Torn Asunder in War, Then Peace
Citing Broad Fraud, U.S. Has Suspended Refugees' Reunification Applications

By Pamela Constable
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, December 11, 2008

Lemlem Tadesse, a hotel worker in Wheaton and a refugee from Ethiopia, keeps a snapshot of a girl with long black braids and a hopeful smile. It was taken more than a decade ago, when her daughter Marta was 10 and Tadesse fled abroad, promising to send for her as soon as she could.

They have not seen each other since. For the past several years, Tadesse has been navigating the U.S. immigration system, filing forms, paying fees and sending samples of her DNA. But because of a series of miscommunications, complicated by what U.S. officials say is a major problem of fraud in family reunification cases from African countries, Marta's application to come to the United States has been denied repeatedly.

"She's 21 now," Tadesse, 50, said. "She stopped going to school, and she doesn't want to get married. She just sits and waits. She keeps telling her friends: 'I'm going to America to be with my mom tomorrow.' I have done everything the right way, but they keep turning us down. I miss her a lot, but all I can tell her is to keep praying."

Marta's case is unlikely to be solved soon. Six weeks ago, the State Department suspended all family reunification applications from U.S.-based refugees, saying DNA testing in several African countries had found a "significant prevalence of fraud." Officials said they need to "reform and strengthen" the procedures that test for biological relationships before accepting new applicants.

Under the reunification program, refugees from 17 countries in conflict are allowed to bring their children, spouses and parents to the United States without long waiting periods. The countries range from Burma to Uzbekistan, but most applicants come from Somalia, Ethiopia or Liberia. Since 2003, more than 36,000 Africans have been admitted as immediate relatives.

Last summer, suspicions of massive cheating -- often where unrelated children were presented at U.S. embassies as the sons or daughters of a refugee -- led to special testing of 3,000 applicants from seven African countries. In 86 percent of those cases, people claiming to be a relative either had DNA that did not match or refused to take a DNA test, for which they must pay $400 to $1,000.

"We were alarmed that the rate was so high," said a State Department official who spoke on condition of anonymity as a matter of departmental policy. "In fewer than 20 percent of cases did the applicant take the test and it checked out."

The official said that in the case of spouses, in which no DNA link would exist, other testing methods were used, such as personal questions about relationships.

The problem with this scientific and legal approach, say refugee advocates, is that it does not always mesh with the culture in conflicted African countries, where children are often adopted informally, definitions of family are elastic and chaotic conditions often leave orphans or lost children in other people's permanent care.

"A village is burning. People are running. Someone grabs a child and ends up raising him. The DNA may not be the same, but in every other way, he is the parent," said Seyoum Berhe, an official of refugee services for the Catholic Archdiocese of Arlington. "We certainly do not support fraud, but there is a human aspect, too. If my brother were killed in Somalia and I saved his child, according to our culture, that child is mine."

In a dozen interviews last week, refugees and advocates in the Washington area and other regions of the country told wrenching tales of fleeing violence, being separated from their families or raising other people's children for years, only to be turned down when they tried to bring them to the United States.

Teshaye Teferra, director of the Ethiopian Community Development Council in Arlington County, told of one man who was forced to flee Ethiopia years ago. For years, he faithfully supported the girl he thought was his daughter, paying for her education and sending birthday gifts. But when he applied to bring her here recently, it turned out that their DNA did not match and the case was rejected.

"As far as he was concerned, she was his child, and now the DNA says she is not. Does that take precedence over all the years of supporting her?" Teferra said. "I'm sure there are people who use the system to commit fraud, but shouldn't they be weeded out instead of punishing those who meant no harm? We are all concerned about the law, but we also must be sensitive to culture."

State Department officials said that children who have been formally adopted are eligible for reunification and that they realize many informal or wartime adoptions are impossible to document.

The problem, they said, is that when DNA does not match, it is difficult to sort through the thicket of family histories and glean the truth, especially in turbulent societies with few government records.

"We are sympathetic, but when people lie about blood relationships, it raises fears that we may be facilitating child trafficking or that people are trying to bring in their servants," the State Department official said.

Many dubious family reunification applications are not so much fraudulent as pushing the envelope, as in the case of a Somali woman in Fairfax County who was adopted as a child and brought to the United States. Last year, she filed an ambitious application to bring in her biological mother and father, now both remarried, with their spouses and more than 15 of their children. Last month, her application was rejected.

In other cases, refugee families who seem to have airtight cases to bring in their loved ones still fail to convince the authorities, who are especially suspicious these days.

Fahima Aar, a Somali refugee who lives with her husband and six children in Centreville, Va., is trying to complete the family circle that was shattered the day government militiamen burst into her home in Mogadishu seven years ago. They killed her father and sent everyone else fleeing.

Aar made her way to Ethiopia, Italy and the United States, where her husband and children eventually joined her. But her mother, Fatima, was left behind. When Aar applied to bring her and several siblings last year, the entire group was rejected. Now Fatima is 65 and her health is poor. Aar and her husband, an airport cargo worker, are struggling to support her on an income of $300 a week.

"I don't know why they rejected her," said Aar, whose spotless home is decorated with framed verses from the Koran. "Maybe she said the wrong information. Sometimes she forgets things. The hardest part is when I have to call and tell her I have no money to send her. I worry about her every day."