On a late winter evening in 2023, Baneen Al Asadi watched through a window as her father Abdulmaged Al Asadi and two brothers, Mohammed Al Asadi and Ameer Al Asadi, approached the front door of her Durham home. Whether or not the visit was welcome is a matter of debate. Her husband, Nabeel Al Halaf, answered the door.
How the four men came to blows would later be disputed in court. Mohammed Al Asadi claims he approached Al Halaf for a hug and that Al Halaf attacked him. The husband and wife say the three men immediately moved to attack Al Halaf.
But this much is unambiguous: An altercation erupted on the front steps, with Al Halaf throwing whatever he could grab—a chair, kebab skewers—to keep his in-laws from entering. Mohammed sustained a head injury and fell to the ground. Then, Ameer Al Asadi retrieved a handgun from his car and shot Al Halaf in the groin while Baneen screamed and their five children watched. The assailants left Al Halaf on the ground and drove Mohammed Al Asadi to the hospital. Baneen, who speaks little English, didn’t know how to call for help. A neighbor who heard the commotion called 911 and paramedics arrived to find Al Halaf unconscious and bleeding profusely.
Two years later, neither Baneen’s father nor her two brothers are in prison. None agreed to comment for this story. According to court documents, after the shooting, police tracked them down at the hospital where Mohammed Al Asadi was being treated for his head injury. Ameer admitted to the shooting, and all three were subsequently charged—Ameer with assault with a deadly weapon inflicting serious injury, and Mohammed and Abdulmaged with assault inflicting serious injury and attempted felony breaking and entering with intent to terrorize or injure. After accepting plea deals in Durham County Superior Court last October, they received suspended sentences and probation, along with formal no-contact orders. None served additional jail time beyond what they’d already spent in custody awaiting trial.
Al Halaf, 43, and Baneen, 27, who fled Iraq in the early 2010s seeking safety, say they’ve found themselves without adequate institutional support following the violence. Local community organizations stepped in to fill critical gaps—installing security cameras, navigating medical appointments, and providing language access that governmental systems couldn’t offer—but these groups, designed to supplement rather than replace government services, are now stretched dangerously thin as federal refugee supports crumble.
Refugee Community Partnership (RCP), the Carrboro-based organization that became Baneen and Al Halaf’s lifeline after the shooting, relies on private donations and foundation grants rather than federal funding. It’s already dealing with an influx of cases.
“The impact of these political attacks on migrant and refugee communities cannot be overstated,” says Ash Nuckols, communications manager at RCP. “Funding cuts have already meant that recently arrived families are calling RCP’s support hotlines, having been informed that promised rental assistance and food deliveries have been suspended.”
During the previous Trump administration, RCP’s membership more than tripled as other services contracted. “This time around, we are already over capacity,” Nuckols says.
Most major resettlement organizations in the Triangle depend primarily on state and federal funding, making them vulnerable to policy shifts. In the wake of President Donald Trump’s January executive order indefinitely suspending the U.S. Refugee Admissions Program, Church World Service Durham—which typically helps more than 1,500 refugees each year—has furloughed most of its staff and is now limited to providing only the most urgent services.
As federally funded organizations scale back, community-based groups like RCP are forced to fill widening gaps with already limited resources. The ripple effects extend beyond new arrivals to families like Baneen and Al Halaf’s who have been in the country for years but still need crucial support during crises.
For families like Baneen and Al Halaf’s, this means that the already limited support systems they depend on are becoming even harder to access.
A swarm of support
Shortly after the shooting, when Al Halaf was still in the hospital, he called his children’s school and pleaded for someone to check on his wife. A counselor, searching for resources to help an Arabic-speaking family in crisis, found RCP online.
Elizabeth Godown was part of the team that first responded. Along with two colleagues, including an interpreter, Godown, an organizational learning and wellness manager at RCP, went to the house and introduced herself to Baneen.
