Visa holders rush to board flights to US amid court reprieve

executive@coastaldigest.com (Agencies)
February 6, 2017

Chicago, Feb 6: Visa holders from seven majority-Muslim countries who were turned away from the United States due to President Donald Trump's travel ban are hoping to make it through a narrow window opened by legal challenges.

Visarush

The federal appeals court in San Francisco denied Trump's effort to immediately reinstate the ban+ early on Sunday. For now, it remains blocked by a judge's temporary restraining order, and federal officials have told their staffs to comply.

Advocates weren't taking any chances, telling people who could travel to get on the earliest flights they could find after the week-old ban was blocked Friday by US District Judge James Robart in Seattle.

"We're telling them to get on the quickest flight ASAP," said Rula Aoun, director of the Arab American Civil Rights League in Dearborn, Michigan. Her group sued in federal court in Detroit, challenging Trump's executive order as unconstitutional.

Protesters sought to keep up the pressure, gathering in Denver and other US cities to demonstrate against the ban. Meanwhile, legal advocates waited at airports in case anything went wrong with new arrivals.

Renee Paradis was among 20-25 volunteer lawyers and interpreters who stationed themselves inside John F Kennedy's Terminal 4 in New York in case anyone needed help. They were carrying handmade signs in Arabic and Farsi "that say we're lawyers, we're here to help. We're not from the government," Paradis said.

"We're all just waiting to see what actually happens and who manages to get through," she said.

Some people have had to make hard choices.

A Yemeni family expected to arrive at John F Kennedy International Airport on Sunday from Egypt after leaving two of their four children behind. The father and two children are US citizens and the mother has an immigrant visa, but the other two children don't have their papers yet.

"They just don't want to take a chance of waiting," she said.

Cairo airport officials say a total of 33 US-bound migrants from Yemen, Syria and Iraq have boarded flights on their way to the United States.

The officials said the 33 had not previously been turned back, but were rather migrants who are rushing to take advantage of the window offered by the court ruling. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak to the media.

The State Department has advised refugee aid agencies that refugees who had been scheduled to travel before the order was signed will now be allowed into the US. A State Department official said in an email obtained by The Associated Press that the government is "focusing on booking refugee travel through February 17," with arrivals resuming as soon as Monday.

US officials have said up to 60,000 foreigners had their visas "provisionally revoked" to comply with Trump's order. Confusion during the rollout of the ban initially found green card holders caught in travel limbo, until the White House on Wednesday clarified that they were not included in the ban.

Even so, green card holder Ammar Alnajjar, a 24-year-old Yemeni student at Southwest Tennessee Community College, cut short his planned three-month visit with his fiancee in Turkey, paying $1,000 to return immediately when the ban was lifted.

"I got to study. I got to do some work," said Alnajjar, who arrived at JFK on Saturday. He said he fled civil war in Yemen and moved to the US from Turkey in 2015.

Despite the suspension of the travel ban, some airlines were slow to let aboard people from the seven countries.

Royal Jordanian Airlines, which operates direct flights from Amman to New York, Chicago and Detroit, said it would resume carrying nationals from the seven countries as long as they presented a valid US visa or green card.

A Qatar Airways spokeswoman said the airline would begin boarding travelers from Iraq, Syria, Sudan, Libya, Yemen, Iran and Somalia. But immigration attorney Julie Goldberg said a Qatar Airways representative told her that immigrants from the seven countries were still not allowed to fly Saturday afternoon.

Goldberg said she was trying to arrange flights for dozens of Yemeni citizens who have immigrant visas and were stranded in the African nation of Djibouti.

She said a supervisor at Turkish Airlines told her that people holding immigrant and non-immigrant visas from the seven countries still were being banned unless they had a special email from the US Customs and Border Protection.

A 12-year-old Yemeni girl whose parents and siblings are US citizens living in California was finally allowed to depart after "an hour-and-half of fighting" with officials, Goldberg said. It was unclear when she would arrive.

"Her mother is on pins and needles ... her father is on the plane with her," Stacey Gartland, a San Francisco attorney who represented the girl, said in an email.

