After a last-minute invitation in February to meet with the staff of Utah Sen. John Curtis, we sprinted down Salt Lake City sidewalks to get to the Federal Building. We were there to ask for help with the asylum case of Su Htun’s family.
We entered the building and headed toward security. When the hardware in her knee kept tripping the alarm, Htun was serene and matter-of-fact as she quietly explained to the workers that she had had polio as a child. She told me later that’s actually what prompted her to study good governance since her early illness was a direct result of poor health care and bad policy under the closed door policy of Burma’s Ne Win dictatorship in 1980.
Since 2005, Htun has taught international human rights law to Burmese students, taking her course online after the COVID-19 pandemic and political upheaval in her home country. A mere glance at the voluminous comments section of her Facebook updates shows how beloved Htun is to the students she teaches around the world.
In early 2024, she made it to Utah and secured a post as a research associate at the University of Utah connected with DEI initiatives.
In Curtis’ conference room, with Htun’s calm, kind demeanor and law professor perspective and expertise, she explained to us in perfect English the violent takeover in Myanmar in 2021 by the military junta, their quelling of all opposition, and the family’s forced decision to escape from Myanmar with her mother’s close relatives, themselves police officers, after they were listed as “wanted” by those in power.
If found, Htun’s family would be imprisoned or shot. For several months in 2021, Htun herself had to stay out of sight, moving between small villages for safety as her face was broadcast on the TV and in “wanted” posters by the military junta in power.
I knew the basic outline of their story from her written account — that because of well-founded threats to their safety from the military dictatorship, they had escaped to Thailand as refugees — but to hear her tell it in her own words was another thing entirely.
Htun made it to the U.S. and then to Utah with her mother, but they had to leave her aunt, uncle and cousin in Thailand under urban refugee status. She has been working to bring them to America.
That day in February, the liking I had for Htun morphed into awed admiration. This capable and grateful woman no doubt thinks she is an ordinary person, but she is not. I wondered — as I saw Sen. Curtis’s attentive staffer nodding her head as she took notes — were her thoughts my thoughts?
Yes, we want to help this remarkable woman — help her entire family, to get here and stay here — to help make the U.S. a better place.
We went to Sen. Curtis’ office for help in February because Welcome Corp, the State Department program that brought us together, had been suspended by the Trump administration. While we were waiting to hear back from the senator’s office, Htun learned that her research associate position would not be renewed, as colleges and universities like the University of Utah faced federal and state funding freezes if “inefficient” programs weren’t downsized.
We were still looking for another avenue by which we could help her family’s asylum case when we learned in June that foreign nationals from several countries including Burma were restricted from coming to the U.S. “to protect … from foreign terrorists and other national security and public safety threats.”
August comes, and Htun and her mom and her family will create a better life for themselves because that is who they are, but unfortunately, I won’t see it happen. They have to leave Salt Lake City.
Htun’s family is now barred from coming to America, and she was forced to look for a position with another university, while maintaining her long-time online international human rights law class. She has secured a research fellow position at Cornell University.
I read an article with the most recent Gallup poll showing that 79% of those Americans polled — a record high — say immigration is good for the country, with only 17% saying it is bad. It seems that anti-immigrant sentiment in this country is softening.
As I absorbed the results of this poll, I wondered if we are finally seeing that immigration is not a simple issue but is a complex and multi-faceted one. That there are other stories about immigrants than the violent, threatening ones our cable news and social media are feeding us.
What if we could ignore these algorithm-driven, biased sources on this topic and base our opinion primarily on our own daily experiences with the immigrants we know and see every day?
Immigrants and refugees are likely all around us, no matter where we live. They are our neighbors. They are workers in our communities. They worship at our churches. I am not the only person who knows someone like Htun, who has recently come here from another country. Once we come to know our immigrant friends, it becomes more difficult to dismiss, blame and demonize them as an enemy, as the “other.” Once “mass deportation” has a face, our feelings begin to change.
What story could we hear — or tell — about an immigrant or refugee we know who is an important part of our local community? How does the community benefit by their presence? How has this person made a positive difference in our lives? Could we tell others about that person?
That’s a better, truer story than the terrifying, dark one so many media outlets tell us.
And if we don’t know any immigrants or refugees, there are easy ways to fix that. As just one example, the Utah Refugee Connection hosts a Refugee Cultural Night every other month so people in this state can learn more about those who have emigrated to our towns and cities.
A recent event highlighted the Afghan refugee community. As I sat in at this event with five young women from my church’s youth program, the room filled with a sea of teenagers — youth groups, adults, and leaders. There are remarkable people — and so many stories — who’ve come to America for new opportunities while hoping to make their own contribution.
It might not be enough to just feel troubled by negative portrayals of immigrants in the media or to simply be friendly to a refugee neighbor. In the name of balance and fairness on this issue of immigration, we must speak up.
Let’s share these better stories.