It’d been more than a decade since Amleset Fesahaye hugged her husband and children when they wrapped their arms around each other on April 30, 2024, at Piedmont Triad International Airport.
Of course you would cry if you were hugging your husband and children for the first time in a dozen years after surviving beatings, a boat ride, a refugee camp, and navigating a new life in America without them by your side.
And, of course, those tears would quickly turn to laughter and cheer.
Amleset Fesahaye gleefully greeted her husband, Merhari, their teenage daughter Yorsaliem, and their teenage son Siem upon their afternoon arrival at Piedmont Triad International Airport on April 30, 2024, following a series of flights from Ethiopia.
“Happy,” was how Fesahaye described the moment she embraced her family after spotting them on the concourse. “I’m just happy.”
Originally from Eritrea, circumstances in 2012 required Fesahaye and her husband to separately flee from their home after getting both children to safety with relatives. Fesahaye escaped through Sudan, survived violence in Libya, made her way by boat to Malta, and by 2017 had secured refugee status and permission to resettle in the United States.
Once in America, she approached Elon University School of Law’s Humanitarian Immigration Law Clinic to secure a green card and with the hope of bringing her family to the country. Two Elon Law students and clinic staff would help her navigate those processes over the next several years.
In the meantime, her husband had fled to Sudan and Israel before finding help with moving his children out of Eritrea. They found their way in 2019 to a refugee camp in Ethiopia before follow-to-join petitions filed by Elon Law’s immigration clinic were approved.
The airport reunification ended that saga. Now in the United States, the new arrivals will work with the immigration clinic to apply for permanent residency and, eventually, citizenship.
“This is wonderful to have a reunification after a dozen years of separation,” said Associate Professor Katherine Reynolds, director of the Humanitarian Immigration Law Clinic. “Amleset requested a large, supportive crowd to welcome her family and we are thrilled to fulfill her wishes on this joyous day!”