Lebanon's National News Agency said airlines operating out of Beirut have begun allowing Syrian families and others affected by the ban to board US-bound flights. Beirut has no direct flights to the US so travelers usually transit through Europe.

Many refugees awaited word on their fates.

Somali refugee Nadir Hassan said about 140 refugees were sent back to Dadaab refugee camp and it was unclear if or when they could travel. They had been expected to settle in the US this week and had been staying at a transit center in Nairobi.

"I was hoping to start a new life in the US" Hassan said. "We feel bad."

In Tehran, the semi-official Fars news agency reported that a ban on US wrestlers has been lifted following the judge's ruling, allowing them to take part in the Freestyle World Cup later this month in the Iranian city of Kermanshah.

Comments

Add new comment

  • Coastaldigest.com reserves the right to delete or block any comments.
  • Coastaldigset.com is not responsible for its readers’ comments.
  • Comments that are abusive, incendiary or irrelevant are strictly prohibited.
  • Please use a genuine email ID and provide your name to avoid reject.
News Network
June 6,2020

Washington, Jun 6: Washington mayor Muriel Bowser on Friday renamed an area near the White House that has become the epicenter of anti-racism protests over the past week "Black Lives Matter Plaza" -- unveiling a giant street mural.

But in so doing, the African-American mayor piqued the ire of the very movement she was supporting, as well as of President Donald Trump.

The protests are focused on the May 25 death in Minneapolis of 46-year-old black man George Floyd while in police custody. A white officer kneeled on his neck until he lost consciousness.

That officer and three others are now in custody and facing charges -- second-degree murder for the kneeling officer, and aiding and abetting that crime for his colleagues.

Just north of the White House, the words BLACK LIVES MATTER were painted in huge yellow letters along the street leading to the presidential mansion, along with the symbol from the DC flag.

"The section of 16th street in front of the White House is now officially 'Black Lives Matter Plaza'," Bowser tweeted.

A city worker put up a new street sign with the name.

"Determination to make America the land it ought to be," she said on Twitter.

The corner of 16th and H is significant -- in a controversial incident on Monday, peaceful protesters gathered there were dispersed with tear gas.

Shortly afterwards, Trump walked from the White House to a nearby church for a photo op, during which he held the Bible in his hand.

"There was a dispute this week about whose street this is. Mayor Bowser wanted to make it abundantly clear that this is DC's street and to honor demonstrators" who protested on Monday, her chief of staff John Falcicchio tweeted.

Rose Jaffe, one of the artists in the collective that painted the BLACK LIVES MATTER sign, told AFP it was "about reclaiming the streets of DC."

But she added that Bowser "has to do more than just a photo-op -- she must carry on when this is washed away" on issues like police accountability.

Stars Like LeBron James praised her move on Twitter, but the local chapter of the Black Lives Movement balked, calling the mural a "performative distraction from real policy changes."

"This is to appease white liberals while ignoring our demands," it said on Twitter, saying Bowser had "consistently been on the wrong side" of the movement.

'We are well equipped'

The US government deployed a significant contingent of federal officers and National Guard troops from other states -- many of them not wearing any identifying garb or badges -- to handle protests in Washington.

Bowser had called up the local Guardsmen but the Justice Department moved to take partial control of peacekeeping, with Guard troops from as far away as Utah brought in.

In a letter to Trump dated Thursday and tweeted early Friday, Bowser called for "all extraordinary federal law enforcement and military presence" to be removed.

She said their deployment was "inflaming demonstrators and adding to the grievances of those who, by and large, are peacefully protesting for change and for reforms to the racist and broken systems that are killing black Americans."

"These additional, unidentified units are operating outside of established chains of command," she added.

"We are well equipped to handle large demonstrations and First Amendment activities," including the right to assemble, Bowser said.

Trump reiterated on Friday that authorities need to "dominate the streets," and has been unapologetic about the deployment of forces.

And on Twitter, he lashed out at Bowser, calling her "incompetent" and saying the National Guard had saved her from "great embarrassment."

Senator Mike Lee of Utah accused Bowser of evicting Utah National Guard members from area hotels.

She replied: "DC residents cannot pay their hotel bills. The Army can clear that up with the hotel today, and we are willing to help."

