Growing in a refugee camp in Darfur,four-year-old Wesal Adam knew her parents mostly as faces in photographs and voices on the phone. She knew that her father Motasim Adam and her mother Wejdan Adam lived in Brooklyn. But she did not know what they felt like or smelled like or how much they loved her if at all. But on Monday morning at John F Kennedy International Airport,Wesal and her father walked off a plane,reuniting the family and bringing a joyful end to a struggle that lasted more than two years. Unlike many families splintered by the violence in Darfur,the Adam familys separation was caused by the US immigration law. Adam,while in the US as part of an educational programme for Sudanese professionals,sought asylum. He had been jailed five times by the Sudanese Government for speaking out against its treatment of civilians in Darfur. He was given asylum in 2002,and two years later,Adam was also granted asylum. But their daughter was conceived after Adam was granted asylum,and outside the US,in Chad,where his wife had been living in a refugee camp. A 1998 amendment to immigration regulations required that the relationship between applicants for asylum and their children must exist at the time an asylum application is approved. Wesal did not qualify. Its unbelievable that a child like mine,who was a year old,did not get approval from the US, Adam said. I did not understand. You cannot take a child that is two or three from her parents. Adam faced a painful choice remain in Darfur,where she had returned with Wesal to be closer to family,and risk her life because of her husbands political activities,or leave for the US,hoping it would not take long until she could send for her daughter. She left Wesal with family friends in 2006. Looking back,Adam said: I felt it was selfish on my part to help my wife come here. I thought it was better to lose one of them than both of them. The Adams cause was taken up by a lawyer,Alan Lungen,on a pro bono basis,and the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society,a non-profit group in New York. Lungen and workers at the aid society were successful in winning Wesal a humanitarian parole in May. As the Adams settle into their two-bedroom apartment in Parkville,Brooklyn,they know it will take time for their daughter to adjust.
