The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
2 Atlanta students stranded, others wary
International students advised to put travel on hold.
International students at several Georgia colleges and universities are postponing or cancelling travel planned in the coming months, as worries mount that they won’t be able to re-enter the country after President Donald Trump’s order Friday banning people from seven mostly Muslim-majority nations.
“Even if you’re not from a country on the list,” said Georgia State grad student Sara Khaled, “they’re worried it’s just a matter of time.”
For now, many schools are following the University System of Georgia’s lead, telling students to stay in touch with campus international education offices, as they will be the main information distributors.
Eleven people were detained Saturday at Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport by federal immigration authorities after Trump’s executive order. Two Yemeni sisters were stranded at a Saudi Arabian airport as they headed back to Atlanta to continue their collegiate studies.
Monday afternoon, Clark Atlanta University officials said third-year doctoral student Reham Noaman, 31, still was unable to return to the United States, though she has a valid F1 visa — for foreign students seeking to study in the United States. Her sister Rakhaa Noaman, 23, a sophomore at Georgia State University, also has a valid F1 visa. The family fled to Saudi Arabia from Yemen, which is embroiled in a civil war, several years ago, said Gwen Wade, Clark Atlanta’s director of international programs. The women will remain with their family until their immigration status is resolved.
Reham Noaman “has a passport from Yemen, but she and her family have been living in Saudi Arabia for the past five or six years,” Wade said. “They went there for a safe haven. She was late returning (to the States) because she was trying to get her F1 visa renewed.”
Wade said about 421 of the university’s students are international, with about a dozen from the seven listed countries. Trump’s executive order has sparked fear in several of their students.
“They are wondering what is going to happen to them,” Wade said. “They find themselves in limbo even though they’re here. If they should decide to travel, they’re wondering if they’re able to return. It’s creating lot of emotional issues because they miss their families and friends. In most cases, some of their family members cannot come to visit them.”
Khaled, who helped organize a protest Sunday at Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport, said she’s heard stories of people being turned away from airports and deciding to cancel scheduled trips to visit friends and family abroad. A friend from Libya canceled a trip home, Khaled said, worried whether re-entry to the United States would be permitted.
“A bunch of people are being turned away from the airport or deciding pre-emptively to cancel flights scheduled a month or two months from now to go and visit their families,” said Khaled, who’s working on a master’s degree in woman, gender and sexuality studies.
More than 300 students were expected to march Monday from the Robert W. Woodruff Library, 111 James P. Brawley Drive in Atlanta, to the Martin Luther King Jr. International Chapel at Morehouse College to protest Trump’s order and advocate for Reham Noaman’s return, said Chinelo Tyler, a march organizer and Morehouse senior.
“I find the recent executive order to be the most absurd way to go about ensuring the safety of American citizens,” said Tyler, also president of the AME Church’s Young People and Children’s Division. “I don’t think it’s right to violate a person’s humanity by denouncing their religion. It’s an assault on religious freedoms in America. And for this student trying to get an education to be denied simply because she’s coming from an Islamic state is completely and totally out of pocket.”
The executive order suspends all refugees from entering the U.S. for 120 days, and bars those from war-torn Syria indefinitely. It also blocks entry to citizens from seven Muslim nations, including Noaman’s home country of Yemen.