ARI SHAPIRO, HOST:
Yesterday, we visited Toledo, Ohio, to see what a new administration might mean for Syrian refugees. Today, we're going to spend time with one young man whose story is not typical for a refugee.
(SOUNDBITE OF GUITAR MUSIC)
UNIDENTIFIED MAN: (Singing, unintelligible).
SHAPIRO: He lives in a house with three other guys who decided they wouldn't mind having a refugee for a roommate. They're all in their 20s. Three of them are recent graduates from the University of Toledo. Mohammed Refaai, is a butcher from Syria.
UNIDENTIFIED MAN: (Singing) I don't really care. I've got worse problems.
SHAPIRO: It's a weeknight, and Mohammed just got home from work. He's watching his roommates play around on guitars. They have a small basketball hoop in the living room. The ball is bouncing off everything, rarely going through the hoop.
(CHEERING)
SHAPIRO: In the year and a half since Mohammed moved in, he's learned English from the Americans, including the lyrics to some Top 40 hits. In return, he taught them some of his favorite Arabic pop tunes.
MOHAMMED AL REFAAI: (Speaking foreign language).
(LAUGHTER)
MOHAMMED AL REFAAI AND UNIDENTIFIED MEN: (Singing in foreign language).
SHAPIRO: They generally avoid talking about more difficult things. Earlier in the day, the guys made an exception for us while Mohammed was at work.
DOUG WALTON: This is by far the most depth we have ever gone into it. And if Moh was here, we probably wouldn't because he doesn't like the topic.
SHAPIRO: Doug Walton, Andrew Trumbull and Johnny Zellers sit around a small dining room table with us. The topic is politics and whether Mohammed will ever be reunited with his family. That's what makes his story so atypical. He was the only one of his family allowed into the United States as a refugee. His siblings and parents are still in Jordan, waiting for approvals. They've been there since the family fled Syria in 2011. Mohammed is now trying to get a green card so if they can't come to the U.S., at least he can go visit them.
Is it strange to see a national global news story like the presidential election affect someone in your house so directly?
JOHNNY ZELLERS: So we actually got a flier from Trump.
SHAPIRO: That's Johnny Zellers.
ZELLERS: And it had, like, three big issues. I forget what the first two were, but the third one was, like, stop the influx of dangerous refugees from Syria. It's, like, the biggest bullet point. I was like - wow. I was like, no, I want them. Like, we want more of them. Like, we have one. I have one in my house right now. Like, I could go say hi to him.
SHAPIRO: The guys in this house lean conservative. They all take their Christian faith seriously. None of them voted for Trump. It was a mix of Clinton and third party votes. They didn't even know who each other voted for until we all started talking about it the other day.
ANDREW TRUMBULL: Yeah. This is Andrew. And it was weird to have, like, a vote in a situation that felt like we were voting for people who were helpless. Usually we vote on, like, jobs or whatever, and so, like, for me, I'm like - that's not a big deal. Like, I'll find a job. I'll make things work. Whoever gets elected - they're not going to change things that drastically.
SHAPIRO: The guys don't own a TV, so on election night they all went into Doug's room and huddled around their phones with Mohammed to watch the results come in.
TRUMBULL: So we were all kind of together, just, like, kind of hugging him and, like, just kind of watching it all go down.
ZELLERS: We didn't really know how to respond, I feel like. I mean, what do you tell him? He definitely kind of got sad a little bit just thinking of, like, OK, maybe his family may not be able to, like, ever come here. That's, like, the biggest hope that he's had, like, this past year. It's just, like, oh, I hope my family comes. Now with Trump elected, it's like, oh, those chances go down, like, a lot.
SHAPIRO: Mohammed is a butcher at a new Middle Eastern supermarket and restaurant in Toledo. He took a break from work to talk with us. He video chats with his family in Jordan about once a week. He shows them the snow on the ground in Ohio, and they tell him how proud they are that he's learning English and working.
Do you talk about when they might be able to come to the United States? Or is that something that you've just decided not to talk about anymore?
REFAAI: I like it they come - they coming here, but I don't know how. I need to be safe and close to me - my family - but I can't do anything.
SHAPIRO: How does that make you feel?
REFAAI: I feel bad for they not with me, but I can't do anything for help them.
SHAPIRO: I need to point out that when we first met Mohammed a little over a year ago, he barely spoke any English. He learned the terms that a butcher uses every day, and that was about it.
REFAAI: Chicken legs, chicken breast, steak, lamb, beef.
SHAPIRO: Today, he looks confident. He doesn't use an interpreter when he talks to us. I ask what he'll do if he sees his family.
REFAAI: I sit them and watch TV and drink tea, drink coffee. My mom do a good food. Yeah. I miss her.
SHAPIRO: We asked the State Department about Mohammed Refaai's situation. Just like a year ago, they told us they don't comment on specific cases, but veterans of refugee work say Mohammed's situation is not normal.
ERIC SCHWARTZ: The situation you've described is very unusual.
SHAPIRO: Eric Schwartz ran the State Department's refugee resettlement program earlier in the Obama administration. He's now a dean at the University of Minnesota's Humphrey School of Public Affairs. He says once you're over 21, like Mohammed, your case is considered on its own, but even then, grown children are rarely separated from their parents and siblings.
SCHWARTZ: And it would be very unusual for them not to be departing and coming to the United States together.
SHAPIRO: It may have just been an oversight. Schwartz says an immigration lawyer might be able to sort out what happened, but Mohammed and his family don't have one.
SCHWARTZ: This is a program that involves so many tens of thousands of individuals that sometimes, you know, mistakes or problems do arise. And the way they get fixed is somebody asks about them, and somebody presses it.
SHAPIRO: Mohammed fears that his window is closing as the days tick down to Trump's inauguration. The office that issues green cards has told him to stop calling, and that's changed the way the other guys in this house think about their future.
ZELLERS: Like, before, it was just, like, oh, Moh's here. His family will come, and then I'm like - we'll all move on with our lives. We'll all move away or, like, get different jobs or - I don't know. And then Moh will have his family. But now it's like - his family may never come.
WALTON: We've talked about this in a hypothetical way. And Moh does not want that covered. He doesn't even want to acknowledge that could happen because thinking about this family being broken up - that, like, leaves him lost at sea, in a way. But, like, we don't know what's going to happen. So I don't - I don't know what - what's going to be asked of me as his brother. But I guess I'm just more aware that he may have more need for support than he even does now.
SHAPIRO: That's Doug Walton and Johnny Zellers, along with Andrew Trumbull, in the home that they share with Syrian refugee Mohammed Refaai, a man they now think of as their brother.