Friends of Aya want to help Iraqi refugee live the American dream

The heartbreaking story of a young Iraqi refugee trying to fulfill her dream of moving to the United States has captivated thousands on the Internet.

Brandon Stanton, the creator of the Humans of New York photo blog, launched a campaign last week calling upon President Obama to bring Aya into the country.

Since Sunday, more than 970,000 supporters have signed the online petition. That makes it the largest refugee-focused campaign among hundreds worldwide in the history of Change.org. (At least 551,000 of those signers are from the U.S.)

In the first five hours alone, “Let’s Bring Aya to America” raked in 100,000 signatures. So far, it is the site’s second fastest growing global petition.

The appeal contains an open letter to Obama that thanks him for taking a stand against “dangerous and divisive rhetoric,” refusing to demonize refugees and advocating tolerance. It also requests that the commander in chief pay attention to Aya — who has been turned away by the U.S.

“We know she is only one of millions, but she is important to us. We believe that Aya is an innocent victim of the wars in both Iraq and Syria. We believe her when she says she loves America,” the letter, signed by Friends of Aya, reads in part.

Stanton, an American photographer, met Aya while traveling in the Middle East to snap pictures of Syrian and Iraqi refugees. She and her family had fled to Syria at the height of the Iraq War. After the Syrian civil war broke out, they continued on to Turkey, where they applied for resettlement in the United States as refugees. This entailed paperwork and two interviews in Istanbul.

After months of waiting, Aya said, an update on the applicant website changed from “case pending” to “case accepted.”

“I screamed to my family: ‘Turn off the TV! We’re going to America!’ It was like a wedding. We turned on the music. We started dancing and crying and kissing each other. A new life! The United States! We couldn’t believe it!” she told Stanton.

Aya said she spent the next few weeks researching on the Internet to prepare for their new life in the U.S. She found schools for her brothers and sisters and the university she would most like to attend. She also bought clothes for her pet dog, George, in case their new home was colder.

“In the evenings I’d sit with my sisters and help them plan what their rooms would look like. And Christmastime was coming,” she continued. “We thought we would go to New York during Christmastime! We were even planning to see the big tree! For two months we dreamed like this. Then a letter came in the mail.”

There had been a mixup. Ultimately, the family received word that their application for resettlement had been rejected for “security-related reasons.”

According to Aya, conscription forced her father to be in the military for six months as a young man, but he worked exclusively in radar and never touched a gun in his life.

“Our family loved America. My father always told me about America,” she said. “He made us go talk to American soldiers during the war. Other people were afraid of Americans, but he told us they were here to help us and not to be afraid of them. He told us that America was a place where so many different people lived in peace. So many religions. So many communities. We loved America!”

The day the letter arrived, Aya said, she became a person without hope.

Stanton told her story on his enormously popular blog and is calling upon his followers to pass it along using the #FriendsofAya hashtag. He said it has been an emotional week and that the hardest part has been “watching a traumatized young woman” share her story with a world that’s “becoming more and more afraid of her with each passing day.”

“And Aya, who is one of the most beautiful people I’ve ever known, had to absorb a good deal of that hatred this week. I’m sure this added to the trauma she’s already been through,” Stanton wrote in a post on Facebook.

Five days after the campaign was launched, Aya recorded a video with George to thank the roughly 900,000 supporters around the world who signed the petition up until that point.

“I know that America is not heaven, and I know that America is not that perfect country, but at the same time, I know that America is the country of opportunities,” she said. “So if I will come, I will just work hard and study, and I think that I can have a better life for me and my family and my George.”

Michael Jones, the deputy managing director of North America for Change.org, helps coach petition starters on the best ways to tell their stories, keep their signers engaged and build some momentum.

“The biggest difference is the velocity,” Jones said of the Aya campaign, in conversation with Yahoo News. “We are likely to see this hit a million either today or tomorrow morning. … It will become the fastest campaign in the U.S. to hit a million signatures.”

The White House has been in touch to let Change.org know that it is aware of the petition and the Humans of New York posts.