Travel resumes
Visas of 60,000 foreigners have been canceled in a week, govt says
Tearful reunions as US grants entry to those from seven targeted countries
Travelers from the seven Muslim-majority countries targeted by President Donald Trump who were denied entry into the United States a week ago are arriving at airports around the country and into the open arms of their loved ones.
Fariba Tajrostami, a 32-year-old painter from Iran, came through the gate at New York’s Kennedy Airport on Sunday with a huge smile and tears in her eyes as her brothers greeted her with joyful hugs.
“I’m very happy. I haven’t seen my brothers for nine years,” she said.
Tajrostami had tried to fly to the US from Turkey over a week ago, but was turned away.
“I was crying and was so disappointed,” she said. “Everything I had in mind, what I was going to do, I was so disappointed about everything. I thought it was all over.”
Similar scenes played out across the US after a federal judge in Seattle on Friday suspended the president’s travel ban and after a federal appeals court denied the Trump administration’s request to set aside the ruling.
The US canceled the visas of 60,000 foreigners in the week after the ban on travel from Syria, Iraq, Iran, Sudan, Somalia, Libya and Yemen took effect, according to the State Department. Trump also suspended nearly all refugee admissions for 120 days and barred Syrian refugees indefinitely.
The order triggered protests and a multitude of legal challenges around the country and blocked numerous college stu- dents, researchers and others from entering the US.
Trump, who said the goal was to keep terrorists from slipping into the country, lashed out against US District Judge James Robart for putting the ban on hold. He referred to Robart as a “so-called judge” and called the ruling “ridiculous”.
On Sunday, the president tweeted: “Just cannot believe a judge would put our country in such peril. If something happens blame him and court system. People pouring in. Bad!”
Iranian researcher Nima Enayati, a Ph.D. candidate at a university in Milan, was prevented from boarding a flight to the US on Jan 30. He had a visa to conduct research on robotic surgery at Stanford University in California.
On Sunday night, he arrived in New York.
“It feels great finally I’m here,” Enayati said at JFK. “Considering the last 10 days we had no idea if we’ll be able to make it or not.”
Enayati said he feels safe for now, but worries that the travel ban could inhibit research in the future.
“We always had this open collaboration around the world,” he said. “We never had concerns about whether we would be able to go somewhere physically or not.”
Just cannot believe a judge would put our country in such peril. ... People pouring in. Bad!” Donald Trump, US president