a new nation, South Sudan. The fragile peace collapsed
two years later, when South Sudan plunged into civil war.
Keny said Kalthok has so far been spared heavy violence, but
the community is inundated with refugees again fleeing to the
east.
[[Page S4306]]
Finally, in 2014, Keny acquired a new visa and was able to
raise enough money for the costly trip, which required a
stopover in Europe.
Return to South Sudan
Even after dusk in December, the air was still humid.
Keny's driver returned around 7 p.m. with tools, but couldn't
fix the car. Keny planned to spend the night on the side of
the road and at dawn walk back to Juba. He lay down in the
brush, careful not to wrinkle the dress shirt and slacks he
had put on for the reunion.
Keny was comforted that he at least had company: Some of
his cousins, who met him at the bus station in Juba, agreed
to wait until another ride could be arranged.
Around midnight, Keny's fortunes turned. A Somali trader
came upon him and agreed to drive him to Kalthok. As he
braced himself for potholes that shook the vehicle, Keny
tried to piece together fragmented memories of his youth.
``Will I remember anyone in the village? Will I remember
the places I used to know? Is life still the same as when I
left? All those questions were on my mind,'' Keny said.
Although the trip was only 55 miles, the roads were in such
poor condition that Keny arrived in Kalthok at 5 a.m. It was
Christmas morning. He was exhausted and hoped to find
somewhere to sleep, but he found the entire village had
stayed up waiting for him in the church.
``They were singing and dancing and praying for us, because
they heard we had car trouble,'' Keny said.
At 8 a.m., Kalthok's villagers held a welcome ceremony.
Keny said he recognized only a few faces, his maternal and
paternal uncles. But all the village elders remembered him.
``They said, `You look just like you did when you left,' ''
he recalled. ``There was a lot of emotional reaction. They
talked about my family, my mom and my dad.''
Keny stood at the front of the sanctuary to greet the
hundreds of villagers who came to see him. After daybreak
they took him around Kalthok, but Keny couldn't pick out any
landmarks.
He asked his cousins to take him to a lake with a waterfall
he remembered from childhood. From there he looked back
toward the village, and memories came back to him. He was
able to point out his uncles' houses.
``They said, `Yes, you now know. You recognize this place,'
'' Keny said.
Instead of having Keny stay in one of his uncles' homes,
villagers arranged for him to sleep in the church. Each
evening for the three weeks he was in Kalthok, villagers set
up tents and slept outside the church to be closer to their
returned son. Keny said many were surprised he came back
after settling into a prosperous life in the U.S.
``They thought I would never go back, because I don't have
a living parent anymore,'' Keny said. ``But they still
believe I belong to the village.''
Keny had another reason to return to Kalthok, beside
visiting relatives. He wanted to ensure success of the local
clinic the Sudan Development Foundation, a Burlington
nonprofit, helped fund. The clinic is vital to Kalthok, Keny
said. In South Sudan, some villages are more than 100 miles
from a hospital. South Sudan's infrastructure is so poor this
can mean several days of traveling on foot.
Keny returned to Vermont in mid-January. He said leaving
his uncles and cousins was difficult, but his visa expired
after 30 days.
Straddling two worlds
The son of Kalthok said he is unsure if he will ever move
back to South Sudan. Keny wants to help Kalthok and keep the
clinic operational. He worries war will come again to the
village.
``I see myself living in two worlds, here and South
Sudan,'' he said. ``I want to help my people in any form they
need. If I ever get married, maybe I would bring my wife
over.''
Keny talks to his uncles regularly. A consequence of war,
inflation has made staple goods too expensive for many
villagers. A drought has raised the prospect of crop failure.
``This month they are supposed to cultivate, but there is
no rain,'' he said, referring to May.
Keny wants to help his countrymen and -women in Vermont.
More than 150 Sudanese have resettled in Burlington since the
late 1990s, and many have started families here. Keny said
the small community rents out local halls and churches to
meet and celebrate holidays such as South Sudan's
Independence Day.
Keny hopes to help lease or purchase a permanent home to
aid local Sudanese in preserving their culture. He said
parents are concerned children will forget tribal languages
when they speak English outside the home.
Keny reflects on what his life would have been like if he
never had the opportunity to immigrate to the United States.
If he stayed in South Sudan, Keny believes he likely would
have been killed in the war or conscripted into the army. He
said he feels blessed to have been given the chance to start
a new life here, because so many Sudanese never had that
option.
``It gave me the chance to look at the world differently,''
he said. ``I have people who support me, and even though I do
not yet have a college degree, I feel I've learned enough to
help myself and help my people.''
Keny often thinks of his brothers and parents. In their
memory, he wants to make the most of opportunities he now
has.
``You have this feeling that for the rest of your life,
you're going to be living knowing that you don't have someone
you'd be taking care of,'' he said. ``I just want to make
sure I live a better life, and live it in a peaceful way.''
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