EL CAJON, Calif. — On Sunday, Nadim Fawzi Jouriyeh participated in a ceremony in Amman, Jordan, to mark the United States hitting its target of taking in 10,000 Syrian refugees in a year-old resettlement program. On Wednesday, the 47-year-old former construction worker and his family were walking grocery aisles, stocking up on roasted chicken, milk and lemons for their new home outside San Diego.
It didn’t take long for Jouriyeh, his 42-year-old wife and four children, ages 8 to 14, to feel welcome.
“America is a beautiful country,” he said through an Arabic translator at the office of the International Rescue Committee in El Cajon, a San Diego suburb that has been a magnet for Iraqis and, more recently, Syrians who are fleeing war. “The way they treat people and the people of America are very nice … When you go down the streets, everyone smiles at you. Even if they don’t know you, they just smile at you.”
San Diego, the nation’s eighth-largest city, has received 626 Syrian refugees since Oct. 1, more than any other in the United States. Many smaller cities have accepted outsized number of Syrians, including Erie, Pennsylvania (205), Toledo, Ohio (109), and Boise, Idaho (108).