Cleveland Clinic doctor among travelers Trump order affected

Associated Press

CLEVELAND

An internal medicine resident at the Cleveland Clinic was among those refused entry to the United States under an executive order by President Donald Trump that prompted protests and criticism from Ohio elected officials Sunday.

The 26-year-old doctor from Cleveland Heights, Suha Abushamma, has been employed at the hospital since July on a work visa. She was detained in New York Saturday, while trying to return from a trip to Saudi Arabia, and put back on a plane to the Middle East, she said in an interview with Cleveland.com.

Abushamma is Muslim and a citizen of Sudan, one of the seven Muslim-majority countries affected by Trump’s temporary ban on entering the United States. A federal judge issued an emergency stay Saturday night on enforcement of Trump’s edict as confusion and protests broke out at airports across the country.

U.S. Sen. Rob Portman, a Republican, said on CNN’s “State of the Union” that the order was “an extreme vetting proposal that didn’t get the vetting it should have had” and that Abushamma should have been allowed to return.

“In my view, we ought to all take a deep breath and come up with something that makes sense for our national security,” he said.

Sen. Sherrod Brown, a Democrat, called the decision to block her entry “cruel, foolish and out of step with American values.” The Columbus Dispatch reported Brown said “turning away doctors here to learn and help people does not make America safer.”