The Detroit area's many Syrians are celebrating Assad's overthrow and planning long-delayed visits

DEARBORN, Mich. (AP) — Nizam Abazid is gleefully planning his first trip in decades to Syria, where he grew up. Rama Alhoussaini was only 6 years old when her family moved to the U.S., but she's excited about the prospect of introducing her three kids to relatives they've never met in person.

They are among thousands of Detroit-area Syrian Americans who are celebrating the unexpected overthrow of the Syrian government, which crushed dissent and imprisoned political enemies with impunity during the more than 50-year reign of ousted President Bashar Assad and his father before him.

“As of Saturday night, the Assad regime is no longer in power,” Alhoussaini, 31, said through tears Tuesday at one of the Detroit-area school and day care facilities her family operates. “And it’s such a surreal moment to even say that out loud, because I never thought that I would see this day.”

It may be some time before either visits Syria. Though happy to see Assad go, many Western countries are waiting for the dust to settle before committing to a Syria strategy, including whether it’s safe for the millions who fled the country’s civil war to return.

Ahmad al-Sharaa, who led the insurgency that toppled Assad after an astonishing advance that took less than two weeks, has disavowed his group's former ties to al-Qaida and cast himself as a champion of pluralism and tolerance. But the U.S. still labels him a terrorist and warns against any travel to Syria, where the U.S. hasn't had an embassy since 2012, the year after the war started.

But for Syrians in the U.S. who have been unable to visit, the overthrow of the Assad government has given them hope that they can safely return, either for good or to visit.

“The end of the regime is the hope for all the Syrian people,” Abazid said this week, days after Assad and his family fled to Russia.

Abazid said he could go to Syria whenever, since he holds dual U.S. and Syrian citizenship, but that he'll wait a few months for things there to settle down.

Although European leaders have said it's not safe enough yet to allow war-displaced refugees to return to Syria, Abazid said he and his brother aren't concerned.

“When Assad’s forces were in power, my fate would’ve been in jail or beheaded,” Abazid said. “But now, I will not be worried about that anymore.”

Many Syrians who immigrated to the U.S. settled in the Detroit area. Michigan has the largest concentration of Arab Americans of any state and is home to the country's largest Arab-majority city, Dearborn. It also has more than 310,000 residents who are of Middle Eastern or North African descent.

As rebel forces seized control of Syria, capping a lightning-quick advance that few thought possible even a month ago, Syrians in and around Detroit — like their counterparts all over the world — followed along in disbelief as reports poured in about one city after another slipping from Assad's grip. When news broke that Assad's government had fallen, celebrations erupted.

Abazid, who owns a cellphone business in Dearborn, was born in Daraa, about 60 miles (95 kilometers) south of the Syrian capital, Damascus. He moved to the U.S. in 1984 at age 18, and although he's gone back a few times, he hasn't visited since 1998 because of what he described as “harassment” by Syrian intelligence. That trip had to be heavily coordinated with U.S. authorities, as he said Syrian authorities took him into custody and detained him for more than six months during a 1990 visit.

“When I was kidnapped from the airport, my family didn’t even know ... what it was about," he told The Associated Press on Tuesday. "I still don’t know the reason. I have no idea why I was kidnapped.”

Abazid, 59, said his parents have died since that 1998 trip, but his five sisters still live in Syria. Each of his four brothers left Syria during the 1970s and 1980s, including one who hasn't been back since emigrating 53 years ago, shortly after Bashar Assad's father, Hafez al-Assad, rose to power.

Alhoussaini, who lives in West Bloomfield Township, said she was born in Damascus and moved to the Detroit area as a young girl, “mainly because there was nothing left for us in Syria.”

She said under the Assad family's rule, her grandfather's land was taken. Authorities detained him for almost a month. Her father was also detained before the family left.

“There never needed to be a reason,” Alhoussaini said. "My dad was able to return one time, in 2010. And he has not been able to go back to his home country since, mainly because we spoke up against the Assad regime when the revolution started in 2011. And we attended many protests here. We were vocal on social media about it, did many interviews.”

But with Bashar Assad gone and Syria in the hands of the rebels, “We don’t have to be afraid anymore to visit our country,” she said.

Her father, 61, is considering making a trip to Syria to see his siblings and visit his parents' graves. Alhoussaini said she and her husband, who is from the northern city of Aleppo, want to take their kids over to visit with family and friends.

Alhoussaini’s three sisters, ages 40, 34 and 29, were also born in Syria. But none of them have been back.

Now, there is hope and amazement that people in Syria can celebrate in the streets, she said.

Alhoussaini said she thinks people who were born and raised in the U.S. won't be able to fully relate, because Americans enjoy a freedom of expression that people in Syria have never had.

“You can say what you want. You can go out into the street and protest whoever you want,” she said. "You will not be detained for it. You will not be killed for it.”

Rama Alhoussaini sits at her desk in Dearborn Heights, Mich., Tuesday, Dec. 10, 2024. (AP Photo/Corey Williams)

Nizam Abazid sits in his cellular shop in Dearborn, Mich., Tuesday, Dec. 10, 2024. (AP Photo/Corey Williams)

Rama Alhoussaini stands in her office in Dearborn Heights, Mich., Tuesday, Dec. 10, 2024. (AP Photo/Corey Williams)

Nizam Abazid sits in his cellular shop in Dearborn, Mich., Tuesday, Dec. 10, 2024. Abazid, 59, left Syria in 1984. (AP Photo/Corey Williams)

Rama Alhoussaini holds a Syrian flag in her Dearborn Heights, Mich., office, Tuesday, Dec. 10, 2024. (AP Photo/Corey Williams)

PHOENIX (AP) — From heartbreak and devastation to outrage, Emily Pike's tragic death is stirring heavy emotions and putting the spotlight to a crisis that has long plagued Native American communities, where a disproportionate number of people have been killed or have gone missing.

