'There is a misconception of how easy this would be or how everything is good,' Zawadi, a mother of seven and Congolese refugee, said of the resettlement process.
Justin MarvilleOshkosh Northwestern
OSHKOSH – For many people, it was likely just any other Friday.
You couldn’t kill anyone for looking at Zawadi and believing she felt the same.
After all, she sat quite peacefully at a table surrounded by two of her children and a friend with what could only be described as the most calm and pleasant of demeanors.
And yet pleasant is the last word you’d use to define any refugee’s experiences.
“I haven’t known happiness since coming here,” Zawadi said in Swahili, still calmly.
An early-40s mother of seven, Zawadi is a member of one of two Congolese refugee families who agreed to share their stories with the Northwestern (on the condition their full names or photos weren't used) of how they’ve been impacted by recent executive orders from the new Trump administration.
To recap, the U.S. government indefinitely suspended the U.S. Refugee Admissions Program, issued a stop-work order on all federally funded activities providing refugee resettlement and froze billions of dollars in overseas humanitarian assistance.
“The people are good [here], but the systems are not,” Zawadi said through her daughter Jeannette, who translated in English.
There was also a brief pause on federal grants that was eventually rescinded two days after it was initially issued last month.
For context, refugees like Zawadi and Tuliya, the mother of the second Congolese family, rely heavily on resettlement agencies like Christian humanitarian organization World Relief, which relies heavily on federal grants and funding.
One of the things that makes groups such as World Relief so vital is they pay immigrants’ housing, utilities and other essentials for their first 90 days in the U.S., hoping they will eventually find a job and land on their feet after those initial three months.
World Relief Wisconsin serves 660 immigrants in the Fox Valley area.
According to Regional Director Gail Cornelius, World Relief Wisconsin is serving 125 new immigrants in the Fox Valley region alone, having already helped nearly 350 new residents in 2024.
Without those federal funds, and the U.S. Department of State instructing World Relief to “stop all work” under the federal Reception and Placement Program grant agreement, refugee families are extremely vulnerable to becoming unsheltered.
“We have an ethical obligation and we’re still able to provide limited services regardless of federal funding, but it means now we’re going to have to lean on different kinds of partnerships, particularly with our churches,” Cornelius told the Northwestern weeks ago.
Winnebago County government has since contracted World Relief to handle that initial 90-day resettlement of immigrants in the county, agreeing to reimburse the agency up until April.
But World Relief Wisconsin serves approximately 660 clients through its Fox Valley office alone, and the organization is just one of 10 resettlement agencies in the entire country.
So, while impactful, the county’s efforts aren’t seen by families like Tuliya’s.
Or Zawadi’s.
The latter's family has been in Oshkosh since last August and was settled by World Relief in a house with a monthly rent of $1,800. But Zawadi is still learning to speak English, leaving Jeannette, at 22 years old, as the only working member of the family of eight.
And she’s yet to receive a salary, considering she just recently started her job. Three of her siblings, ages 12, 9 and 6, are currently in the Oshkosh school system.
The family is still eligible for Refugee Cash Assistance, a federal program that provides temporary financial relief to refugees who recently arrived to the U.S. But it's unclear whether the recent executive orders have put a pause to that program, too.
Zawadi, Jeannette and Jeannette’s six siblings — ranging in age from 2 to 21 — could have very easily found themselves on the street if Oshkosh were not home to another nonprofit organization, SEPO.
An acronym for "Sustainability, Education and Progress as One," SEPO really stands for hope for so many immigrants considering the group’s numerous humanitarian efforts.
"Sepo" also quite literally means "hope" in the African language of Lozi.
Related: Pope Francis again criticizes President Donald Trump's immigration policies in open letter
SEPO has helped about 70 families in Oshkosh since 2010.
Founded in 2010 by Zambian immigrant Mashebe Mushe Subulwa and his wife Angela Subulwa, who is the director of the International Studies Program at UW-Oshkosh, SEPO has essentially been an extended family for Zawadi, Tuliya, Tuliya’s sister’s family and 70 other families like theirs in Oshkosh.
“Ubuntu is a concept we are reminded as children of Southern Africa that I am who I am because of us,” explained Mushe.
