Trump’s Executive Order Is Already Hurting Refugees, Muslims And Families

 

By Elise Foley 

WASHINGTON ― President Donald Trump’s executive order targeting Muslims and refugees led to chaos in the hours after he signed it, as refugees and immigrants arrived at U.S. airports only to be detained or told they couldn’t enter the country and businesses had to scramble to adjust to the new policy.

“We are hearing that last night a lot of people were turned away,” said Abed Ayoub, legal director of the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee. “It’s had a direct impact on a lot of people.”

The order, which Trump signed Friday afternoon, bans Syrian refugee resettlement in the U.S. indefinitely, shuts down the entire refugee program for 120 days and bars all immigrants and visitors from seven Muslim-majority countries from entering the U.S. for at least 90 days.

Coming in the late hours of Friday, and with little apparent consultation with other agencies and groups prior to its publication, the order created havoc and confusion among those tasked with overseeing entry into the country.

In the hours after the president signed his executive order, government authorities detained two Iraqis at New York’s Kennedy Airport, The New York Times reported. One of the men, Hameed Khalid Darweesh, worked for the U.S. government for 10 years as an interpreter. He was detained upon landing at Kennedy on Friday night, but his wife and children were let through, a former colleague of Darweesh’s told The Huffington Post. Darweesh was released the following day. 

The other detained man, Sameer Abdulkhaleq Alshawi, was coming to the country to join his child and wife, who had worked for a U.S. government contractor, The Washington Post reported. 

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Source: The Huffington Post