Tuesday March 7, 2017
CORRECTS FROM OLAL TO OLOL- FILE - In this July 21, 2015 file photo,
Somali immigrant leader Jamal Dar, right, who arrived in the U.S. two
decades ago from Kenya, hands out snacks to a boy at a community
engagement and civic language class for former Somali residents at AYCO
offices in East Portland, Ore. Somali immigrants in Oregon are reacting
to President Trump's revised travel ban with dismay and fear. Musse
Olol, president of Somali American Council of Oregon, said Monday, March
6, 2017, that the ban is discriminatory and will further isolate Somali
immigrants from American society by making them feel targeted. (AP
Photo/Don Ryan, File) The Associated Press
By GILLIAN FLACCUS, Associated Press
PORTLAND, Ore. (AP) — Somali immigrants in
Oregon reacted Monday to President Donald Trump's revised travel ban
with dismay, saying it stigmatizes a growing immigrant community that's
working to forge better relationships after the high-profile conviction
of a local Somali-American for a bomb plot.
Trump's executive order, announced Monday, bars new visas for citizens of six predominantly Muslim countries, including Somalia.
Around 8,000 Somalis live in Portland, and those
numbers are growing, said Musse Olol, president of the Somali American
Council of Oregon.
Olol has received calls from people worried
about family members trying to join them in Portland, including one
mother who has been working to bring her five children to Oregon from
Kenya to join her. Now, he said, she is not sure what to do.
"It's very, very negative, very concerning. We
don't understand why this community is targeted," Olol said. "And those
of us here, those of us who've been here for 35 years, are being
alienated, demonized."
Somali leaders in Portland worry that Trump's
travel ban will cast a shadow on efforts to unite a refugee community
deeply divided by civil war and to keep young Somali-Americans away from
radical groups online.
A local Somali-American named Mohamed Mohamud
was arrested in 2010 for plotting to bomb a crowded Christmas tree
lighting celebration in the city's town square. Mohamud, a former Oregon
State University student, was sentenced to 30 years in prison in 2014.
"This will make it easy for (young Somalis) to
say, 'Well, we don't belong in this country,' " said Olol, a mechanical
engineer who came to the U.S. in 1981.
"With the radicals on social media ... now
you're pretty much reinforcing what they're saying," he said. "That's
one of the tools they use to recruit young men, and we're more
susceptible because we're the poorest group of Muslim immigrants."
Many of Portland's Somalis have spent their
entire lives in refugee camps, forced there by the country's
long-lasting civil war. Portland's Somali community represents the
largest Muslim group in the city. Somali has become the third most
spoken native language in Portland schools.
The Portland Public Schools last year started a
Somali language program. The Portland Police Bureau in 2015 swore in its
first Somali-American police officer.
Last year, several dozen Somali taxi cab drivers
united to form their own Somali-owned and operated cab company after
struggling to make a living driving for others.