After long journey, Iraqi refugee is U.S. citizen at last

Adela Hamza carefully signed the paperwork.

She raised her right hand and swore an oath.

And at a little after noon on Wednesday, it became official: She’s a U.S. citizen.

“It was a long time, I wait for this,” Hamza said after the brief ceremony. “It feels good.”

No doubt it does.

The 48-year-old Richland woman — who’s been featured in the Herald several times alongside her husband, Mushtaq Jihad — came to the Tri-Cities in 2008 as a refugee from Iraq.

Both applied for citizenship in 2013, as soon as they were allowed. But their cases dragged on years past the normal time frame.

It’s unclear why.

“The response we got when asking why the processing was taking so long is that, ‘Mushtaq’s case was in investigations,’” said Tom Roach, a Pasco attorney who took the couple on as clients for free more than three years ago. He’s pointed out that Jihad and Hamza already were investigated before entering the U.S. as refugees, and they’ve been in the country legally and without issues for nearly a decade.

Jihad recently sued the federal government because of the delays in his case.

U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, or USCIS, responded by scheduling citizenship interviews for both him and Hamza, said Jay Gairson, a Seattle attorney representing Jihad.

“It is fantastic to see that USCIS has done the right thing and scheduled Adela for naturalization,” Gairson told the Herald ahead of her ceremony. “We are still waiting for a final decision to be made on Mushtaq’s case and hope his case for naturalization will soon be approved as well.”

Hamza took her oath at Roach’s office off Sandifur Parkway.

Keith Brown, USCIS field office director in Yakima, made the trip to Tri-Cities to officiate the ceremony.

He said he couldn’t speak specifically about Hamza’s case, but that there are multiple reasons the naturalization process can take longer than usual.

He called ceremonies like hers “the best part of my job.”

Hamza’s journey to the U.S. was marked by hardship.

She worked as a bank manager in Baghdad and her husband was a businessman with a string of electronics stores. They married in 2000.

For a while, things were good. But in Iraq’s lawless wartime landscape, armed groups began kidnapping businessmen to extort ransoms.

Jihad was snatched in April 2005 while driving home from one of his stores. He was beaten and tortured.

Eventually, he escaped. He decided to pursue his kidnappers in court, but that led to retaliation, from death threats to being shot at while leaving court one day.

In April 2007, on the day a court decision was due, he was attacked at home.

He and Hamza had just welcomed their third child, a baby boy, and Jihad bundled the infant up for a trip to the doctor.

When the young father stepped outside, he was rocked by an explosion. He lost his right leg in the blast and the baby died.

Jihad spent months in the hospital. When he was well enough, he and Hamza and their two young daughters fled Iraq.

In the Tri-Cities, they began building a new life — learning English, making friends.

Then came another blow: in 2013, Jihad was diagnosed with leukemia.

He was hospitalized and started chemotherapy. He remains in treatment now.

The Herald first wrote about the family in 2014, when the community came together to help Jihad with a new prosthetic leg. Several updates followed.

This past February, Jihad shared about his struggles to support his family, which has grown to include two more daughters.

He drives for Lyft and Uber in Seattle, working long hours and sending money back home to his wife and girls. He visits when he can.

He wasn’t able to be at Wednesday’s ceremony, but Hamza said he’s excited about her citizenship.

Her naturalization also means their daughters, Fatima, 14, Zahraa, 12, Farah, 9 and Sarah, 4, are all citizens, too.

The girls were on hand at the ceremony. The youngest two wore matching red, white and blue dresses, and the older girls snapped pictures of their mom as she took her oath.

Afterward, they ate cake and celebrated with friends and staffers at Roach & Bishop, in a room decked out with patriotic tinsel and balloons.

Attorney Eamonn Roach said the law office will file the girls’ certificates of citizenship right away. He hopes Jihad will have his own ceremony soon.

“Then we can close this chapter,” Roach said, “and Adela and Mushtaq can continue as U.S. citizens, living their lives and pursuing the American dream.”

This story was originally published May 10, 2017 at 6:50 PM with the headline "After long journey, Iraqi refugee is U.S. citizen at last."