IRC Brings Family Together for the Holidays

 “Every night my son would say ‘Baba, tell me about Cinderella, tell me about Leila and the wolf.’ It’s been two years since I could tell him the stories. I hope he still asks me,” Nabil, an Iraqi refugee, confessed just weeks before he got the news his family would be joining him in America.
 
Nabil has been separated from his wife and 3 children for two years. After coming to Tucson he began working with IRC’s certified immigration specialist, Senada Kadich. Together they began the long and tedious process of family unification. “The process involves several U.S. government departments and overseas agencies and can take up to a year,” explains Senada. After many months of office visits and endless paperwork, Nabil finally received notice his family would arrive this November.
 
As he waits for the plane to land at Tucson International, Nabil admits, “I am very nervous, because I don’t know what I should do. Two years away from my family; so many things could have changed."  But those fears melted away the moment he saw his wife and three sons. 
 
Luckily some things are still the same, “My son still asks me, and I tell him every night about Leila and Cinderella, and sometimes my stories I make up, and now he says ‘Baba, Wake up! You fell asleep again. You need your rest!”