In January, Mazen Halabi bristled at President Donald Trump's travel restrictions for Syrians, which briefly stranded his brother overseas.
Then on Thursday, the Twin Cities IT consultant learned Trump had ordered an airstrike on a Syrian airfield — the kind of unequivocal message to Syrian President Bashar Assad that Halabi and others in the local diaspora had long hoped the U.S. government would send.
"You hate to see bombs dropped anywhere in your country," said Halabi, who grew up in the capital, Damascus, and has lived in Minnesota for more than three decades. "But we have gotten to a point where nothing else is going to deter Assad."
For some in Minnesota's small community of Syrian expatriates, the overnight missile strike brought emotional whiplash: After deep disappointment with Trump's executive orders and his earlier position against intervening against Assad's regime, they were heartened by a move they hope will rein in that regime's brutality against civilians.
Many were still reeling from the news this week of a deadly chemical attack blamed on the Assad government, which brought gruesome photos and videos they could hardly bring themselves to watch but could not ignore. A strong U.S. response was needed, some say, even as they worry about further escalation in the fighting back home.
Local residents of Syrian descent say most Syrian-Americans are not fans of Trump's immigration policies. In his January executive order, Trump barred Syrians from traveling to the United States for three months and Syrian refugees from resettling here indefinitely. The order and a revised version were blocked by the courts — but not before scrambling many plans.
Halabi's brother, a green card holder and business owner who lives in Dallas, was stopped from boarding a flight home after he visited their mother in Egypt.
For Mounaf Alsamman, a Twin Cities doctor, the orders pushed back the arrival of a brother through the refugee resettlement program; the brother and his family are arriving Tuesday.
