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Refugees, Green Card Holders Stopped at Airports. Demonstrators Gather. Court Temporarily Halts Deportations

O'Hare International Airport Protest ban on Muslims
Police watch over hundreds of demonstrators at O’Hare International Airport protesting the detention of travelers from mostly Muslim countries. Photo by Amy Guth

By Ed Diokno

President Donald Trump has stirred up a hornets nest with his executive order banning refugees and people coming from seven countries from coming into the U.S.

As his order went into effect, thousands of people began amassing at the country’s airports protesting the presidential decree.

The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) along with other humanitarian organizations filed a lawsuit Saturday morning on behalf of two Iraqi men who were detained at JFK International Airport in New York.

By the evening, in an emergency hearing, Federal Judge Ann Donnelly of the Eastern District of New York granted a stay that would prevent the government from deporting immigrants who are already in U.S. airports but are being detained.

The decision does not overturn the executive order so it leaves in place the ban on people who are currently abroad. What it does is “preserve the status quo” for people who came to the US in the immediate aftermath of the executive order, after having been granted visas allowing them to legally come to the US (before the order was signed).

“It was an illegal detention, this was a discriminatory order from President Trump, and we will continue to fight for all of the refugees, immigrants and non-immigrants,” said Mark Doss, the supervising attorney for the International Refugee Assistance Project.

One of the detained men, Hameed Khalid Darweesh, worked as an interpreter for the U.S. Army when it invaded Iraq in 2003 and later as a contract engineer for the U.S.

For his safety, he was granted permission to come to the U.S. Upon his arrival at JFK Friday night, he was detained along with another traveler from Iraq named Haider Sameer Abdulkhaleq Alshawi. Darkish was released first Saturday afternoon and then later in the day, Alshawi was also freed. An unknown number of people are detained at U.S. airports.

 

When Judge Donnelly asked U.S. lawyers for a list of all those being detained, the attorneys said they didn’t have the list and that it would take time. “Work it out,” she responded.

 

Trump’s executive order signed Friday afternoon is supposed to make America safer from terrorists who come into the country as refugees.

Since 9/11, the U.S. has admitted 784,000 refugees into the country. According to the Migration Policy Institute, during that time, exactly three refugees were found to have links to terrorism — so, approximately .00038 percent of refugees in the U.S. have had ties to terrorism. Two of these refugees were caught while trying to leave the country to join extremist groups abroad. All three are currently in prison.

 

What’s puzzling about Trump’s ban is that the countries named in his ban, none were involved in the terrorist attack on 9/11. Most of those involved in that attack were from Saudi Arabia.

 

The perpetrators of other recent attacks in the US that have been linked to Islamic extremism were also not from the seven countries:

  • The killer of 50 people at a gay nightclub in Orlando in June 2016 was a US citizen whose parents were Afghans
  • The two people who shot 14 dead in San Bernardino, California, in December 2015, were a U.S. and a Pakistani citizen
  • The Boston marathon bombers who killed three and injured many more were ethnic Chechens.

    Canada and refugees
    Canada will welcome refugees denied entry by the U.S.

Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said that his country will welcome the refugees turned away by the U.S. He also intends to talk to Trump about the success of Canada’s refugee policy.

Trudeau reacted to Trump’s ban of Muslims from certain countries by tweeting Saturday: “To those fleeing persecution, terror & war, Canadians will welcome you, regardless of your faith. Diversity is our strength #WelcomeToCanada.”

 

Meanwhile, the Council of American Islamic Relations (CAIR) has scheduled a press conference Monday, 1 p.m. in Washington D.C. to file their lawsuit challenging the constitutionality of Trump’s ban.

Ed Diokno writes a blog :Views From The Edge: news and analysis from an Asian American perspective.

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