Trump policy dims hope for refugees in Indonesian limbo
PUNCAK, Indonesia — After getting death threats from Al-Shabab militants, Mohamed Dahir Saeed and his wife fled their native Somalia with plans to seek safety in Australia. They arrived in nearby Indonesia, only to be told “the sea is closed” for anyone attempting to make the perilous boat journey south.
That was two years ago. Now another chance may be disappearing for Saeed and thousands of other asylum seekers who have made it to this Southeast Asian country with dreams of finding better lives elsewhere.
“The majority of people here, the U.S. takes them,” Saeed said. “Now the U.S. they say no Somalian, no Iraq, no Syrian, no Iran, no Sudan. … So maybe we will go to another place. I hope,” he said Tuesday, seated outside his tiny house perched above the Ciliwung River.
For thousands of asylum seekers and refugees from Iraq, Somalia and other conflict-scarred countries, Indonesia is an often yearslong hiatus as they wait for the U.S. or another country to accept them. President Donald Trump’s travel ban on citizens of seven Muslim countries and suspension of the U.S. refugee program has now made their tenuous situation even more uncertain.