'Bi Xêr Hatî': Kurdish Family Initially Trapped by Travel Ban Arrives in Nashville

NASHVILLE, TN — The Nashville-bound Kurdish family left in limbo last week by President Donald Trump's executive orders arrived in the Music City Sunday night, greeted by hundreds of people spurred by a call to show the family of five what "Southern hospitality" looks like.

U.S. Rep. Jim Cooper, actress Connie Britton and Mayor Megan Barry — who greeted the Sharef family in Kurdish with the standard welcome "Bi xêr hatî" — were among the 200 or so who were there when the family stepped off the plane at Nashville International Airport Sunday night, a welcome-wagon roll-out led by the Tennessee Immigrant and Refugee Rights Coalition.

The sign-waving, gift-giving, glad-handing party capped an 18-hour day for the Sharefs and a week-long saga.

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Fuad Sharef Suleman worked as a translator following the United States' invasion of Iraq in 2003. He and his family of five — including his wife Arazoo, 19-year-old son Bnyad and daughters Yad, 17, and Shad, 1o — went through the years-long process to secure visas to the United States, saved their money and sold their home. On January 28, they left Iraq, first for a flight to Cairo, then New York and, finally, Nashville.

The Sharefs are Kurds and Nashville, after all, is the home of the largest Kurdish population in the world outside of Kurdistan. By the time the Sharefs arrived in Cairo, however, President Donald Trump had signed the executive order suspending the United States' refugee program and suspended for three months admittance of citizens of seven Muslim-majority countries, including Iraq. They were told they would not be permitted to board their plane to New York.

The Sharefs, who had nothing to go back to, now had nowhere to go.

"I did not know the president can sign such orders," Fuad told The Tennessean. "Because it looks like those autocratic leaders in corrupt countries, not in a democratic modern country like America."

He told ABC News that his work with non-governmental organization that subcontracted with the American government puts him and his family in danger if they return to Iraq.

"For the terrorists if you work for the Americans you become a target, they consider you an infidel," he told ABC. "Our visas are legal and valid until May 2017. And I've received this visa because I put my life in jeopardy working with American government."

With help from Cooper, however, the Sharefs were admitted, eventually, as the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad was given revised instruction, allowing Iraqi special immigrant visa holders — which are given to Iraqi nationals who assisted the U.S. — to come into the country. In the meantime, federal judges have stayed the executive orders.

Thanking his "fellow Nashvillians" for the warm welcome, Faud Sharef said the struggle is behind them now.

"Today is a very important day in my and my family's life. It marks my first day of my new life in Nashville, Tennessee, United States of America. But your presence here and the amount of support that you have shown and your open arms make this day a very, very exceptional day for me," he said, according to The Tennessean.

Image via Metro Nashville Office of the Mayor