I met Rêdûr, a Kurdish farmer from Turkey, for tea and kebabs at an international market in South Nashville.
As we ate, he told me that he and his family fled their village and came to Nashville as asylum seekers about two years ago. Now, they are among thousands facing an uncertain future after President Trump issued an executive order suspending the asylum process. On Monday, the American Civil Liberties Union filed a lawsuit challenging that order. But for now, Rêdûr and his family’s future is in limbo.
Rêdûr is a pseudonym, one he picked out because it means “far from home” in Kurdish. WPLN News is not using his real name because Rêdûr fears he and his family could be deported.
The journey ‘far from home’
Early in the morning on Nov. 25, 2021, Rêdûr woke up to find armed police at his door. They were there to arrest him for a series of tweets, all several years old.
One, published on Jul. 26, 2016, reads: “Our country is Kurdistan, our goal is freedom” in Kurdish. Another, dated Oct. 21, 2014, was a retweet of a BBC article about a U.S. soldier who joined Kurdish forces in Syria to fight against ISIS.
Rêdûr’s retweet of this article was cited by the Turkish government as evidence that he created terrorist propaganda.
Kurds are the largest ethnic minority in Turkey, where they have historically faced significant cultural and political persecution. For much of the 20th century, the Turkish government banned the use of the Kurdish language, names and cultural dress. And the Turkish constitution still bans the Kurdish language in public schools and universities today.
Since the 1980s, the Turkish government has also been fighting the PKK, or Kurdistan Workers’ Party, a militant organization that is classified as a terrorist group by Turkey and the United States. Human rights advocates say Kurdish culture and political activity is often treated as suspect by association. According to the prosecutor in Rêdûr’s case, he did mention the PKK by name in one of his tweets, although that post did not appear online in a WPLN search.
For Rêdûr, these social media posts were enough for him to be found guilty of creating terrorist propaganda and sentenced to one year, six months and 22 days in prison, in addition to five years of probation. He had no previous criminal record, according to Turkish court documents.
Fearing his life would be in danger in prison, he fled to Mexico, crossed the southern border and applied for asylum in the United States of America.
“There is not any guarantee of my life if I go back to Turkey,” he said, “and I don’t know what’s going to happen to my children or my wife.”
Rêdûr made his way to Nashville, home to the largest Kurdish community in America, where his wife and young son later joined him. Now, he has a job at a restaurant, and his wife is expecting their second child this spring. He said he even tried to join the U.S. military but couldn’t without a green card.
“We moved to America for freedom, for liberty, for safety. I want for (my family) a good life. A beautiful life and a safe city. And no discrimination, no racism,” he said. “I mean, everything is different. But in America, I can say I’m happy.”
Now that hard-won stability could be in jeopardy. Rêdûr’s court date for his asylum hearing isn’t until next year, and with Trump’s executive order suspending the asylum process, he worries that it could be canceled entirely.
A land of freedom ‘in jeopardy’
Mehmet Ayaz, who also Kurdish, came to the United States from Turkey over 20 years ago. He’s now an American citizen and helps newly arrived asylum seekers like Rêdûr get settled in Nashville.
More: A new wave of Kurds fleeing Turkey bring their own sound to Music City
He explains that there has been a major uptick in Kurdish asylum seekers coming to Nashville from Turkey since the coronavirus pandemic, a number he estimates as between 1,500 and 2,000 in the past four years. Many of them have the same fears about what will happen to them if they are deported.
“They’re thinking that if they go back, then it’s either prison or torture. It’s not a good end for them,” he said.
Ayaz said that the people he works with are often thrilled to see people in Nashville openly flying the Kurdish flag or speaking Kurdish without fear of retribution.
“The United States was hope for them. It was a land of freedom, where they could be free and be actually themselves,” he said. “Now, it’s in jeopardy.”
Usually, he said, he tries to convince new arrivals like Rêdûr that things are different in America — and that they can put their faith in the legal system here.
“You have rights. You’re a human. You’re respected as a human in the United States. Doesn’t matter who you are, still there is a process. There’s a legal process that has to take place,” he would tell them.
But under Trump’s executive order, that legal process has come to a halt.
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