In the case of the San Carlos Apache teenager, she disappeared from her group home on the edge of a Phoenix suburb in late January.

Authorities posted her picture on social media, saying she was missing and had possibly run away. Just a couple inches shy of 5 feet tall, she was wearing a pink and gray shirt.

It was nearly a month later that sheriff's deputies in a neighboring county reported finding and identifying Pike's remains. It was more than 80 miles (129 kilometers) from where she was last seen.

Since then, news of her brutal death has reverberated through Indian Country and beyond. A crowd gathered Thursday at an intersection in Mesa, near her group home, to honor her life and to press for changes that might help curb the violence.

Dozens of people of all ages viewed the vigil's program on a large inflatable projector. Clad in red, they embraced, shielded candle flames on the windy night and held posters that read “No more stolen sisters” and “Justice for Emily Pike.”

“These tears that are shed are a part of a healing process,” said Mary Kim Titla, a member of the San Carlos Apache Tribe. Titla was wearing pink — Pike's favorite color. She said Pike had dreamed of becoming a veterinarian.

Advocates say the crisis stems from colonization and forced removal, which marginalized Indigenous people by erasing their culture and identity. Limited funding, understaffed police departments and a jurisdictional checkerboard that prevents authorities from working together have only exacerbated the issue.

Pike's case has drawn the attention of hundreds of thousands of people through social media. Some have shared photos of themselves, their mouths covered with a red handprint that has become emblematic of the movement to end the violence. Posts included the hashtags #NoMoreStolenSisters, #SayHerName and #JusticeforEmily.

In Wisconsin, organizers planned for their own candlelight vigil. Fliers in Colorado encouraged people to wear red, and Daisy Bluestar, a Southern Ute tribal member on Colorado's Missing & Murdered Indigenous Relatives Task Force, posted a video about Pike with the hashtag #ColoradoStandsWithYou.

The girl's basketball team at Miami High School in Arizona wore jerseys with “MMIW” and a red handprint on the back.

“We’re all mourning this terrible loss of a precious young girl. Emily really has become everyone’s daughter, granddaughter and niece,” Titla said.

Titla herself has three female relatives who went missing and were killed. She said the community has come together to honor Pike and to demand justice. This shared solidarity comes from a desire for healing from historical and generational trauma, she said.

“It affects so many people," Titla said, “and I think the reason is because we all know someone — it could be a relative, it could be a friend, it could be in our own tribal community.”

Pike's remains were found northeast of Globe, Arizona, the Gila County Sheriffs Office said.

Like many others, her case involves multiple agencies. Gila County is working with Mesa police, the Bureau of Indian Affairs and the Federal Bureau of Investigation.

Mesa police typically don't investigate runaway reports, but the agency did list Pike as missing on its Facebook page two days after the group home reported she was gone.

Arizona's Department of Child Safety requires notification of a child's missing status to occur within a day of receiving the information. However, that requirement doesn't extend to tribal social services, according to Anika Robinson, president of the nonprofit foster care advocacy group ASA Now. Pike was in the custody of San Carlos Apache Tribe Social Services, which could not be reached for comment, at the time she went missing from the group home in Mesa.

Mesa police reported Pike as missing to the National Crime Information Center the evening of Jan. 27. Police have said it would have been up to the group home to contact her case manager who then would have contacted Pike's family or tribe.

The girl's mother, Steff Dosela, has said in interviews that she didn't hear about her daughter’s disappearance until a week later.

Robinson questioned why it took so long. “Imagine what probably had already transpired by that week,” she said.

Arizona Gov. Katie Hobbs in 2023 created a task force to identify policies for addressing the high rates of disappearances and killings among the Native American population. A final report is due in 2026.

Washington, New Mexico, Michigan, Wisconsin and Wyoming also have created task forces dedicated to the crisis.

President Donald Trump during his first term created the nation's first task force to begin looking at the problem, dubbing it Operation Lady Liberty. The Biden administration followed with a special unit within the Bureau of Indian Affairs, U.S. attorneys' offices in key areas began taking a closer look at unsolved cases, and top officials held listening sessions across the nation. Just last month, the federal government launched an initiative to help solve missing and unidentified person cases.

Tiffany Jiron, executive director of the Coalition to Stop Violence Against Native Women, said more comprehensive law enforcement training that address jurisdictional challenges, increased funding for tribal programs that provide shelter, mental health resources and legal aid to impacted families and survivors and strengthened alert systems are among the policy solutions that advocates should continue to fight for to address the systemic crisis.

“As an Indigenous people, we are not invisible,” she said. “We deserve just as much attention from law enforcement. Our cases are involving real people, real families, real children.”

People attend a vigil for slain Native American teen Emily Pike in Mesa, Ariz., Thursday, March 6, 2025. (AP Photo/Samantha Chow)

A sign lies on the ground at a vigil for slain Native American teen Emily Pike in Mesa, Ariz., Thursday, March 6, 2025. (AP Photo/Samantha Chow)

People attend a vigil for slain Native American teen Emily Pike in Mesa, Ariz., Thursday, March 6, 2025. (AP Photo/Samantha Chow)

A tribute to slain Native American teen Emily Pike adorns a fence near a vigil in her honor in Mesa, Ariz., Thursday, March 6, 2025. (AP Photo/Samantha Chow)

People attend a vigil for slain Native American teen Emily Pike in Mesa, Ariz., Thursday, March 6, 2025. (AP Photo/Samantha Chow)