“The starting point is really language access,” Godown says. “They’re going through this situation, and they just have language barriers surrounding them.”
Starting with providing interpretation for hospital updates about Al Halaf’s condition, that initial connection evolved into comprehensive ongoing support. RCP connected the family with the Family Justice Center, a multiagency resource hub, to navigate the process of obtaining domestic violence protective orders. They provided interpretation services for legal documents and helped explain the complexities of civil versus criminal court systems. When Al Halaf couldn’t return to his jobs after the shooting, RCP connected Baneen with an employment specialist who helped her find work at a bakery. When childcare became a barrier, they helped the family apply for subsidies and enroll in Head Start. When medical appointments multiplied, they provided transportation and language navigation services.
“This was a situation of such dramatic and intense trauma,” says Godown. “They had this single event that just made so many things in their life all fall apart at the same time. We did our best to create a swarm of support and reached out to everyone in our networks.”
Among those contacted was Devin Ceartas from Triangle Mutual Aid, a volunteer-run network that provides direct community support. Ceartas came to set up cameras when the family was staying in a hotel for several weeks following the shooting, too afraid to return home. In the months that followed, he helped with house repairs, watched their children, and stopped by when they texted him that they were feeling unsafe. He and other community members stepped in to provide tutoring for the children. They also built fencing to provide additional security and help ease tensions with neighbors, who had complained about the family’s chickens, goats, and children playing in the yard.
Ceartas says he once spent an afternoon going through a giant pile of mail the family had been collecting in a corner, unable to distinguish between important documents and junk. (Al Halaf speaks some English but isn’t fluent.)
“Just being able to read and communicate to them—‘This says your electricity bill is overdue. This is junk mail’—was very useful to them,” Ceartas says. “I don’t know that there’s a government program to do that. Who else are you going to ask to help you read your mail? That’s going to be something that you’re going to have to have some sort of relationship with someone to do.”
Barriers to access
On the day after Halloween, Baneen sweeps pumpkin seeds off the small porch of the family’s colonial-style home. She’s wearing a maroon dress with gold rhinestones that match the sparkling star and moon ornaments strung over the brick front steps. On a porch chair, Al Halaf sits in a brown T-shirt and shorts, rolling a string of white prayer beads in his fingers. A few minutes later, Ceartas and Godown arrive, along with an interpreter from RCP.
Over the next several hours, the couple recounts their story. They both left Iraq during the war, spent several years in other countries—Al Halaf in Jordan, Baneen in Turkey—and then relocated to the Triangle, where they met and fell in love.
Life in their Hope Valley neighborhood had brought its own tensions. Their chickens and goats, the children playing in the yard, and at one point even a rescued hawk they rehabilitated clashed with neighbors’ expectations for the quiet suburban street. When seven of Baneen’s family members, including her father and brothers—who had also fled Iraq—moved in, complaints intensified.
Eventually, Al Halaf and Baneen asked the relatives to leave, and the situation grew hostile. There was already a strained history between Al Halaf and his father-in-law. Court records reveal troubling patterns: Abdulmaged was convicted of misdemeanor child abuse in Wake County in 2012. While out on bail after the shooting of Al Halaf, he was charged with violating a domestic violence protective order in August 2023. In April 2024, he faced new misdemeanor child abuse charges; those charges were voluntarily dismissed after Abdulmaged, who was incarcerated in Durham on unrelated charges at the time, failed to appear in court in Wake Couny.
The events leading up to the shooting are difficult to untangle. Court documents show conflicting accounts: the defendants claimed they came at Al Halaf’s request to help mediate a dispute with neighbors, while Baneen and Al Halaf maintained the visit was unannounced and threatening.
Alexander Charns, Mohammed’s attorney, said in court that his client was struck in the head with a sword during the confrontation that rendered him unconscious and left him with a chipped skull. Mohammed was hospitalized for three days, Charns said.
