Just before President Donald Trump took office, 25-year-old Talal Ayoub received an email for which he had waited nearly a decade: His asylum application had been approved, and his passport was ready for pickup.
But, shortly after Trump took the oath of office, his administration suspended the refugee resettlement program, leaving thousands of families across the U.S., including Aioub's, in distress and uncertainty.
His sister, Nour Aioub, had to break the devastating news to him.
“I hate that moment when I told him that it wasn’t going to happen,” Aioub said in between sobs. “That was a slap on the face.”
In response to the suspension, multiple refugee assistance groups sued, arguing the decision disrupted the system and hindered their ability to support refugees already in the country.
On February 25, a federal judge blocked the Trump administration’s attempt to suspend the program.
This leaves Talal Aioub in limbo. His parents, Wafaa Toubji and Marwan Ayoub, are desperate to see their son after 13 years. Nour Aioub wonders what will be next for her brother and for her, who is navigating the case on behalf of her parents.
“When the suspension happened, it was so heartbreaking, I couldn’t tell my parents,” Aioub said. “I still haven’t told them because, God forbid, something might happen to them.”
During the past three months, Aioub said her parents’ health has been declining, specifically her mother, who has high blood pressure and has been to the emergency room more than 10 times since January.
Her father also has had health issues.
“All she’s thinking about and saying is, ‘I want to see all my kiddos before I die,’ and I’m like, ‘Mom, can you please not say that?’ Like, it’s really heartbreaking,” Aioub said. “Same thing with my dad. He was working three years ago, but he got to an age where he would faint at work and would get injured.
“That’s when I decided that they’re going to stay home and I would support them.”
Because her parents don’t speak English, Aioub said they have a general idea on all the changes in policies that have been made by the Trump administration and where her brother’s asylum case stands.
She’s decided not to tell them in detail to save them heartbreak and as concern for her parents’ health issues only continue to grow.
Sam Smith, immigration attorney at Manzanita House, said Aioub’s family initially worked with World Relief before he took on their case. A case like this, he said, is typically handled in two stages.
“The first stage is the petition itself, which is just proving the family relationship and the status of the petitioner because this was specifically for a refugee petition,” Smith said. “In 2016, the case was approved and moved to the consular processing stage and that’s where they contacted me at Manzanita House."
The second stage is when the petitioner provides necessary documents to prepare for the visa, interviews and background checks, he said.
“But after a visa interview in April of last year, the case was put into administrative processing, and unfortunately, the consulates and embassies overseas have so much discretion and how they’re processing cases, and if a case is in administrative processing, that could mean that there’s an issue,” Smith said.
“It could mean that they’re doing extra background checks or that there’s something that they’re looking into, but they do not provide really any clear information about that, and there’s pretty much no recourse for us to be able to move it along.”
When the executive order went into effect, he said they received a brief email from the embassy stating that they couldn’t process the case due to the suspension. As soon as he learned the judge had blocked the order, he sent a request to the embassy to resume Talal’s case and expedite the process.
“There is little that can be done besides this,” Smith said.
Escaping Syrian Civil War, starting anew
Nour Aioub was 10 years old when she vividly recalled her grandmother rushing to their home late one night in panic.
“They shot your cousin,” Aioub recalled being told. She is now 24. “I remember we all started asking, ‘Who shot him? Who shot my cousin?’ and then she goes, ‘The Syrian president’s army and police.’ ”
In February 2011, anti-government peaceful protests began in Syria against then-Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. With many complaining about high unemployment, corruption and lack of political freedom under al-Assad, Aioub said it quickly went from peaceful to a total war of destruction, with the president and his administration killing people and leaving families heartbroken as they dealt with the deaths of family members.
“We got really scared and went to my uncle’s house where we stayed for a month or so,” Aioub said. “Then my dad was like, ‘This is not safe, we need to leave.’ So we got all of our paperwork, and we went to Jordan.
“On our way to Jordan, we saw people shooting at each other. We thought we were going to die.”
According to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, an estimated 613,407 people died from March 2011 to March 2023 in the Syrian conflict, the majority of them dying under torture in the regime’s prisons and security centers.
“Thankfully, we were able to get to Jordan … but it was definitely a struggle,” Aioub said.
She said that while living in Jordan, her father struggled to find steady income, and Talal, who was 13 years old at the time, saw the financial strain on their family. Wanting to help, he chose to leave school to support them.
A couple of years went by and also struggling to find work, Talal found himself in the same situation as his father, forcing him to make a life-changing decision.
“Some of my brothers, relatives and cousins decided to leave for Europe to seek better education and work opportunities. And my other brother, my parents and my sister stayed in Jordan,” Aioub said. “Talal and my other brothers were planning on working and sending us money to support us.”
Not long after, though, Aioub and her parents were given the opportunity through a refugee organization to seek asylum in the United States. In 2016, Aioub, her sister and her parents were approved and resettled in Spokane.
Talal, although now living in Germany, was still a minor, which allowed his father to file an I-730 petition through World Relief right after arriving to Spokane so Talal could join them in the United States.
Aioub and her parents expected his case to be approved as quickly as theirs but instead has faced endless delays.
“We filed everything that was needed, everything that was requested, all the documents were there … but his process has been taking forever,” Aioub said. "My family got really depressed because they want him to be here. It’s been nine years now.”
Since their arrival to Spokane in 2016, Aioub and her parents, Wafaa Toubji and Marwan Ayoub, have gone to a space of comfort in their home and prayed at least five times a day.
When asked what they pray for, Toubji and Ayoub both looked down and tears started to fall down their cheeks before answering.
They pray they’ll reunite with their son, Talal.
“I haven’t seen him in 13 years,” Ayoub said in between sobs. “We’re really tired and we’re extremely worried about him.
“... Please, we need help.”
Aioub said that faith has helped her and her family keep going but considering their constant battle navigating this case, it has caused her worry and frustration for her family.
“It’s just very overwhelming, to be honest, and you feel like nothing’s working,” Aioub said. “And we’re not doing anything wrong, like, we’re filing the right way. That’s what the president wants. This is what we’re doing. It’s really confusing.
“You’re literally separating families. You’re literally making families suffer.”
Christi Armstrong, executive director at World Relief, said between October 1, 2024, to September 30, 2025, the nonprofit organization expected to welcome 750 people to Spokane. So far, 306 of those people arrived, but the fate of the other 444 people remains uncertain.
Smith said he hopes that cases around the world continue processing, but until he sees movement on cases or direction from the federal government to resume processing, he has a hard time believing they will begin processing in any prompt manner.
For now, there haven’t been any changes to Talal’s case since the program resumed last week.
“I’m not just saying this because he’s my brother, but he does not have anything bad on his record, you know? He’s an innocent individual,” Aioub said.
“I’m just asking for family unity. That’s all we are asking for.”