Myint Myint “Mimi” Sein haMyint Myint “Mimi” Sein has been fighting for more than six years to get her cousin and his family out of a refugee camp on the Thai-Myanmar border.
Nearly 40 years ago, she and her family fled Myanmar in fear of the erupting violence. It took them 15 years to find safety in the Tri-Cities as refugees.
Sein still remembers horrific experiences throughout her journey — as a young mother escaping the military’s mass killings of civilians, giving birth to her daughter in the jungle along the border of Thailand and watching her mother die of cerebral malaria.
Now the 62-year-old grandmother is a U.S. citizen and is helping her cousin, his wife and two daughters get to Washington state. He and his wife fled Myanmar in 1998.
They’ve lived in the same refugee camp for 16 years. Both daughters, 11 and 14, were born there and have known no other home.
In January, the family of four was at the final stage in the process for the U.S. Refugee Admissions Program. They were waiting for their flights to Pasco to be scheduled.
Just when it looked like they’d soon be headed to the Tri-Cities, President Donald Trump suspended refugee admissions and resettlement.
Now they don’t know when, or if, they’ll be able to try again.
Mimi Sein Long journey to safety
Refugees are legal immigrants forced to flee their home country because of persecution, war, violence or other threats.
In most cases, they cannot return home because their lives would be put at risk.
The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees determines if a person fits the definition of a refugee and whether to refer them to the U.S. or to another country where they would resettle.
Less than 1 percent of refugees worldwide are ever considered for resettlement. Before arriving in the U.S., potential refugees must complete an extensive application and vetting process by multiple government agencies and partners. It includes background and security checks, interviews and health screenings. The process can take up to two years.
Sein has been advocating for her cousin and his family to travel to the U.S. to resettle. Last April, she submitted an application to sponsor them through Welcome Corps, a U.S. State department program launched in 2023.
The family completed required medical exams, interviews and a cultural orientation from October to December. But then the Trump administration cut off the federal refugee program with an executive order.
It’s unclear if the program will be allowed to restart after a review scheduled for later this year. The executive order says the Secretary of Homeland Security, in consultation with the Secretary of State, will advise the president within three months whether it should resume.
Crisis in Myanmar
Myanmar, also known as Burma, has suffered decades of repressive military rule, poverty and civil war with ethnic minority groups.
Myanmar’s brutal army stifled nationwide pro-democracy protests in August and September 1988, arresting and killing thousands. Many of them were students.
Around 3,000 protesters were killed in the 8888 uprising.
Sein was one of the thousands fleeing Myanmar to neighboring countries.
She made it to the Tri-Cities in August 2003, along with her husband, Kyaw Swe, their son and two daughters. She became a U.S. citizen six years later.
More recently, the Myanmar military staged a coup in 2021 and took power. Four years later, the nation is still in free fall, facing economic collapse, violent conflict, climate hazards, hunger and poverty, according to the United Nations.
Nearly a third of the country’s population — 20 million — is expected to need humanitarian aid in 2025.
There are currently around 1.5 million refugees from Myanmar worldwide.
Losing hope
Thailand hosts over 90,000 of those refugees in nine refugee camps run by the Royal Thai Government, according to the UNHCR.
At the Noh Poe (Nu Po) refugee camp, Sein’s cousin and his family were making plans to travel from Thailand to the Tri-Cities. But now their situation is at a standstill.
“They were hopeful,” Sein said. “They knew they might go to the United States. The process was almost done. Especially the two girls. They were so excited.”
Refugee camps offer temporary safety and assistance, and meet refugees’ basic needs like food, water, shelter and medical treatment. C
hildren in the camps are vulnerable to disease, malnutrition and violence, and may have inadequate educational opportunities.
Sein last saw her cousin more than 30 years ago when she and her mother visited the village where he lived in Myanmar.
She talks to him and his family every week through the Messenger app. She said she doesn’t know what to tell him and his family to help them cope.
“They have depression,” Sein said. “They are so sad.” “Hopefully, after three months, President Trump will change his mind and they can come here.”
Advocacy through World Relief
When Sein and her family arrived in Washington in 2003, they received support from World Relief Tri-Cities, Southeast Washington’s only refugee resettlement agency.
Sein began working at World Relief in 2007 as a translator and currently works as a refugee resettlement coordinator.
She has been partnering with other World Relief staff to stay in contact with her cousin and help him and his family join her in the Tri-Cities by forming a sponsor group.