“Other organizations treat refugees as clients, but I would never ever use that word because these people are family. They are who I am.”
"Ubuntu," a word that comes from the Nguni languages of southern Africa, is a concept rooted in the concept of collectivism, roughly translating to "humanity to others."
While SEPO can provide assistance, food, shelter and help finding jobs, Zawadi’s biggest need is the one thing the Oshkosh nonprofit can’t give.
Zawadi’s family of eight is really a family of nine. When Zawadi and the children were in Harare, Zimbabwe, doing their interviews through the U.S, Refugee Admissions Program, her husband was in Cape Town, South Africa, working. He figured he’d simply do the next round of interviews, and the entire family would be relocated to the U.S. together.
After all, no one separates families, right?
But Zawadi and the kids were resettled in August after starting this particular resettlement process since 2019, and her husband is still at a refugee camp in Zimbabwe.
There is no clear path for the reunification of Zawadi's family because of the indefinite suspension of the U.S. Refugee Admissions Program.
And the indefinite suspension of the U.S. Refugee Admissions Program, coupled with the Trump administration’s freeze of foreign aid worldwide, means there is no immediate path for a reunification of Zawadi’s family.
So, he is now among the 100,000 who were fully vetted and ready to come to the U.S.
“There is a misconception of how easy this would be or how everything is good,” Zawadi said of the resettlement process.
It’s not the first time a Trump-led administration thwarted her family’s resettlement.
Zawardi initially got into that Zimbabwe camp in 2011 and almost completed the grueling seven-step process before President Trump signed an executive order during his first term in 2017 pausing the overall refugee resettlement program.
Not exactly pleasant.
But nothing has ever come easy for Zawadi or Tuliya.
Born and raised in the war-torn Democratic Republic of the Congo, both women have been on the run for much of their lives after witnessing some of life’s worst atrocities.
Around 7.1 million people have been displaced from the DRC following decades of civil wars and internal conflicts.
The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees estimates 7.1 million people have been displaced from the DRC as a result of decades of civil wars and internal conflicts, fueled partially over the fight for the country’s vast mineral deposits of cobalt, copper, diamonds and gold.
The DRC produces about 60% of the world’s cobalt, essential for the production of cell phones and electric vehicles … and warring factions.
Zawadi was almost raped in her home by men of rebel factions, forcing her family to flee that area of the DRC and move to Tanzania, Malawi and Botswana until they finally made it to that refugee camp in Zimbabwe.
“We don’t understand the hardships a lot of refugees go through, from witnessing family members being murdered and surviving plagues and diseases,” said Mushe.
Tuliya fled the DRC in 1996, spending 15 years in a Tanzanian refugee camp before being relocated to Malawi for another 10 years.
Eventually, she, her husband and two children were resettled in Manitowoc by World Relief in 2021. Now, their family has moved to Oshkosh and grown with the addition of two kids.
And while her husband has a steady job in Green Bay, Tuliyah hasn’t been able to work as she continues to work on her English.
Whatever help she was getting from World Relief in that regard has probably been stalled now that the agency was forced to furlough 18 case workers.
“Everyone still talks to us nicely and we’ve been received well by people here in the U.S.,” Tuliya said of the language barrier.
But as Zawadi said, the people were never the problem.
Related: White South Africans rejecting Trump's immigration offer
African immigrants have found issues having their qualifications recognized in the US
A common theme for African refugees is the system’s refusal to acknowledge their qualifications.
Despite studying to be a nurse back home, Jeannette has to go back to Fox Valley Technical College to “relearn” what she already knows.
It was the same for Mushe when he first came stateside in 2006.
“I know 15 languages and I was a principal for a school in South Africa, but I had to sit down in a classroom here for formality so I can write a test and pass it,” he explained.
Zawadi also speaks Swahili, Kinyarwanda and Kibembeand was a successful entrepreneur while moving her family through Botswana, Tanzania, Malawi and Zimbabwe.
But most people wouldn't know that just by looking at her.
For them, Zawadi looks like any normal, pleasant woman. Even if her experiences say she shouldn't be.
Contact Justin Marville atjmarville@gannett.comand follow him on X (formerly Twitter) at@justinmarville.
