MARY LOUISE KELLY, HOST:
Ramadan can be a lonely experience for young Muslims in non-Muslim homes. The Muslim Foster Care Association in Michigan recently held an iftar, an evening meal to break the fast, to bring some of those young people together. From member station WDET, Nargis Rahman reports from Dearborn Heights.
UNIDENTIFIED PERSON: (Chanting in Arabic).
NARGIS RAHMAN, BYLINE: This call to prayer ends the day's fast. Now it's time to feast. Organizers and volunteers of the Muslim Foster Care Association finish putting the final touches to the buffet-style iftar - a row of savory Thai food, pastry treats like knafeh and enormous macadamia cookies. Salifu Mahmoud moved to the U.S. from Ghana three years ago. He lives in independent housing. He says in previous years he's had a hard time observing Ramadan in non-Muslim foster homes.
SALIFU MAHMOUD: So in this house, I was living with this lady. Like, she doesn't know nothing about Islamic - nothing. She doesn't know nothing about Ramadan. If I used to fast, she'd be like, oh, you need to drink water. You need to stop fasting.
RAHMAN: Mahmoud had to practice his religious obligations on his own, without family, halal food or access to a mosque. During this Ramadan, a Muslim family has taken him in. Shereen Abunada, director of operations at Muslim Foster Care Association, has been working with the group for six years. There are around 250 known Muslim foster youth and less than a dozen Muslim foster families in Michigan. Now Abunada says there has been an influx of even more Muslim youth to the state's foster care system. Before President Donald Trump took office in January, groups who resettle refugees worked to bring refugees to the United States as soon as possible.
SHEREEN ABUNADA: They expedited a lot of travel of refugee Muslim foster youth from West African countries. So we've had an influx of about 50 to 70 youth that have just recently arrived in the past couple of months.
RAHMAN: Abunada says with the changing immigration policies under the Trump administration, unaccompanied refugees who are children feel especially vulnerable right now.
ABUNADA: It'll be a ripple effect, and we hope it doesn't affect the kids. And we're all doing the best we can to protect the kids. But at the end of the day, it'll definitely be an effect.
RAHMAN: But for now, the association wants to give youth a place to gather with a community away from home and a space to break fast together. For NPR News, I'm Nargis Rahman, in Dearborn Heights.
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