Read or listen to our full ‘Long Way Home’ series on the recent wave of asylum seekers into Maine.
Photo by Derek Davis
Prince Pombo Mafumba and his family wait at a bus station in June 2019 upon arriving in Portland. For him, it was the end of a harrowing 16,000-mile-long journey, begun five years before, from the Democratic Republic of Congo.
Photo by Brianna Soukup
Prince Pombo Mafumba and Thaiz Santos Neri show their children, Heaven Pombo Neri, 5, and 2-year-old Prince Pombo Neri, how to blow up balloons at their home in Freeport. Epic though it was, Mafumba’s journey from Central Africa to southern Maine is hardly unique.
Photo by Brianna Soukup
Five-year-od Heaven Pombo Neri runs to hug her dad, Prince Pombo Mafumba, near their residence in Freeport as she comes home from school.
Photo by Brianna Soukup
Prince Pombo Mafumba and Thaiz Santos Neri laugh as they cook dinner for their family at home in Freeport.
Photo by Brianna Soukup
Prince Pombo Mafumba and Thaiz Santos Neri stand for a family photo with their children at their Freeport home. On their grueling journey to North America, they had set their sights on Canada, but here in Maine, they say they have found home.
Photo by Brianna Soukup
Prince Pombo Neri, 2, plays with a ballon in the living room of his family’s home. Prince, a native Mainer, was born in 2020, a little over a year after his family sought asylum in the U.S. His father has held a number of jobs here, including at Freeport Community Services, where he helped coordinate aid for fellow Central Africans.
Photo by Derek Davis
Mardochee Mbongi, president of the Congolese Association of Maine, came to Maine in 2016 after escaping detention in Kinshasa in 2014 and fleeing to Liberia. He estimates his fellow countrymen and women in Maine now number at least 5,000.
Photo by Derek Davis
Abusana “Micky” Bondo, co-founder and director of In Her Presence, a non-profit supporting immigrant women. Bondo, who currently serves on the Portland school board, grew up in the Democratic Republic of Congo, was educated in Belgium and emigrated to the U.S. in 1996.
Photo by Brianna Soukup
Escaping the dangerous aftermath of the 2018 presidential election in the Democratic Republic of Congo, Roitelet Ndunza Pindi arrived in Portland this year with his wife and son after an exhausting journey through South and Central America. People whom Pindi met on his travels told him about Portland, Maine.
Photo by Brianna Soukup
Roitelet Ndunza Pindi embraces his son, Salvador, 4, while they sit in the daytime space at Portland’s Family Shelter in March. “What the city of Portland is doing is great,” Pindi says about the services provided to asylum seekers.
Photo by Brianna Soukup
As she begins her prayers, Aishat Ibrahim Jimoh is interrupted by her 1-year-old daughter, Saffiyah, at their apartment in Portland. Friends she made while in a Texas detention center for asylum seekers told Jim about the promise of Maine.
Photo by Brianna Soukup
Aishat Ibrahim Jimoh serves food to her sons, Abdousamad, 9, and Youssuf, 6. With help from the nonprofit Greater Portland Family Promise, Jim and her husband and three children were able to move into a two-bedroom apartment in the city.
Photo by Brianna Soukup
Nkunku, who goes by Junior, 12, center, and his brother Josue , 9, left, leave State Street Church early in the morning to go to school. From 7 a.m. to 7 p.m., asylum seekers sheltering at the church are on the move in Maine’s largest city.
Photo by Brianna Soukup
Pedro Miguel and his daughter Jamila, 7, walk past a person sleeping on the sidewalk as they head down Congress Street toward the family shelter, where Jamila will be picked up by bus for school. Miguel, 41, along with his wife and four children, are learning the ropes of Portland, where they seek opportunity and a new start.
Photo by Brianna Soukup
Denilson, 5, hugs Josue, 9, after they both arrive back at State Street Church in Portland for the night. Three families, all from Angola, have been staying at the church, which converted its gathering space into a temporary shelter with rollaway mattresses in early March, as more than 1,000 asylum seekers arrived in the city.
Photo by Brianna Soukup
Pedro Miguel tucks his son Denilson into bed at State Street Church. “The situation at the family shelter brought the immigrant crisis right to our door,” says the Rev. Bryan Breault, pastor of State Street Church. “When it comes to your community, you have to do something about it.”
Photo by Brianna Soukup
In March, Madalena Kenge, 33, and her daughter Rafina return to the shelter at State Street Church. Kenge is pregnant and traveling without her husband, who has been held at an immigration center in Louisiana since they entered the U.S. in February.
Photo by Brianna Soukup
Mike Guthrie, the program manager at Portland’s family shelter, holds 2-year-old Rafina’s hand as her mom, Madalena Kenge, puts on her coat outside of the shelter’s day space before they embark on their day.
Photo by Gregory Rec
Ninette Irabaruta first came to Maine in 2012 from Burundi when she was 21. Since then, she has earned her bachelor’s and master’s degrees, gotten married, bought a house and worked many jobs, including her current role as director of public policy and advocacy at United Way of Southern Maine. She has worked hard, but it took her years to feel stable here.
Photo by Ben McCanna
Luc Samuel Kuanzambi came to Maine in 2016 on a medical visa for his daughter, who needed a liver transplant. The Portland man, who fled the Democratic Republic of Congo, has become a leading advocate for fellow asylum seekers.
Photo by Derek Davis
Apphia Kamanda was a fashion designer in the Democratic Republic of Congo and now is co-director of Common Threads of Maine, which trains many immigrants to work in the local textile industry. Apphia is wearing a dress that she designed and made.
Photo by Derek Davis
Joshua Mutshaila is a student at the University of Southern Maine. He plans to go to law school and work in public policy. Joshua helps out at the weekly food pantry at First Assembly of God in Portland.
Photo by Derek Davis
Jocelyne Kamikazi, now an American citizen, has lived in Maine since 2006. She started Burundi Star Coffee in 2020 in hopes of helping farmers in her native country receive fair prices for their products.
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