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Madina Hassany said she felt helpless when she heard about the travel ban President Donald Trump signed late Wednesday. The Kent resident, who immigrated from Afghanistan shortly before the Taliban regained control, has family and friends trying to come to the U.S.
We were hoping to be together," said Hassany, an elementary school administrative assistant. "Now, we don't know what will happen."
Afghanistan is one of 19 countries whose citizens Trump banned or partially banned, with exceptions, from coming to the U.S. The ban has shaken many of Seattle area's immigrant communities. The region has large numbers of people from several of the countries on the list, including Afghanistan, Somalia, Eritrea and Iran.
Some local residents, like Hassany, fear they won't be able to reunite with loved ones. Others are racing to get them here before the ban takes effect at 12:01 a.m. Monday. Still others — many, in fact — are confused about exactly what the multilayered ban will mean.
“We are still trying to digest it,” said Isaac Araya, executive director of the Eritrean Association in Greater Seattle.
Matt Adams, legal director of the Northwest Immigrant Rights Project, said he's read Trump's ban proclamation twice and he still doesn't understand the difference between the most restrictive ban and the partial ban.
The countries whose citizens face maximum restrictions are Afghanistan, Myanmar, Chad, the Republic of Congo, Equatorial Guinea, Eritrea, Haiti, Iran, Libya, Somalia, Sudan and Yemen. The partial ban applies to people from Burundi, Cuba, Laos, Sierra Leone, Togo, Turkmenistan and Venezuela.
The total list encompasses more countries than several iterations of a travel ban enacted by Trump in his first administration, Adams noted. Yet, it also has more exceptions. They include lawful permanent residents, refugees, asylum holders, Afghans who helped U.S. forces and people who obtain visas by being spouses, children or parents of U.S. citizens.
The exceptions might help Hassany somewhat. She is a U.S. citizen, so on paper, she should be able to bring her parents here from Afghanistan, though not her siblings and friends.
But Malou Chávez, executive director of the immigrant rights project, said it's unclear how the ban will play out in practice. "Port of entry officers have so much discretion," she said. They may stop people from coming in even if they're supposed to qualify for an exemption.
And how they qualify is yet unknown, she added. Will DNA be required to prove family relationships? It has been in the past when cases are unclear, particularly with children, Chávez said.
As they wait to find out, lawyers at her organization are trying to help family members of clients get here before the ban takes effect. It may not be possible, given the upcoming weekend, she said. Many Muslims are also observing the holiday Eid al-Adha, which for some means making a pilgrimage to Mecca.
Many countries affected by the ban have majority Muslim populations, though unlike Trump's earliest version in 2017, that's not the exclusive focus of the latest prohibition.
Holiday or not, news of the ban spread quickly across the region's predominantly Muslim Somali community, said Farhiya Mohamed, executive director of the Somali Family Safety Task Force. People have been sending frantic WhatsApp messages and swapping advice at local mosques.
Word that a ban was coming had been in the air for weeks, said Ziauddin Baraki, an organizer with the immigrant advocacy group OneAmerica. "I saw fear," he said, even among U.S. citizens and green card holders contemplating traveling. Some canceled flights abroad to see family, worried they would not be let back in the U.S.
One might think that fear overblown. But the ban follows a range of aggressive immigrant enforcement action by the Trump administration, including the detention of green card holders and deportation of children who are U.S. citizens.
"As president, I must act to protect the national security and national interest of the United States and its people," Trump said in his proclamation. On social media, he tied the move to Sunday's attack in Boulder, Colo., that left 15 people injured. The suspect is an Egyptian man who overstayed a tourist visa, according to the Department of Homeland Security.
Trump also said countries whose citizens are banned have inadequate vetting protocols.
"I know that vetting needs to be done," said Afshin Sepehri, an Iranian American and former president of the Alefba Group, a Washington nonprofit devoted to Iranian and Persian culture. "Every once in awhile there is a bad actor that may come here."
Still, he, like others, questioned why countries were put on the banned list that have no connection to the Boulder attack. Egypt, the Boulder attack suspect's home country, is not on the list.
"I'm 100% against the evil government of Iran," added Sepehri, who lives in Bellevue. The authoritarian regime's repression of women and political opponents has sparked protests by Iranian immigrants in the Seattle area and around the world.
He said the government does not represent the people of Iran, who "love America." The U.S. will lose out, too, by barring Iranians, such as students who might otherwise come here and contribute to this country, he added. Sepehri himself came to the U.S. to get his Ph.D. shortly before the 9/11 terrorist attack, worked for 11 years as a senior computer engineer for Microsoft and is now employed by Salesforce.
Mubarak Elamin, a Sudanese-born U.S. citizen and immigrant rights advocate who lives in Bellevue, called the ban devastating.
The policy will restrict travel to and from a country currently experiencing “the worst humanitarian crisis in the world,” he said. That will reduce the ability of people to escape Sudan’s civil war and hamper aid efforts in a country largely abandoned by international relief organizations, he added.
“People are dying,” Elamin said. “This ban adds another layer of cruelty.”
Beyond travel restrictions, the ban sends a negative message about people from Sudan and their place in the U.S., Elamin said. He worries about how that message could affect his U.S.-born children.
“We come here and build roots here and we call this home because we want our children to grow up here,” he said.
Whether legal challenges will delay the ban remain to be seen. Legal experts consider this ban less vulnerable to litigation than Trump's earlier versions, in part because of the wider range of affected countries.
The office of state Attorney General Nick Brown, which has filed lawsuit after lawsuit against the Trump administration, is reviewing the order, according to a spokesperson.
The immigrant rights project is checking with partner organizations to see if any plan to sue. The Seattle-based group will do so "if necessary, its legal director said.
It's also too soon to say whether chaos will break out at airports, as occurred during Trump's first travel ban. Unlike that policy, implemented almost immediately, this one has some lead time that might give more order to the process.
People might be turned away as they attempt to board a plane abroad rather than at U.S. airports, said Chávez, of the immigrant rights project. She said the group will monitor the situation before sending any lawyers to Seattle-Tacoma International Airport.
Seattle Times staff reporter Alexandra Yoon-Hendricks contributed to this report.
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