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| Fuad Suleman, center, with his wife and three children, arrive back in Erbil, Iraq. |
President Trump signed Friday an executive order which temporarily bans citizens of seven Muslim-majority countries from entering the U.S.
People ranging from exchange students in Iran to families with green cards are sharing their stories and worries about whether they will be able to enter the United States.
Here are four people whose lives are on hold and affected by the immigration ban.
1. Kurdish family on their way to Nashville forced to turn back:
Fuad Sharef Suleman, his wife, Arazoo Ibrahim, and their three children were escorted from Cairo International Airport back to Iraq on Saturday, even though they had valid visas to enter the United States.
They were on their way to Nashville when President Trump ordered the travel ban.
"I did not know the president can sign such orders," he said. "It looks like those autocratic leaders in corrupt countries, not in a democratic modern country like America."
Suleman and his family are stranded with no home and no transportation after selling their house, most of their belongings and their vehicles. Suleman quit his job at a pharmaceutical company, Ibrahim resigned from her position as a kindergarten teacher and their children, ages 10-19, left their schools.
2. Massachusetts Institute of Technology student Niki Mossafer Rahmati:
On Saturday, Rahmati tried to return to Boston after visiting her family in Tehran, Iran, for winter break. Rahmati holds a multiple-entry student visa but was prevented from boarding her connecting flight to Boston because of the immigration ban.
In a Facebook post on Saturday, Rahmati said she and 30 other Iranians were prevented from boarding planes to the U.S.
“Among them were old couples trying to go and see their children in the U.S., two old women trying to help their pregnant daughters in the United States and students who had just gotten their visas,” Rahmati wrote in a Facebook post. “All these people had gotten visas legally and had gone through background checks.”
Yesterday Rahmati was told that she will be able to return to the United States, but isn’t sure when.
3. Woman detained at Dubai airport after spending almost seven years in the United States:
Just hours after the executive order was signed Friday, Nazanin Zinouri, who has a degree in data science from an American public university and lives in South Carolina, was detained at Dubai International Airport after arriving from Tehran, where she had visited her family.
"After waiting in the line to get my documents checked and after 40 minutes of questions and answers, I boarded the plane to Washington. Some minutes after, two TSA officers got in and asked me to disembark the plane!" Zinouri said on Facebook. "Yes!! After almost 7 years of living in the United States, I got deported."
"Those trapped in the airports are free now. The bad news is no airline will board any Iranian on any plane heading to the U.S. So there's still no way for me to return. No one warned me when I was leaving, no one cared what will happen to my dog, or my job or my life there."
4. A Syrian man and his American wife stuck in Iraq:
Wael Resol, 30, is an interpreter for journalists in the Kurdish area of Irbil in northern Iraq. But he also is a Syrian, and that birthplace has dashed his hopes of living the American dream in Texas with his U.S.-born wife.
"Trump's decision affected me personally. I have had a migration case open for a long time," said Resol, who worked as a supervisor in an international school and a customer service representative at Qatar Airways before his current job.
He said his wife, Katy McGarr of Amarillo, Texas, is a U.S. citizen and teacher who moved to northern Iraq to be with him. But now he's barred from moving with her to the United States, where he hoped to get a master's degree in linguistics and buy a house in Texas.
"My wife wanted to go back home for a long time but we can't. She's stuck here because of me," he added. "Sometimes I feel bad about that. But then I think, 'Just because I am Syrian, I have to blame myself?'"
