President Trump, meet the rule of law.
A federal judge on Saturday blocked the administration from enforcing an executive order that would deny entry to the United States by people from seven Muslim countries.
In granting a request by the American Civil Liberties Union to stay deportations of as many as a dozen people detained upon arrival at Kennedy Airport, Judge Ann Donnelly of the U.S. District Court in Brooklyn noted that the detainees had arrived with valid visas.
“Our own government presumably approved their entry to the country,” she told lawyers at a hearing Saturday evening, noting that had the detainees arrived before the president signed the order on Friday they would have been admitted to the country without question.
On week one, Donald Trump suffered his first loss in court.
— ACLU (@ACLU) January 29, 2017
The case of Hameed Khalid Darweesh, an Iraqi citizen who arrived at JFK on Friday evening, shows the serpentine path to the U.S. and the extensiveness of screening of refugees from the affected countries even before the president barred them for at least three months.
As detailed in court papers, Darweesh, 53, worked for the U.S. government in a variety of capacities for a decade starting in March 2003. His jobs included interpreter for the U.S. Army, project engineer for the U.S. Government and a contractor for a firm hired by the Americans.
The work led to Darweesh’s being targeted by anti-American militias. In October 2014, he applied for Iraqi Special Immigrant Visa (SIV) status, which Congress created to provide safety for Iraqis who have faced threats that resulted from their service to the U.S. Here’s what ensued, according to court papers:
- Darweesh applied for and obtained so-called Chief of Mission (COM) approval from the U.S. embassy.
- As a SIV applicant, he then filed a petition on Form I-360 with the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Service.
- Darweesh then applied for a visa by filing Form DS-260 with the National Visa Center. After that was processed, he was interviewed at the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad.
- After the interview, the U.S. government conducted various security checks and a medical examination. It took two years from the data Darweesh received COM approval for the visas for his family and him to be processed.
- Darweesh and his family received the visas on January 25. The family immediately boarded a flight to the U.S. via Istanbul and arrived Friday around 6 p.m. Eastern.
The family had hoped to travel to Charlotte, where they were to receive refugee benefits. But after landing at JFK, Darweesh was detained by agents from U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP).
According to the ACLU, Darweesh’s attorney was present in the arrivals section of Terminal 1 but did not enter the CPB area. Darweesh allegedly was moved to so-called secondary screening.
His family waited over an hour before Darweesh emerged with a CPB officer to return passports for every member of the family except Darweesh, who was then returned to screening.
At around 11:30 p.m., CPB officers asked the family to return to the security zone for additional questioning of Darweesh’s wife. The officers refused to question Mrs. Darweesh in the arrivals area despite requests of counsel. Darweesh himself allegedly was unable to meet with his attorneys despite their making multiple attempts to meet with him.
CBP officers allegedly told the attorneys they were not the ones to speak with about seeing their clients. When the attorneys asked with whom they should speak, the CPB agents allegedly told them, “Mr. Trump. Call Mr. Trump.”
In court papers, the ACLU charged that Darweesh’s detention denied him his right to apply for asylum in violation of U.S. and international law. The U.S. cannot return Darweesh to Iraq, where he might face persecution or torture, they alleged.
What’s more they alleged, the Trump executive order is “substantially motivated by animus toward – and has a disparate effect on – Muslims” in violation of the Fifth Amendment’s due process clause.
“In every conceivable way, the vetting process is already extremely thorough,” Mostafa Hassoun, a Syrian refugee living in the U.S., wrote Saturday in Politico. “I know this because I went through the process myself.”
Judge Donnelly set a date at the end of February to hear the case.
Throughout Saturday, while Darweesh and others were detained despite holding valid visas, and their attorneys worked to secure their release, and thousands of Americans protested at airports, the president took to Twitter to complain about the “failing” New York Times.