Who is Welcome in America?
Duha’s smile is as bright as the colorful clothing she wears. Whenever you see her, she is often sparkling, with her young children in tow. Duha has a quiet, determinative spirit. She’s a mother, a friend, a sister, a wife, a daughter. While working at Treetops, Duha was instrumental in building the Concentric leadership program and kept us fueled with delicious chai.
While she has worked tirelessly to foster welcome and a flourishing community here in the U.S., her family has waited in Sudan for their chance to build belonging in peace and safety.
After fleeing the war zone in Khartoum and being granted refugee status by The Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), Duha’s extended family is facing an uncertain future as the U.S. Refugee Admissions Program (USRAP) was abruptly suspended. Her family — including Duha’s stepmother, her teenage sister who has a disability, her older sister with her husband and two children, and two of her brother’s wives along with their children — have escaped to Egypt. Duha is working hard to send them money for food, housing, clothing, and medical care. She explained that everything is very expensive in Egypt and they are unable to work while awaiting resettlement.
Duha’s family story reflects that of one of 120,000 people from around the world who were already approved to travel for safety and reunification in the U.S., but are now stuck in a holding pattern with no timeline or resolution.
Over the past four months, not only are people waiting around the world, but hundreds of resettlement agency employees have lost jobs, and families already living in the U.S. have been abruptly left without social services support.
In Michigan, this meant that community leaders were scrambling to show up for recently resettled families who lost contact with their social services support. For example, Dari-speaking Treetops specialists rushed to show a new Afghan family how to use their thermostat in the middle of winter so the kids didn’t need to wear coats and boots to bed.
While Treetops is not equipped to handle the initial urgent needs of new arrivals, our staff stepped in to support: collecting food, toys, and blankets, providing mental health services and resource navigation, and sharing ways to access immigration legal support at partner organizations.
While our new neighbors struggle to settle in, and families like Duha’s have spent years waiting amidst famine, genocide, and war, the current administration has created a new pathway for Afrikaners to bypass the existing international process, expediting their arrival, and ensuring all necessities were provided so they felt welcome.
Regarding the decision to let in Afrikaners, U.S. Deputy Secretary of State Christopher Landau told reporters, "Some of the criteria are making sure that refugees did not pose any challenge to our national security and that they could be assimilated easily into our country.” When asked whether the administration would reopen the broader refugee resettlement program, he shared that it was "still an ongoing consideration."
As our community watched Afrikaner refugees welcomed by high ranking federal officials at the airport last week, many were left with questions: who is welcome in America and why? And whose voiced trauma and needs are believed and prioritized?
Regardless of how you answer these questions, at Treetops we believe that all refugees should be welcomed with the same warmth, and that all stories are equally important. We take a posture of listening, knowing that each person is the expert of their own experience. Because we listen with empathy and build trust through connection and friendship, we know that refugees and immigrants all carry the potential for redemptive influence. The pain in their stories can bring about beauty and change through their resilience and commitment to building a better life and belonging in their new home.
That is our collective mission here at Treetops — cultivating belonging and spreading radical welcome…not assimilation.
Assimilation requires us to erase parts of ourselves in order to fit into society. Ask yourself: what parts of my identity are possible to hide or change? And even if you could, what would you be willing to give up?
Covering up or hiding what makes us unique in order to blend in robs us of the true experience of belonging as whole selves. The beauty we witness in our work every day is made possible because we provide space for one another to show up authentically and to celebrate our unique, whole selves – an opportunity for belonging that only diversity provides.
All refugees deserve the same treatment, under the same process, and with the same support and resources. Duha’s family deserves for their case to be processed just like the refugees who came before them. A just and compassionate system does not pick and choose whose pain matters more — it honors every story, every journey, and every hope for safety and belonging.
At Treetops, we remain committed to creating a world where all are welcomed with dignity, where differences are not erased but embraced, and where belonging is not a privilege for those who assimilate best, but an aspiration all of us are working toward — together.
We invite you to come visit us — see this work in action, share a cup of chai (perhaps made by Duha herself!), and hear the stories of resilience and hope firsthand. Join us in the sacred work of building belonging. There is space for you in this story, too.
*Duha's name is changed to respect her privacy.
