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Veteran Speaks Out On Donald Trump’s Refugee EO — Tear-Jerking Tale Goes Viral

By Steph Bazzle
Published on: 11:04 PST, Feb 4, 2017

A U.S. military veteran has spoken out about United States President Donald Trump’s refugee concerns. Addressing the executive order that has temporarily blocked entry to the United States for people from several Muslim-majority countries, Dylan Park-Pettiford headed to Twitter to share his story.

Park-Pettiford says he has told the story before, with a more humorous spin, but following Donald Trump’s executive order, which led to a stream of tales of individuals affected (from a 4-month old baby in need of heart surgery to children detained at airports), he decided to shared the story again, in a more direct and serious way.

President Trump signed the executive order in the last days of January, calling it an effort to protect Americans by employing “extreme vetting” to anyone coming into the country as a refugee from any of seven Muslim-majority nations that the order describes as “terror-prone,” according to a CNN report.

[Image by Andrew Harrer – Pool/Getty Images]

Dylan, who has addressed Donald Trump numerous times from his Twitter account, often with humor, tells his more serious story about his own experience with a young refugee — starting long before the young man made it to the United States.

Park-Pettiford, in a few short lines, paints an image of the life of a teen hoping to be accepted as a refugee to the U.S.

He even recalled a time he brought the interpreter “$20, maybe $30 worth of toiletries.”

Donald Trump recently defended his ban by making a reference to “evil” that must be kept out of the United States. However, Dylan describes his young refugee friend not as a danger, but as someone who saved American lives — including his own.

Because of Dylan’s awareness of, as he calls it, the “turnover,” he didn’t expect to see the teenager again.

However, years later, he would encounter a tragedy completely separate from war.

The taxi ride would provide a surprise, however.

The veteran’s first thought wasn’t of the young man seeking refugee status whom he had befriended though — he was cautious instead.

Dylan says he and Brahim got out of the taxi and stood in the rain, hugging and reconnecting. He learned that after four years as a translator, Brahim was given a visa and a plane ticket.

In the wake of losing his brother, Dylan describes the reunion with his refugee friend like a gift from the universe.

The story has been retweeted approximately 60,000 times, and Park-Pettiford spoke to Mashable about it, saying he never expected so much attention to be drawn to it. He says he used the story to speak out against Donald Trump’s stance on immigration and refugee acceptance.

Saying that his own grandfather was killed in an act of racism, and referencing his Korean heritage, he spoke of Donald Trump’s effect as president, saying,

“We’ve gone 50 years back in time in less than two weeks.”

[Image by Joe Raedle/Getty Images]

Since Trump signed the executive order limiting travel, protests have been held across the U.S. and in other nations, and tales of refugees and immigrants who have worked to make America great, and those who have been blocked from entry, have spread.

For instance, the Atlantic has the story of Samira Asgari who, having earned her PhD in a Swiss university, was on her way to a hospital in Boston to study the impact of genetics on tuberculosis when she was told her visa would not be recognized.

According to ABC 7 NY, Dr. Amer Al Homssi is another victim of Trump’s executive order. He lives and practices medicine in Chicago, but traveled to the Middle East to marry, and was prevented from returning home on Sunday.

Dylan Park-Pettiford’s story is one more in a series of tales that paints an entirely different image from that of Donald Trump’s on refugee and immigrant programs.

[Featured Image by Olivier Douliery – Pool/Getty Images]

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