Comments

Add new comment

  • Coastaldigest.com reserves the right to delete or block any comments.
  • Coastaldigset.com is not responsible for its readers’ comments.
  • Comments that are abusive, incendiary or irrelevant are strictly prohibited.
  • Please use a genuine email ID and provide your name to avoid reject.
News Network
March 16,2020

Manila, Mar 16: The Philippines has detected an outbreak of avian flu in a northern province after tests showed presence of the highly infectious H5N6 subtype of the influenza A virus in a quail farm, the country's farm minister said on Monday.

Agriculture Secretary William Dar said the bird flu virus, the same strain that hit some local poultry farms in 2017, was detected in Jaen municipality in Nueva Ecija province, where about 1,500 quails had died on one farm alone.

A total of 12,000 quails have been destroyed and buried to prevent further infections, Dar said, citing field reports.

"We are on top of the situation," he said. "Surveillance around the 1-km and 7-km radius will be carried out immediately to ensure that the disease has not progressed around the said perimeter."

Animal quarantine checkpoints have also been set up to restrict the movement of all live domestic birds to and from the quarantine area, he said.

"We would like to emphasise that this is a single case affecting one quail farm only," Dar said.

Dr. Arlene Vytiaco, technical spokeswoman for avian flu at the agriculture department, said that while there is a possibility of transmission to humans through excretion and secretion, "the chances are very slim".

"There is also zero mortality rate," she said.

Dar said his department and the local government were jointly conducting an investigation and contact-tracing to determine the source of infection.

To ensure steady domestic supply of poultry, he said the transport of day-old chicks, hatching eggs and chicken meat will be allowed provided the source farms have tested negative for bird flu.

Comments

Add new comment

  • Coastaldigest.com reserves the right to delete or block any comments.
  • Coastaldigset.com is not responsible for its readers’ comments.
  • Comments that are abusive, incendiary or irrelevant are strictly prohibited.
  • Please use a genuine email ID and provide your name to avoid reject.
News Network
January 25,2020

Beijing, Jan 25: The death toll due to the novel coronavirus (2019-nCoV) outbreak in China has soared to 41, while the number of infected persons were 1,287, the National Health Commission said on Saturday.

The Commission said that 444 fresh cases were reported since Friday, with 237 patients in serious conditions, while 38 had been cured and discharged from hospitals, reports Efe news.

Health authorities have carried out check-ups on 15,197 people who have come into close contact with the infected persons. Nearly 14,000 of them continue to be monitored for symptoms.

The others cases outside of China were reported in France (two), Australia (one), Thailand (four including two cured), Japan (two including one cured), South Korea (two), the US (two), Vietnam (two), Singapore (three), Nepal (one), Hong Kong (five), Macao (two) and Taiwan (three).

The symptoms of the new coronavirus, provisionally designated by the World Health Organization as 2019-nCoV, are similar to those of cold but may be accompanied by fever and fatigue, dry cough and dyspnea (shortness of breath).

The WHO has so far to declared the outbreak as an international health emergency.

Strict measures were being carried out in China, which include complete suspension of transport in around a dozen cities in Hubei province and also cancelling Chinese New Year celebrations.

Traditional events at Lama Temple and Ditan Park in Beijing were cancelled due to the risk of spreading the virus, authorities reported Friday, while the famous Forbidden City has also been closed indefinitely.

Wuhan, the capital of Hubei, where the virus was first reported, has been on lockdown since Thursday to prevent further spread of the virus and the city's authorities have begun to build a "special hospital" with 1,000 beds for infected patients.

"Construction of the special hospital with a capacity of 1,000 beds for patients with #nCoV2019 has begun in Wuhan," official China Daily said on Twitter.

The hospital in Wuhan will be based on the model of a similar facility that was built in just seven days in Beijing to deal with SARS in 2003.

Comments

Add new comment

  • Coastaldigest.com reserves the right to delete or block any comments.
  • Coastaldigset.com is not responsible for its readers’ comments.
  • Comments that are abusive, incendiary or irrelevant are strictly prohibited.
  • Please use a genuine email ID and provide your name to avoid reject.