He lives in Lafayette as a refugee through the Welcome Corps program, a refugee sponsorship program established in 2023. Though Mesto is a Syrian Arab, he is ethnically Kurdish, leaving him vulnerable to persecution by the Syrian regime and conscription into the armed Kurdish rebel forces. Mesto’s family fled from Aleppo to Lebanon in 2013 when he was 11 years old. “I said, ‘No, we can’t,’ but we went as a family,” Mesto said. “Even though the Lebanese army would shoot me and may kill me, it’s better than going to Syria,” Mesto said.