The family of four refugees filled seven suitcases for their new life in America. They wrapped blankets, plates, a blade to clean the ground in their future house and one to cut meat. They left what they were not supposed to bring: the fronds, the fish paste, the traditional drugs of their native myanmar.
But the family has never arrived in Ohio. Last month, their flights were suddenly canceled. Now, with President Trump’s order to suspend the resettlement of refugees, even for thousands of those who followed the process of approval for years, they say they have lost hope of becoming Americans.
“I have no opinion on American politics,” said Steel Wah Doh, a 35 -year -old laboratory technician, who is now back in a refugee camp in Thailand with his wife and two children. “I want to become American, work hard, love democracy.”
The suspension of refugees from the Trump administration and the freezing of foreign aid are efforts to combat one of the most disastrous humanitarian crises in the world. Not so long ago, Myanmar was an icon of the democratic reform hailed by the West. Today, four years after the army overthrew an elected government, it is a largely uncontrolled international pariah while bombing its own civilians.
On Wednesday, non -governmental organizations that promote democracy and provide vital treatment for refugees and people displaced by MYANMAR conflicts told that they had been told that subsidies from the national endowment for democracy had been suspended, to count immediately.
NED was created by Congress during the Reagan era to strengthen democracy worldwide. Three representatives of the myanmar aid groups said they were told that the NED could not draw funds from the US Treasury to pay subsidies that had already been approved.
The NED judgment occurs two weeks after President Trump’s order to freeze most foreign aid, including funds paid by the American agency for international development. Myanmar programs have received around $ 150 million in promises of USAID promises, according to local monitors. Help money was to be used for social benefits, including the treatment of HIV and support for exile media relationships on the myanmar civil war.
In 2024, Myanmar was the second more dangerous and violent Place on earth, according to a world conflict instructor. More than 3 million people are now moved; Thousands were killed.
The United States has long offered a legal path to immigration for refugees fleeing persecution, war or other threats to their lives. Trump’s directive closed the door to Afghan performers who risked their lives for American soldiers and those who flee religious persecution. He also wiped out the dreams of the people of Myanmar, some of which escaped the persecution of decades ago.
In Bangladesh, a sprawling colony as a tent for Muslims Rohingyas expelled from Myanmar is the largest refugee camp in the world. Mohammad Islam was supposed to be reinstalled in the United States on February 13, with his family. This dream has withered.
Mr. Islam, 43, has been a refugee since the age of 7, but he speaks English fluent and is a teacher in the camps.
“I have never been in a classroom, I only studied in tent shelters,” he said. “I want my children to learn in a real school, with walls and offices in the United States.”
The 2021 coup, which presented the generals of the Myanmar in charge, attracted bipartite conviction to Washington. During Mr. Trump’s first term as president, his administration officially labeled the Myanmar army violence campaign against the Rohingyas genocide. He also honored the religious minorities from Myanmar to the White House.
But the American support for those who fight on the Myanmar junta never approached the monetary commitment made in Ukraine, Israel or other high -level recipients. In the Jungles of Myanmar, university students, young professionals and even poets who took up arms to oust the generals expressed their frustration in the face of the little international attention that their fate attracts.
At the end of 2022, President Biden signed the law of Burma, which aims to punish those who abuse human rights in the country and to provide assistance to those who oppose the junta. (Burma is the old name of Myanmar.)
Last month, Trump opposed the elimination of a $ 45 million scholarship program that helps Myanmar students flee the civil war and in the hope of studying conflicts and building resolution and building of peace. Supported by the USAID, the educational fund is called the development and inclusive scholarship program.
“We have also blocked $ 45 million in diversity scholarships in Burma,” said Trump, adding: “You can imagine where this money went.”
In an article on X, the so-called Ministry of Government efficiency qualified the “Bourse dei” program and said it had been canceled. Trump said federal funds should not be used to support diversity, equity and inclusion.
“It feels like they closed it because they could,” said Ko Hlwan Pating Thiha, the scholarship recipient. He studied for a master’s degree in public policy in Thailand.
While the opposition militias have pushed the Myanmar army from large expanses of territory, the forces of the junta took revenge to take revenge on civilians through a brutal aerial campaign and the dissemination of terrestrial mines in thousands of villages. The army applied a conscription and removes young men on the street to fill its ranks.
For the hundreds of Myanmar refugees already authorized to go to the United States, the prospect of an indefinite immigration judgment is yet another difficulty in life besides conflicts, poverty and insecurity. Saw Htun Htun said that his wife and two daughters were already resettled in Vermont. He is supposed to fly to the United States at the end of February, but said he had little hope that the trip will take place.
“My heart is weak, and I’m afraid I never see my family again,” he said. “Please pray for me to go to the United States”
Thinking he was on the way to America, Mr. Steel Wah Doh left his laboratory job in his refugee camp in Thailand. His father, who also hopes to be resettled in the United States, cannot obtain the medical examinations he needs for his immigration documents because the camp clinics were closed by Mr. Trump’s financing frost.
American wilderness is supposed to be exempt from the ban on spending, but health establishments remain closed. Two non-profit representatives said they had been informed that they should finance programs themselves before receiving reimbursements from American aid agencies. What is rescue aid was not clear to them, they said.
In Rohingyas refugee camps, health clinics, learning centers and sanitation programs funded by the United States has also closed. In one of the most densely packed places on earth, the sewers overflow, constituting the threat of diseases, according to residents.
Suffering from heart and kidney disease, Gul Bahar has crossed the mud of a clinic funded by the United States several times in the past two weeks, to be repressed.
“I have no hope,” she said.
In Lakewood, Ohio, the cousin of Mr. Steel Wah Doh, Lay Htoo, 19, said that he felt terrible for his relatives who did not appear as planned.
Htoo was almost 8 years old when he and his family moved to the United States. He did not speak English.
His father is now a mechanic of a factory that manufactures game materials. Mr. Htoo studies health in a community college, the first in his family to access higher education.
Now American citizen, Htoo said that he had not voted in last year’s elections. Some of the other refugees in the city’s myanmar, including family friends, he said, argue Mr. Trump because they consider him a talented businessman.
“To be honest, living in these refugee camps, I remember it, and it’s not even 100%,” said Htoo. “If I was still stuck there and I knew that other people had voted for a guy who overthrew my opportunity for a new life, I would be extremely livid.”
Saiful Arakani contributed Teknaf reports, Bangladesh.
