Canceled flights, delays, visa issues and an inability to travel with his young family halfway across the world were some of the obstacles Peter Atem has faced in the past month.
But nearly five years after efforts began, and just in time for Thanksgiving, Peter Atem is reunited with his wife, Nyandeng Wal Duot Adeer, and son, Atem Atem.
“It is a great day for us. We are together as a family,” Peter Atem told The Chronicle on Monday. “Now I don’t have to worry. I am with my son, Atem. He is with me, and he is so happy to see me. It is a great day.”
Nyandeng and Atem Atem touched down in Seattle on Saturday, ending a trip that saw the pair fly nearly 10,000 miles from Entebbe International Airport in Uganda. It was a journey that included the assistance of two members of Congress, Lewis County staffers and countless others.
“We are together now,” Peter Atem said on the steps of the Lewis County Courthouse. “And I thank all of the community, and all of the county people and commissioners, and those who worked with me … It is great and wonderful.”
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 graduated from high school, learned to drive, married and had a baby, building a life roughly 8,000 miles from his homeland.
But something was always missing.
“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,” Lewis County Budget Administrator Becky Butler said in an October interview. “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.”
For more than four years, countless officials have worked to try to reunite Peter with his family through a convoluted and often contradictory bureaucratic process.
“There’s a lot of people who have been involved,” Lewis County Commissioner Scott Brummer said Monday.
While Adeer’s application was never formally denied, Peter Atem said bureaucratic missteps out of their control have led to unnecessary delays. 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 that was used to bring Adeer to the United States.
In one instance, Peter Atem said he received notice for Adeer to appear for a hearing a week after it took place. In another, Mike Coday, who hosted several of the Lost Boys in his Lewis County home, waited for more than two years for formal paperwork temporarily declining a visa, paperwork that never arrived.
But Peter never lost hope.
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 Gluesenkamp Perez continued the fight.
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.
Last month, Peter received formal word that Nyandeng’s visa was approved and that she would soon be able to join him, something Coday credits the congresswomen in assisting with.
In a statement last month, Gluesenkamp Perez said she was “glad” her office could “fight to secure a visa for Peter's family in Uganda 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.
But while the visa was approved, more work was needed before the family could be reunited.
In October, Coday launched an online GoFundMe crowdfunding campaign in an effort to raise the necessary funds to cover the travel expenses. As of Tuesday, the page has raised nearly $5,000.
“We’re going to see this through to the finish,” Brummer said in an Oct. 15 interview. “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.”
While initial plans called for Peter to travel to Uganda and return with his family, the plan was scuttled due to visa issues.
“The Ugandan visa, which is supposed to be easy to get, we paid for it twice, but they wouldn’t give it to us,” Coday said.
During Atem Atem and Nyandeng's journey to America, the pair traveled first from Entebbe to Brussels, then from Brussels to Chicago, before touching down at SeaTac late Saturday afternoon.
When asked if he enjoyed the trip, Atem Atem smiled.
“Yeah,” he said shyly.
With his family now reunited in their new home, Peter planned to return to work Wednesday. His son will soon enroll in school, and Peter Atem said his wife will begin courses to improve her English at Centralia College.
“Atem is so happy,” Peter Atem said. “It is unbelievable. I’m excited for it.”
