I became involved with refugees by accident. It was the fall of 2016. I was new in town and wanted to get engaged in the community. A woman in Newtown (PA) Friends Meeting was deeply upset by the anti-Muslim rhetoric in then presidential candidate Donald Trump’s campaign. With an eye to the Jewish adage “to save one person is to save the world,” she had spent the previous year reaching out to congregations and other civic groups asking, “Could we organize to sponsor a refugee family?” She invited me to a meeting of the core team of the nascent Bucks County Interfaith Coalition for Refugee Resettlement. Around the table were fewer people than there were words in the title. The wider group might have been 20 people – Christians, Muslims, Jews, Quakers, and others.
With each new arrival, new volunteers and donors stepped up – we now had over 200!
In November, the local refugee resettlement agency assigned us a family from Syria: Khaled and his wife, Layla, with their two little daughters Maya and Yasmin. We hurried to find an apartment, and asked our congregations for funds, furniture, housewares, linens, and ethnically appropriate foods. A second Syrian family, a war widow and her two grade-school aged sons, arrived in January 2017 just 10 days before the Trump administration imposed its Muslim ban. We reached out again to provide them with a fully equipped apartment in the same complex. With each new arrival, new volunteers and donors stepped up – we now had over 200!
With support from the Bucks County Interfaith Coalition for Refugee Resettlement and the local community, the children enrolled in school and the families found employment. Today, both families have good jobs and are U.S. citizens, demonstrating how a little initial assistance helps newcomers become stable, contributing members of their communities.
In the spring of 2021, as the two Syrian families developed their independence, we felt that we had fulfilled our commitment and could disband. Then the United States withdrew from Afghanistan, and the Taliban retook control of the country. In August of 2021, Afghan allies were being evacuated and our supporters urged us to start again—raise money, find and furnish an apartment, and provide a new home for those seeking safety. Ahmed and his family were on the last transport out of Kabul and have become our dear friends.
All these families are legal immigrants… Nonetheless, with the current administration’s policies, they carry a degree of fear.
In 2025, we welcomed two more Afghan families ahead of the possibility of a new ban on Muslim immigrants. One couple with college level education and fluency in English quickly found employment and are on their way to stability. The other family who joined us that year was a mother with her three little children, who came without her husband whose U.S. visa has been repeatedly delayed without explanation.
All these families are legal immigrants. The Syrian arrivals are now citizens. The Afghans worked for the U.S. in Afghanistan and came with Special Immigrant Visas (SIV) and green cards. Nonetheless, with the current administration’s policies, they carry a degree of fear. Any of them, by virtue of physical appearance, might be swept up for looking “foreign.” As one Afghan refugee, Omar, observed, he was fearful in Afghanistan, he was not fearful in Germany, and he is again fearful in the U.S. Their vulnerability is a source of sadness and shame for those of us who have come to know and love them.
These families have been an inspiration to us. As devout Muslims they put their trust in God, often intoning inshallah meaning “if God wills it,” and alhamdulillah, “thanks be to God.” We, their sponsors, have been moved by that deep trust. We have learned to love and work side-by-side with colleagues of different backgrounds. Our events honoring each new arrival have been held in a synagogue, a mosque, a Catholic parish center, and Quaker meetings. Our hearts have been stretched.
We work in the hope of the Jewish adage tikkun olam, “to heal the world.” We are grateful. Alhamdullilah, thanks be to God.
Names have been changed.
Patricia McBee, from Newtown, PA, is active in the Bucks County Interfaith Coalition for Refugee Resettlement