veiled4allah: why do Muslims migrate to the West?

Affected by these developments, I left New York City on September 1, 2002 on a personal mission, and a quest, following Muslim . migrants in their search for a home in the West. I met men and women from Iran, Afghanistan, Iraq, the Sudan, and Somalia in their epic journey through Turkey, Bulgaria, Greece, Italy, and other countries in Europe. They were from different backgrounds. Some escaped war. Others fled political persecution. Among them were young boys and girls who lost their family in the bombing of their homes in Iraq and Afghanistan; they were orphans, Muslim orphans, searching for a new home. There were women from Iran and the Sudan who were fleeing religious fundamentalism and their treatment as second class citizens in their places of birth. There were young men and women seeking normality, hoping to live a life like the others in the West, a life free of fundamentalism, a life free of humiliation, a life free of war.

I met Muslims who crossed the oceans and snow-covered mountains, navigated rough seas on small floats and fishing boats, got assaulted by border guards, spent time in prison and detention camps, and continued their voyage for a new life, a life they are were deprived of at home. . We met in different stops on the journey": camps, prisons, the ghettos and the underworld of Istanbul, the squat homes in Athens, the tent city in the ports in Greece, the city parks in Paris, and the woods in nNorthern France. These were Iraqi Kurds living in temporary homes made of plastic and cardboard, in the woods near Calais. . In Istanbul, I spent long weeks and months with mothers traveling with their infants or young babies, and those who were trapped in safe houses with no money and jobs, still hoping to cross and make it to a safe place in Europe.

I photographed teenagers whose bones were broken by the Greek police when they attempted to leave the country for Italy, men whose teeth were popped out, and those whose ribs were broken under the kicks and punches of the coastguards. And those attacked by the border dogs and the guards in Bulgaria. They told me tales of violence, beatings, and death in the hands of the guards.

Like the Irish, the Italian, and the others who came to America in the turn of the last century for a new life, the Muslim migrants are leaving their places of birth for a new home, a place that would embrace them as equals. They are men and women with dissimilar conditions. But, all have similar dreams. They long for normality. They hope for a day they could work with dignity, raise a family, get old, and see their grandchildren play. But, as they proceed on their journey, they face new walls.

They are not welcome. The gates are closed.