In this powerful and sometimes emotional video, Ali talks about the great struggles the new refugees to America are having in out country right now, the cuts in services, the lack of support or sympathy, the lies about their danger to us, the enormous cultural differences between many Americans and refugees that are ignored or dismissed.

As the  federal government slashes its funding for our new brothers and sisters, state and local governments find themselves underfunded and overwhelmed trying to help the refugees and immigrants that came to our country until a year ago.

The refugees, already battered and traumatized, are being abused once more. They have not come to our country to steal or take our jobs, says Ali in the video. “We had really good lives.”  Amen, I said, I hope they will have really good lives again.

(I hope to present Ali in a video at least once a week, our work would not be possible without him.) I asked him to talk about the suffering of the refugees and their urgent needs.

Ali is tired, and frustrated, he has a big heart and bigger conscience.  All through the Muslim holy day of  Ramadan, he fasts and it shows. He looks exhausted.

Today, he and I had a painful and difficult  talk with a refugee named Shaheen, she is from Pakistan. I will write about it tomorrow, it is late and I am tired and I need to think about how we might help this  young woman, a feminist who risked to her life get to country where  woman are free and can work and choose their husbands.

She has paid dearly for her courage, as has her mother. I feel a sense of shame about how our country is treating these people, and it is painful to see the hypocrisy in the very religions that conceived the idea of  charity and compassion in the world.

“When a foreigner  resides among you in your land, do not mistreat them. The foreigner residing among you must be treated as your native-born. Love them as yourself, for you  were foreigners…” Leviticus 19:33-34. What does it mean to be a person of faith in our time?

I will write about Shaheen in the morning, it might be that we have already given her all the help we can afford and all the help she needs. I have to think on it. Thanks for your support. For some of these good people, it is a miracle.