Travelers in limbo make it to Logan under the wire
A handful of passengers who disembarked from a Lufthansa Airlines plane in Boston yesterday may have been among the last people to do so from the seven Muslim-majority nations included in President Trump’s travel ban.
Atiyeh Goudarzi, a software engineer with a visa, walked out of the arrivals gate at Logan International Airport and into the arms of her fiance and fellow Iranian national, Mehrtash Babadi, a Cambridge cancer researcher who holds a green card.
“I couldn’t board on a bunch of flights, except Lufthansa,” Goudarzi, 32, said. “British Airways, Scandinavian, Swiss — none of them would let me on.”
On the way out of the gate, she passed a dozen or so people holding flowers and signs like Lexington stay-at-home mom Carol Berker’s, which read, “Lufthansa Leads! #LetThemFly!” And as members of the flight crew walked past with their bags in tow, the crowd of immigration attorneys and people protesting Trump’s ban gave them a standing ovation.
On Thursday night, Lufthansa’s website said that due to the seven-day restraining order two federal judges in Boston had signed on Jan. 29, Trump’s ban would be suspended on flights to the Hub until tomorrow.
By yesterday afternoon, however, two days before the restraining order was set to expire, the German airline had made a sudden about-face.
“The United States government has introduced a travel ban to the U.S.A. with immediate effect,” its website said. “Admission will be refused to visitors with a passport issued by 7 countries — Iran, Iraq, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria and Yemen — and holding a valid immigrant or nonimmigrant visa for the U.S.”
In an email yesterday, Christina Semmel, a Lufthansa Group spokeswoman, downplayed the change, saying it was “just for admin (administrative) purposes.”
“Also, this is not Lufthansa policy. We are just following law,” Semmel said. “We will continue communicating with the CBP (Customs and Border Protection). The TRO (temporary restraining order) expires Sunday. We will gauge the future as it evolves.”
Late yesterday afternoon, a federal judge in Boston declined to extend the stay on Trump’s executive order, saying he would let it lapse when it expires early tomorrow morning.
As she stood at the airport with her sign and a bundle of roses, ready to welcome anyone from the countries included in the ban, Berker called Trump’s order “unAmerican,” saying: “This is not the country I was raised in.”