Charns and Ameer’s attorney, Daniel Meier, wrote in emails to the INDY that their clients declined to comment for this story. Idrissa Smith, who represents Baneen’s father, Abdulmaged Al Asadi, did not respond to an emailed request for comment and multiple voicemails.
In the aftermath of the shooting, Al Halaf and Baneen faced a labyrinth of systems ill-equipped to serve them. Medical appointments required interpreters rarely provided. Disability applications demanded documentation in English. Victim services lacked cultural context. The courts moved at a glacial pace through layers of translation.
“When you have a lot of barriers to access, you have to engage with these systems more and more,” Godown says. “But those systems are not adequate to meet the needs of all our people.”
Through it all, the couple’s sense of safety has eroded. As we talk, Al Halaf’s eyes dart to each passing car, and Baneen keeps her phone within reach, anxiously checking notifications.
At one point, Baneen unlocks her phone and plays a video she says relatives in Iraq sent her two months after the shooting, shortly after the defendants were released on bail. The footage shows Baneen, Al Halaf, and their children loading groceries into their minivan outside an Arabic supermarket in Raleigh.
Al Halaf interpreted the video as a threatening message that they were still being watched. Despite the no-contact orders, harassment has continued through family networks overseas, beyond the reach of American courts, he says.
After several hours immersed in the past, the conversation suddenly snaps to the present when Baneen asks whether people have drink preferences. Ceartas, who’s been learning Arabic, says the Arabic word for “orange juice,” and both Baneen and the interpreter squeal; his pronunciation was perfect, they say.
Baneen disappears inside and Ceartas walks around the perimeter of the house, pointing out security cameras he installed. Some have solar panels for charging. He pauses at a section of fence he built, a project meant to ease tensions with neighbors and provide an extra layer of security.
“The eventual goal of mutual aid is to transform the economy and relationships so that we’re not trapped in this hyperindividualism which is encouraged by modern U.S. capitalism,” says Ceartas, who has worked in organizing for 42 years.
“We’re building alternatives to a system where everyone needs their own lawn mower, their own car, where you pay for a gym membership instead of helping build tiny homes,” Ceartas continues. “We’re transforming not just how we share resources, but how we relate to each other.”
Baneen reemerges with a huge platter: coffee, orange juice, pickled jalapeños, olives stuffed with pimentos, flatbreads with ground meat, croissants, and muffins. A few minutes later, their children get off the school bus and run up to greet Ceartas. While they chatter, Baneen and Al Halaf explain that they want to pursue a civil suit against their attackers but lack both the money and knowledge to navigate another legal process.
Al Halaf now requires a walker and hasn’t been able to work since the shooting. Disability checks took months to start arriving, during which time bills piled up and mortgage payments fell behind. The financial strain has made it impossible for them to consider moving away from a neighborhood where they no longer feel safe.
Sorry is not enough
When the three defendants accepted plea deals on October 28, Baneen and Al Halaf were devastated by what they saw as lenient sentences. Mohammed and Abdulmaged each pleaded guilty to assault inflicting serious injury and attempted felony breaking and entering with intent to terrorize/injure. Ameer pleaded guilty to assault with a deadly weapon inflicting serious injury. All received suspended sentences and probation.
The morning of the hearing, Ceartas drives Baneen and Al Halaf to the courthouse. They discover the room has been changed at the last minute and scramble to find the new courtroom. Then they learn that issues with the electronic calendar system have delayed the proceeding by two hours.
In the meantime, other supporters from Triangle Mutual Aid trickle in. Ceartas had asked community members to come show support. As everyone waits, Ceartas tells a story that captures the reciprocal nature of their support network: Triangle Mutual Aid recently set up a Hurricane Helene relief headquarters in Western North Carolina, and Baneen cooked lunch for the volunteers there.
“That’s one of the things that sets mutual aid apart from charity,” Ceartas says. “Charity would classify them as the needy. Often the people who’ve had the hardest times have the most resourcefulness.”
When the proceeding finally begins, the judge offers the victims the opportunity to read statements they’d prepared with help from interpreters.