But she’s facing a new challenge — she was laid off from the nonprofit in February. She’s currently looking for a new job. The Trump administration’s wide-reaching immigration policies and freeze in funding have rocked immigrant service organizations worldwide.
After the U.S. refugee program was suspended, federal agencies issued stop-work orders and paused federal funds that are critical for refugee resettlement and humanitarian groups to operate.
As a result, World Relief Tri-Cities was forced to furlough 30 percent, or 31 of its employees — many of them former refugees — in early February, including Sein.
The organization, based in Richland, has helped nearly 1,900 refugees resettle in the Tri-Cities from 2019 to 2024, including about 50 people from Myanmar.
Fleeing Myanmar
Sein, along with her husband, their 3-month-old son and her parents fled Myanmar in 1988, heading south from their home in the city of Yangon to the tropical jungle in Karen State on the Thai border.
They left behind their lives in the city — Sein was a middle school teacher with her bachelor’s degree in economics. Her husband was a police officer.
She and her family lived in the jungle for 12 years, moving constantly, building shelter out of bamboo and doing anything to survive.
Sein said that she constantly feared for her life. She remembers hearing gunshots popping in the jungle. She worried about being tortured or killed.
“All the time we were stressed,” she said. “I didn’t know how to keep going. I had to keep everybody together.”
Even when she slept, she didn’t feel safe.
Other dangers included disease-carrying mosquitoes, water-borne illness, lack of food and running water, extreme heat, unsafe living conditions and large, venomous snakes.
Living in Thailand
After more than 10 years in the jungle, Sein and her family crossed the Thai border from Myanmar to join one of her cousins.
In 2000, they lived together in a camp for Burmese students and refugees in Bangkok. Then the camp was moved to the Thai-Myanmar border.
For two years, Sein and her family lived in the Tham Hin refugee camp.
Their time in Thailand was also difficult — Sein and her husband couldn’t work because they did not have legal status and there was little to no access to education for their three young children. Sein didn’t speak the Thai language.
In the refugee camp, the family and her father shared a small room with floor mattresses and blankets, separated from other families by a bed sheet.
“It was so sad. We didn’t know about the future,” she said. “We had a lot of trauma. Also, I had three kids so I worried about their education. I wasn’t going to work.”
Her father then died of tuberculosis at the camp.
Then at one point, Sein’s husband had a car accident and needed care. She started to train as a medic and volunteer at a health clinic where he was being treated, in exchange for housing and food.
At the clinic, Sein met a visiting British doctor who helped her and her family travel to United Nations Asia in Bangkok, where they could begin the refugee process.
Reaching the U.S.
Sein, her husband, her son and two daughters applied and registered to a U.N. list of refugees awaiting resettlement.
Every month, the U.N. sent staff to their refugee camp to tell people they’d been approved by another country, and it was their turn to leave Thailand and resettle.
Sein remembers the day when U.N. staff took photos of her and her family for documentation. They completed interviews, health screenings and cultural orientation.
Finally, in 2003, she learned that she and her family were matched to travel to the U.S.
A large group of refugees was picked up at the camp and driven to the Bangkok airport. Sein and her family received help taking flights to travel from Bangkok to Japan to Los Angeles to Seattle to the Tri-Cities, arriving Aug. 6, 2003.
Rebuilding in Tri-Cities
In Washington, Sein initially struggled with cultural differences and only knew a little English.
Eventually, she became fluent in English and has worked for more than 15 years at World Relief helping other refugees.
Her husband worked at Walmart for 12 years before retiring.
Sein remains deeply grateful for the opportunity to resettle in the Tri-Cities. She and her family have made it their home, but never lose sight of their roots.
She has positive memories of her childhood and university education in Myanmar.
“I miss it, but I will never go back,” she said.
At her home in Kennewick, Sein and her family enjoy cooking curries, vegetables and rice. She attends a local Buddhist temple and relies on her faith for strength.
Sein is proud of her children’s achievements. They studied at Columbia Basin College and Washington State University. Her son is a technician in Kennewick and Sein is a grandmother to his 6-year-old son. One of her daughters is a teacher currently working abroad in Spain, and her other daughter is an accountant and lives in Richland.
“We have low incomes, but our life is rich,” Sein said.
Larissa Babiak is a Reporter/Murrow News Fellow who joined the Tri-City Herald in April 2024. The Murrow News Fellowship is a state-funded journalism program managed by Washington State University. For more information, visit news-fellowship.murrow.wsu.edu.
