From CNN:
Washington (CNN)President Donald Trump's seismic move to
ban more than 130 million people from the United States and to deny entry to
all refugees reverberated worldwide Saturday, as chaos and confusion rippled
through US law enforcement agencies, airports and foreign capitals trying to
grasp the US's new policy.
At John F. Kennedy
International Airport, where passengers can often spot the Statue of Liberty on
their descent into New York, two Iraqis who had been granted visas to enter the
US were detained and prevented from exiting the airport. Customs and Border
Protection officials cited Trump's new executive order, which bans citizens of
Iraq and six other Muslim-majority countries -- a total of at least 134 million
people -- from entering the US for the next 90 days. It also suspends the
admission of all refugees for 120 days.
One of the men,
Hameed Khalid Darweesh, worked with the US government for 10 years after the US
invaded Iraq. He was released early Saturday afternoon due to provisions in
Trump's order that allow the secretaries of state and homeland security to
admit individuals into the US on a case-by-case basis, a source with knowledge
of the case told CNN.
The other man,
Haider Sameer Abdulkaleq Alshawi, had been granted a visa to join his wife, who
had worked for a US contractor in Iraq, and son, both of whom already live in
the US as refugees. It was not immediately clear how many other cases like
Darweesh and Alshawi's were cropping up at other US airports, which appeared to
have been blindsided by the new immigration rule that took effect immediately
with Trump's signature Friday afternoon.
Their attorneys
filed a federal lawsuit Saturday morning challenging Trump's executive order,
likely just the first of many challenges in the legal fight many groups plan to
wage to overturn Trump's actions.
Trump on Friday
said that his actions would "keep radical Islamic terrorists out of the
United States of America."
"We don't want
them here," Trump said as he signed the order. "We want to ensure
that we are not admitting into our country the very threats our soldiers are
fighting overseas. We only want to admit those into our country who will
support our country and love deeply our people."
But those actions
will not automatically allow green card holders who traveled to the affected
countries back into the United States, two sources familiar with the matter
told CNN.
Instead, those
travelers will have to apply for a waiver to the executive order that
instituted the ban, the sources said.
At the Cairo
International Airport, Egyptian officials on Saturday began to turn back
US-bound refugees and citizens of the seven countries now barred from entering
the US.
"This is a new
era we are witnessing," a Cairo airport official said.
Airlines,
meanwhile, scrambled to understand the new US policy and worked to warn
passengers who might be affected before they boarded their flights.
Qatar Airways
posted a travel alert on its website warning nationals of Iraq, Syria, Iran,
Libya, Somalia, Sudan and Yemen that they could not travel to the US unless
they are government officials, diplomats or representatives of international
organizations. The German airline Lufthansa said it was not yet "in the
position to outline the effect" given the new US immigration rule had only
just been announced.
Swift condemnation
Iran, one of the
countries whose citizens were banned, slammed Trump's immigration order on
Saturday as an "insult" and a "gift to extremists" and said
it would swiftly reciprocate by banning US citizens from Iran.
"The US
decision to restrict travel for Muslims to the US, even if for a temporary
period of three months, is an obvious insult to the Islamic world and in
particular to the great nation of Iran," Iran's foreign ministry said in a
statement Saturday. "Despite the claims of combating terrorism and keeping
American people safe, it will be recorded in history as a big gift to
extremists and their supporters."
The disarray also
fell against a backdrop of swift condemnation from human rights groups and
national security experts.
The International
Rescue Committee, a humanitarian aid and refugee assistance group, called
Trump's decision to suspend refugee admissions "harmful and hasty"
and noted that the US refugee program "makes it harder to get to the
United States as a refugee than any other route." Refugees must undergo an
extensive vetting process -- it typically takes more than two years to be
admitted to the US as a refugee.
"In truth,
refugees are fleeing terror -- they are not terrorists," David Miliband,
the group's president and CEO, said in a statement. "And at a time when
there are more refugees than ever, America must remain true to its core values.
America must remain a beacon of hope."
The International
Organization for Migration and UNHCR, the UN Refugee Agency, expressed concern
about the provision in Trump's executive order that would prioritize Christians
fleeing persecution and conflict in Muslim-majority countries over Muslims
fleeing those same countries.
"We strongly
believe that refugees should receive equal treatment for protection and
assistance, and opportunities for resettlement, regardless of their religion,
nationality or race," UNHCR and IOM said in a joint statement Saturday.
Abed Ayoub, the
American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee's legal and policy director, said
Trump's executive order has sown "complete chaos."
Ayoub said his
group has already fielded calls from people around the world impacted by
Trump's executive order, including from students and legal US residents who are
citizens of the seven countries banned by Trump and are now stuck overseas.
The executive order
"is causing a really destructive impact on the Arab and Muslim community
and on the Iranian community in the US," Ayoub said.
Democrats also
slammed Trump's executive order, arguing his action establishing a religious
test for entry is unconstitutional and un-American.
Just as they did
during the campaign, national security experts also warned that Trump's plans
to deny refugees entry in the United States and target Muslims or
Muslim-majority countries through an immigration ban would be counter-productive
or ineffective methods of protecting the US from future terrorist attacks.
"This banning
of refugees is kind of a red herring," CNN national security analyst Peter
Bergen said on Saturday. "It's not going to make any difference to the terrorism
issue, which is overwhelmingly a United States problem. Because 9/11, of
course, was carried out by 19 foreign-born Arab terrorists, I think we tend to
conceive of this as a problem that comes from outside, when in fact, it's
really a problem that is internal to the United States right now."
"It's one of
those things that sounds like it makes sense, but it doesn't really when you
look at the facts," Bergen added.
House Speaker Paul
Ryan on Friday, however, commended Trump for his executive order, noting,
"our number one responsibility is to protect the homeland."
"We are a
compassionate nation, and I support the refugee resettlement program, but it's
time to reevaluate and strengthen the visa vetting process," Ryan said.
"President Trump is right to make sure we are doing everything possible to
know exactly who is entering our country."
More countries
could be added to banned list
The Trump
administration's action on Friday also indefinitely suspended admissions for
Syrian refugees. The order also called on the secretary of homeland security to
conduct a 30-day review to determine whether additional countries should be
added to the ban.
A senior White
House official told CNN on Friday that the list of seven countries whose
citizens are now banned from the US was likely just a starting point.
The official said
the administration would be "very aggressive" as it weighs how many
more countries to add to the list.
Asked what criteria
the administration will consider as it looks to expand the ban, the official
said simply the "mandate is to keep America safe."
But if that is the
goal, many national security experts questioned why Trump's executive order
focused on banning foreign nationals from the US.
Citizens and legal
US residents have carried out all deadly radical Islamist terrorist attacks in
the US since 9/11 -- not by foreigners visiting the US on a travel visa or by
Syrian refugees.
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