After nearly five years of bureaucratic gridlock, setbacks and misdirections, Peter Angok Atem will spend the upcoming holidays with his family.
As he began to describe what it means to be weeks away from reunification with his wife, Nyandeng Wal Duot Adeer, and young son, Atem Angok Atem, an immediate smile came to his face.
“It feels great. It feels wonderful,” Peter Atem said in the Lewis County Courthouse Monday afternoon. “That’s why I want to thank the people of Lewis County and the representatives of Washington.”
A Sudanese refugee and 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. He’s also one of the estimated 13 who ultimately settled in Lewis County in the early 2000s.
After emigrating to the United States, Peter Atem worked for Lewis County from 2005 to 2010 before being laid off during the economic downturn, later returning to the county’s maintenance department in 2019.
While in America, he has 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 his homeland.
But while he’s settled into American life, Peter Atem has struggled for four years to navigate the United States immigration system and unite his family.
The efforts have included both Democratic and Republican members of Congress, Lewis County officials, pastors halfway across the world and anyone else who had any knowledge of the evolving immigration requirements.
"It's been a long time coming, but after years of patience and persistence, Peter Atem is one major step closer to being reunited with his wife and son,” U.S. Rep. Marie Gluesenkamp Perez said in a statement to The Chronicle.
While Adeer’s application was never formally denied, Peter Atem said bureaucratic missteps out of their control have led to unnecessary delays.
“When the paperwork came in and Peter sent it to me, I was like ‘Are you sure? Are you sure?’” Lewis County Budget Administrator Becky Butler said Monday.
The attention now shifts to raising money in the coming weeks to pay for the necessary travel expenses. Adeer’s visa to leave South Sudan is valid through Dec. 5, and Butler said the goal is for her to arrive by Thanksgiving.
“I’m so happy and thank God for the great job that they did for me in Lewis County, the commissioners and everybody in the county, plus the senators and representatives of Washington state. Thank you very much, and may God bless all of you,” Peter Atem said Monday. “And I appreciate what you did for my family.”
On Monday, Mike Coday, who hosted several of the Lost Boys in his Lewis County home, launched a GoFundMe in an effort to raise $7,000. As of Wednesday morning, the page had raised $1,100.
The page can be viewed at https://www.gofundme.com/f/support-peters-family-unification-journey.
“We’re going to see this through to the finish,” Commissioner Scott Brummer said. “This is exciting. It’s an exciting place and time. It’s taken a lot of work to get here, and I know it’s going to come together one way or another.”
The approval process
The Chronicle first reported on Peter Atem’s story earlier this year. At the time, Lewis County officials were dismayed at the seemingly impossible-to-navigate system to bring Adeer to the United States.
“His story’s important for people to understand the challenges that Peter faces being here, being a U.S. citizen. His son’s a U.S. citizen,” Butler said. “And trying to get through the immigration challenge, to say the least. And I can’t imagine for five years, trying to do that over and over.”
In one instance, Peter Atem said he received notice for Adeer to appear for a hearing a week after it took place. In another, Coday waited for more than two years for formal paperwork temporarily declining a visa, paperwork that never arrived.
Late last year, Adeer was 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 Christmases apart. This is going to be the last one,” Brummer said during a December 2023 interview. “We’re going to believe in faith that this is going to be the last Christmas apart. You guys will be together.”
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 Gluesenkamp Perez continued the fight while in office.
In July, the congresswomen wrote to Kenyan Ambassador Meg Whitman and said it appeared “many of the requests for additional documents have appeared redundant.” Gluesenkamp Perez also requested a “formal inquiry” into the visa’s status to determine what else needed to be done.
According to Coday, while the congresswoman did not receive a formal response, the visa was approved soon after.
“This would have never happened without the county help and then going from the county to Gluesenkamp Perez’s office,” Coday said. “I was out of energy for it, and there was no way we were going to make it.”
In a statement Tuesday, Gluesenkamp Perez said she was “glad” her office could “fight to secure a visa for Peter's family in Sudan by cutting through the bureaucratic delays and dysfunction of our immigration system.”
“It's been amazing to see the Lewis County community come together in his support, and moments like these are a testament to the power of local communities to look out for their neighbors, as well as the direct support my bipartisan team can provide with federal agencies,” Gluesenkamp Perez said.
