Tears of joy at airports after Trump ban lifted

BOSTON — Travelers from predominantly Muslim countries targeted by President Donald Trump enjoyed tearful reunions with loved ones in the U.S. on Sunday after a federal judge swept the ban aside.

Airlines around the world allowed people to board flights as usual to the United States. One lawyer waiting at New York’s Kennedy Airport said visa and green-card holders from Iraq and Iran were encountering no problems as they arrived.

“It’s business as usual,” said Camille Mackler of the New York Immigration Coalition.

Fariba Tajrostami, a 32year-old painter from Iran, came through the gate at Kennedy 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 U.S. 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.”

Tajrostami said she hopes to study art in the U.S. and plans to join her husband in Dallas soon. He moved from Iran six months ago, has a green card and is working at a car dealership.

Similar scenes played out across the U.S. two days after a federal judge in Seattle suspended the president’s travel ban and just hours after a federal appeals court denied the Trump administration’s request to set aside the ruling.

The U.S. canceled the Fariba Tajrostami, center, of Iran is greeted by her brothers on Sunday at New York’s Kennedy International Airport. visas of up to 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 students, researchers and others from entering the U.S.

Trump, who said the goal was to keep terrorists from slipping into the country, lashed out against U.S. 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!”

A woman attempting to return from Iran after initially being blocked from entry cleared through an immigration check in Boston and was expected to return home to Clemson, S.C., on Monday.

Nazanin Zinouri was taken off a plane in Dubai days after the travel ban went into effect. Zinouri, a legal U.S. resident, had traveled to Iran last month to visit family.

At Cairo Airport on Sunday, officials said 33 U.S.bound migrants from Yemen, Syria and Iraq boarded flights.

Lebanon’s National News Agency said airlines operating out of Beirut also began allowing Syrian families and others affected by the ban to fly. Beirut has no direct flights to the U.S.; travelers have to go through Europe.

At Kennedy, a team of volunteer lawyers that had set up operations in a diner to help arriving passengers during the height of the crisis packed up computer equipment and paperwork. A few volunteers and interpreters will stay behind just in case.

Mackler, who has helped coordinate the volunteer operation, liked what she saw at the airport.

“This is what it should be. You sit in an airport day in and day out, and you see all these moments of great joy and unification,” she said. “It was so sad to see that and know some people weren’t having that. Now it feels good.”