Anger and chaos over Trump ban on Muslims
Despite having visas or green cards, visitors and refugees from seven Muslim countries are barred from entering US
NEW YORK // Arab and Muslim travellers were detained at American airports and barred from planes bound for the US yesterday after Donald Trump signed an order banning the entry of visitors from seven Muslim-majority countries.
The executive order, which also suspends the US refugee programme, has provoked waves of condemnation, confusion and anxiety for those holding visas or green cards.
Amid the confusion, the Department of Homeland Security confirmed that green-card holders, who are authorised to live and work in the US, were not exempt from the ban.
The executive order bars all refugees from entering the US for 120 days and places an indefinite ban on those from Syria. It also bans entry for 90 days for citizens of Iran, Iraq, Syria, Yemen, Sudan, Libya and Somalia.
It includes a religious test, ordering that Christians and other minority religions be given priority over Muslims. Immigration lawyers, who were inundated with requests for help, said the order was being enforced unevenly across different airports in the US.
In Cairo, five US-bound Iraqi migrants from one family were prevented from boarding an EgyptAir flight to New York’s JKF airport, and sent back to Erbil in Iraqi Kurdistan.
The Dutch airline KLM turned away seven passengers because they would no longer have been accepted into the United States. In California, Mohamed Al Rawi, a government worker, said his father was en route from Baghdad but had been told that he could not board a flight to Los Angeles from Qatar despite having a visa.
“I wanted to book a hotel room for my dad so he can rest, I cannot because his passport was taken away from him,” he said. “He’s being locked in a room not knowing what will happen.”
“I never thought something like this would happen in America,” said Mohammad Hossein Ziya, 33, who came to the US in 2011 after being forced to leave Iran.
Mr Ziya, who lives in Virginia, has a green card and planned to travel to Dubai next week to see his elderly father. “I can’t go back to Iran, and it’s possible I won’t be able to return here, a place that is like my second country,” he said.
Qatar Airways said only diplomats and some categories of government and international workers would be allowed to fly to the US. Emirates said a small number of passengers had been affected. Etihad Airways warned passengers from the seven countries that they would be allowed to travel only with diplomatic, Nato or other specialist visas.
Across the US there were reports of new arrivals being detained. Hameed Darweesh and Haider Alshawi, both from Iraq, were held at Kennedy Airport on Friday night.
Mr Darweesh had worked as an interpreter for the Army’s 101st Airborne Division in Baghdad and Mosul and had been targeted because of his links to the American military.
In a lawsuit filed in federal court in Brooklyn, New York, the two men are challenging the executive on constitutional grounds.
The lawsuit says their connections to the American forces made them targets in their home country and they had valid visas to enter the US. Mr Darweesh was released from the airport last night and said he did not have ill feelings about his detention. Mr Alshawi was still being held.
The executive order was the latest to be signed by Mr Trump as he tries to push through a hardline right-wing populist agenda.
Others have ordered the construction of a wall at the border with Mexico and the dismantling of key features of ObamaCare. Refugee and immigrant advocacy groups said they would launch legal challenges.
“Extreme vetting is just a euphemism for discrimination against Muslims,” said Anthony Romero, executive direction of the American Civil Liberties Union, which filed the legal challenge to the detention of Mr Darweesh and Mr Alshawi.
“Identifying specific countries with Muslim majorities and carving out exceptions for minority religions flies in the face
Civil liberties union says the executive order runs afoul of the first amendment of the United States constitution
of the constitutional principle that bans the government from either favouring or discriminating against particular religions.
“Any effort to discriminate against Muslims and favour other religions runs afoul of the first amendment.”
The order also forced a number of major companies into scrambling to protect their workers who were overseas and faced the prospect of being unable to return on existing work visas.
Google warned employees who were abroad to get in touch with their own immigration lawyers and security personnel, and to return to the US immediately.
The United Nations refugee agency and International Organisation for Migration said the US resettlement programme was vital at a time when war continued to rage in Syria. “The needs of refugees and migrants worldwide have never been greater and the US resettlement programme is one of the most important in the world,” the agencies said.