Al Halaf speaks first, his voice quiet but steady, describing how the shooting has affected him physically—he needs assistance using the bathroom, bathing, and walking up stairs and has lost sexual function. Baneen follows, her voice tight, describing how their children are traumatized.
“I’m so sorry for what happened to you,” the judge says. It feels like a cue for Baneen to sit down, but she remains standing.
“We think sorry is not enough,” Baneen says, staring intently at the judge.
District Attorney Satana Deberry wrote in an email to the INDY that the plea deals reflected standard outcomes based on the evidence.
“This case had multiple evidentiary issues,” Deberry wrote. “The State must be able to prove charges beyond a reasonable doubt.”
Deberry added that her staff “receives consistent training in dealing with victims of domestic and family violence and we take family violence very seriously.”
“This family benefitted from that concern and training in that multiple staff—including myself—spent hours with them working through the evidence in this case,”
Deberry wrote.
According to the couple, during a meeting with Deberry, she told them, “The system is not designed to protect you. It’s designed to hold people accountable.” Godown, who accompanied the family to this meeting, confirmed hearing this statement.
When asked about this statement, Deberry acknowledged meeting with the victims after they expressed concern with the plea agreement, writing that “the criminal justice system is often more complicated than victims expect.”
Ceartas wasn’t surprised by the result of the court case.
“I know what the justice system does,” Ceartas says. “I know that it’s not going to be the answer. What’s important is being with them, standing beside them. Our job is to help build community around them when that’s the inevitable outcome.”
A big fear
The lack of institutional support for long-term residents like Baneen and Al Halaf speaks to the broader challenge in refugee services, according to Shane Ellison, clinical professor of law at Duke and supervising attorney in the Duke Immigrant Rights Clinic.
“Resettlement organizations often prioritize new arrivals and recently arrived people,” Ellison explains. “It’s after they’re able to meet those needs that they can help people who’ve been here for a longer period of time. If you’re in a world of diminishing resources, people who’ve been here the longest may find that assistance simply does not exist any longer for them.”
For Baneen and Al Halaf, who arrived more than a decade ago, this means they’re falling further down stretched priority lists.
“The need was already greater than what the nonprofit ecosystem’s capacity was to meet that need,” Ellison adds. “So you’re taking it from a baseline of struggling to meet the demand for services, which is so great, and dramatically reducing its ability to do even that work.”
As traditional systems falter, mutual aid organizers like Ceartas point to the need for fundamentally different approaches.
“Financial support is very de-emphasized in our work,” says Ceartas. “Having lots of money and solving problems primarily through money feeds into that unhealthy pattern of people remaining isolated. The emphasis with mutual aid is much more on getting people to help each other as neighbors.”
“We’re not limited by paid staff or hours of operation,” Ceartas continues. “We’re just limited by the will of the community to show up for each other.”
For now, community efforts across the refugee support landscape seem Sisyphean when balanced against the growing scale of need. In a recent phone call, Al Halaf says his family’s situation hasn’t improved: they’re still afraid, don’t have money to move, and have struggled recently with practical needs like filling out school forms for their children. They’re not receiving the same level of intensive support from RCP that they did during the initial crisis.
“It’s a real fear right now that we’re feeling,” Al Halaf says on the phone. Baneen tells him something in Arabic, her voice urgent. Al Halaf pauses, listens to her, then says, “A big one. A big fear.”
Baneen interjects with one of the few English words she uses: “Scared.”
Support independent local journalism. Join the INDY Press Club to help us keep fearless watchdog reporting and essential arts and culture coverage viable in the Triangle.
Follow Staff Writer Lena Geller on X or send an email to lgeller@indyweek.com. Comment on this story at backtalk@indyweek.com
Disclosure: INDY’s editor-in-chief Sarah Willets worked for the Durham County District Attorney’s Office during the time in which this case was handled. She was not involved in the reporting or editing of this story.