Born in a war-torn country, a conflict that eventually forced him to flee his homeland, Peter Angok Atem has lived the American dream for the past 20 years.
During that time, he graduated from high school, learned to drive, found steady employment that earned praise from county officials, married and had a baby, as he built a life roughly 8,000 miles from southern Sudan.
“If I go to Sudan, I have to pay the fee for the visa because I’m a U.S. citizen,” Peter Atem said.
A member of the Lost Boys, a collection of children who fled the Sudanese Civil War, Peter Atem was one of roughly 4,000 who found their way to the United States, part of an estimated 13 who settled in Lewis County.
“I thank God because, without God, we cannot make it to the United States,” Peter Atem said. “I appreciate the people of the United States because they did a good job. We cannot pay you back, but God can. When we came here, it was a country of freedom.”
While his marriage to Nyandeng Wal Duot Adeer in 2017 fulfilled a promise to his late mother, Peter Atem struggled for four years to navigate the United States immigration system and unite his family. While his son, Atem Angok Atem, is a United States citizen, he has faced hurdle after hurdle in securing a visa for Adeer.
“And we were so close to getting it done, and that’s when COVID hit in 2020,” said Mike Coday, who hosted several of the Lost Boys in his Lewis County home. “We were waiting for final appointments, and then they closed the embassy in Nairobi.”
The journey to Lewis County
The story of the Lost Boys has inspired several documentaries and books over the past two decades, with Peter Atem recounting his experience in an interview at the Lewis County commissioners office on Dec. 21.
After he fled, Peter Atem spent four years in Ethiopia before traveling to Sudan and Kenya.
“When crossing the river, you do not know how to swim, you just go deep in until you can’t reach,” Peter Atem said of crossing a river while traveling from Ethiopia to Sudan. “It was a very, very tough river, where there were a lot of crocodiles. And people drowned.”
During the journey, Peter Atem and his fellow Lost Boys suffered from a lack of food, a fear of attacks, poverty and mosquitos, which he said “kept us from sleeping at night.”
“There were no clothes to wear, let alone blankets and mosquito nets,” Peter Atem said of his time in Sudan.
While at the Kakuma Refugee Camp, Peter Atem said he dreamt of one day coming to America.
“I prayed for a God-centered person who might help so that I might resettle in a peaceful place like the United States of America,” he wrote in an autobiographical report.
After emigrating to the United States, Peter Atem briefly lived in Virginia before moving to Lewis County. He worked for Lewis County from 2005 to 2010 before being laid off during the economic downturn, later getting rehired in the county’s maintenance department in 2019.
“Peter is an excellent employee and loved by everybody in this building,” County Commissioner Scott Brummer said. “He talks to everyone. I met him within days of being in office.”
‘We’re close’
While Adeer’s application has never been denied, Peter Atem and Coday said bureaucratic missteps out of their control have led to unnecessary delays.
In one instance, Peter Atem said he received notice to appear for an appointment a week after it was scheduled.
“I sent it to Michael and said ‘what?’... How does this work?” Peter Atem said. “If you set an appointment, and you never send a message to the person to come to the appointment, and then they send the appointment after the date is already due?”
The work to bring his wife and child to Lewis County has included elected officials from across the political spectrum.
After the office of former Third Congressional District Rep. Jaime Herrera Beutler, R-Battle Ground, tried to pull strings within the U.S. State Department to secure a visa, successor Rep. Marie Gluessenkamp Perez has continued the fight while in office.
Brummer said the issue is apolitical, “yet we see at our border, the statistics as of yesterday, we’re up to 10,000 migrants coming across the border per day. 2.4 million have come across this year alone.”
“You’ve got somebody who is working hard and has got his citizenship and has been doing everything right,” Brummer said.
About two years ago, Peter Atem and Coday thought they were close.
Coday was told that after Adeer completed a final set of paperwork and an appointment, a visa would be issued. While they were told the application was temporarily declined, they planned to appeal the decision.
“We had to wait for a letter of denial before we could do an appeal. We’ve never seen a letter of denial,” Coday said. “It’s been like two years.”
Most recently, Adeer has been asked to submit a medical exam, a passport photo and one updated piece of paperwork, leading to optimism that a visa could soon be issued.
“No more Christmas’ apart. This is going to be the last one,” Brummer said. “We’re going to believe in faith that this is going to be the last Christmas apart. You guys will be together.”
While the medical exam has not been scheduled, Coday said it will take place in Kampala, Uganda, rather than Nairobi, Kenya, which will be easier for Adeer to travel to.
“So I’ve updated the piece of paperwork and we have to do the medical exam,” Coday said. “But at this point, when you’re getting passport photos, it sounds like the embassy is about to issue a visa.”
Once a visa is formally issued, the next hurdle will be the money needed for airline tickets to bring Adeer and Peter Atem to the United States, which Coday said could cost thousands of dollars. Brummer envisions an outpouring of support from county employees when a visa is issued.
“I’m confident that we have the support within the county employees, and people who love Peter and have gotten to know him. There’s going to be the support we need to pay for that and bring her home,” Brummer said. “I’m confident in that.”
