Travel ban sows chaos, outrage across America

Associated Press

NEW YORK

President Donald Trump’s immigration order sowed more chaos and outrage across the country Sunday, with travelers getting detained at airports, panicked families searching for relatives and protesters marching against the sweeping measure that was blocked by several federal courts.

Attorneys struggled to determine how many people had been affected so far by the rules, which Trump said Saturday were “working out very nicely.”

But critics described widespread confusion and said an untold number of travelers were being held in legal limbo because of ill-defined procedures. Others were released. Lawyers manned tables at New York’s Kennedy Airport to help families whose loved ones had been detained, and some 150 Chicago-area lawyers showed up at O’Hare Airport after getting an email seeking legal assistance for travelers.

“We just simply don’t know how many people there are and where they are,” said Lee Gelernt, deputy director of the American Civil Liberties Union’s Immigrants’ Rights Project.

Advocates for travelers say the chaos is likely to continue. The executive director of the National Immigration Law Center, Marielena Hincapie, said “this is just the beginning.”

“We’re really in a crisis mode, a constitutional crisis mode in our country, and we’re going to need everyone,” she said. “This is definitely one of those all-hands-on-deck moments.”

On Sunday talk shows, White House officials defended Trump’s actions.

“I can’t imagine too many people out there watching this right now think it’s unreasonable to ask a few more questions from someone traveling in and out of Libya and Yemen before being let loose in the United States,” White House chief of staff Reince Priebus said.

White House adviser Kellyanne Conway described the changes as “a small price to pay” to keep the nation safe.

By Sunday evening, officials said nearly all of those who had been detained were free or soon would be, but the status of some travelers was unclear. The released included nine people held at Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport, Dallas Mayor Mike Rawlings’ office said.

The people affected included a woman who was sent back to Saudi Arabia after traveling to Indiana to care for her cancer-stricken mother; a family physician who has lived in the U.S. for two decades who was held for nine hours; and a Minneapolis woman about to become a U.S. citizen who was questioned for 12 hours.

Meanwhile, protests continued across the country Sunday, from smaller airports such as Rapid City Regional Airport in South Dakota to one of the nation’s busiest, Hartfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport.

Demonstrations first erupted Saturday, a day after Trump signed the order banning travel to the U.S. by citizens of Iraq, Syria, Iran, Sudan, Libya, Somalia or Yemen. The president also suspended the U.S. refugee program for four months.

In Washington, D.C., hundreds of demonstrators gathered outside the White House, some holding signs that read, “We are all immigrants in America.” Demonstrations also unfolded at Detroit Metropolitan Airport and Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport, as well as in suburban Chicago, where a Jewish group organized a protest to support Muslims.

A federal judge in New York issued an order Saturday temporarily blocking the government from deporting people with valid visas who arrived after Trump’s travel ban took effect. But confusion remained about who could stay and who will be kept out. Federal courts in Virginia, Massachusetts and Washington state took similar action.