Thousands rush back as US visa ban eases

Chicago: Visa holders from seven majority-Muslim countries affected by President Donald Trump’s travel ban hurried to board US-bound flights on Sunday, fearing they might have only a slim window through which to enter the country after a federal judge temporarily blocked the ban. Those who could travel immediately were being urged to do so because of uncertainty over whether the Justice Department would be granted an emergency freeze of the order issued on Friday by US district judge James Robart in Seattle. The government on Sunday suspended enforcement of the week-old ban as it scurried to appeal Robart’s order, although an immigration lawyer said passengers in at least one African airport were told they couldn’t get on the planes.

Rula Aoun, director of the Arab American Civil Rights League in Dearborn, Michigan, said her group is advising people to hurry. “We’re telling them to get on the quickest flight ASAP,” said Aoun, whose group filed a lawsuit on Tuesday in federal court in Detroit asking a judge to declare Mr Trump’s immigration order unconstitutional. Aoun said some people have had to make hard choices, including a Yemeni family expected to arrive at John F. Kennedy International Airport on Sunday from Egypt without two of their children. The father and two of the children are US citizens, the mother has an immigrant visa, but the other two children did not yet have theirs and were left behind with relatives.

“They just don’t want to take a chance of waiting,” she said. Confusion during the rollout of the ban initially found green card holders caught in travel limbo, until the White House on Wednesday clarified they would be allowed to enter and leave the US as they pleased. Even so, green card holder Ammar Alnajjar, a 24-year-old Yemeni student cut short his visit to meet his fiancee in Turkey, paying $1,000 to return immediately when the ban was lifted. “I got to study. I got to do some work,” said Alnajjar who arrived on Sunday. He fled the civil war in Yemen and moved to the US in 2015. “I’m Muslim. I’m proud of it.” Although the government temporarily suspended enforcement of the travel ban, some airlines reportedly still weren’t letting some people from the seven countries board their planes, at least initially.