Our family’s connection to John F. Kennedy is deeper than most and for a good reason. The details are a longer story than a blog entry will comfortably cover. It will be covered more in-depth in the family essays we hope to publish in the near future. But for now, I will try to summarize by splitting it into two parts. Part 1 involves Kennedy’s immigration assistance.
On June 26, 1953, Mohamed and Badrieh Saydjari arrived at Ellis Island aboard the Nea Helias (see details on the Family Name page of the website). Kennedy was the Senator from Massachusetts at the time. Through a mutual friend named O’Keefe, Kennedy intervened in Badrieh’s deportation. She had been discovered working as a nurse without a proper visa (an innocent mistake).
The local immigration official in Boston was not a pleasant fellow and was not inclined to help in any way. Our mother was summarily deported back to Syria. Kennedy called the immigration official into his office and made it clear he would have her returned in a heated exchange.
With Kennedy’s assistance and a diplomatic cable to the United States Counsel in Damascus, our mother Badrieh was able to return 3 days later to the United States on a Pan Am flight into New York, and begin her pathway to citizenship by “taking out first papers.”
Not long after, my parents decided it was time for my father, who was a resident in general surgery at the time, to start his path toward citizenship. Once again, O’Keefe mediated John Kennedy’s intervention with the same immigration official who had our mother deported. This man was once again hostile to my father’s intent. O’Keefe told the immigration officer,
“Don’t make faces unless you want to get Jack down on your neck again.” So, my father quickly returned to Syria, where he met the American ambassador in Damascus, who said, “I got a cable from Senator Kennedy.” Dad replied, “Yes?” The ambassador then said, “You must be an awfully clever boy.”My father then said to him, “Maybe, but then you don’t want stupid citizens from Syria, do you?” They both laughed, and the ambassador said, “Clever indeed.”
Kennedy was also instrumental in helping our older brother Razi, who had been born in Syria, immigrate to the United States to join our parents and begin his path to citizenship.