Travel ban ruling stirs dismay among immigrants and advocates

JEFF KAROUB | JULIE WATSON
INTERNATIONAL.- Maryam Bahramipanah is torn between staying with her husband, who came to Michigan from their native Iran, and returning home to see her mother, who suffered a stroke. With the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision Tuesday to uphold President Donald Trump’s ban on travel from several mostly Muslim countries, she expects that she can’t do both. “I’m very sad,” said Bahramipanah, who cried when she heard about the decision. “I don’t know what to do. I really don’t know. Now it’s official and I don’t know.”

Muslim individuals and groups, as well as other religious and civil rights organizations, expressed outrage and disappointment at the high court’s rejection of a challenge claiming the policy discriminates against Muslims or exceeds the president’s authority.

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Protesters voiced dismay at rallies across the country. At a protest in New York, Khulood Nasher held back tears as she spoke of her two sons stranded in Yemen. In 2014, she received asylum and her sons were approved to join her in the U.S. But after the U.S. embassy in Yemen was closed in 2015, their processing was delayed. The last year has been filled with starts and stops for the mother, but today felt like a death blow.

“Today, we were broken. I lost my heart to see my family,” said Nasher, who works as a translator. Not all reaction was negative, however. A nonprofit group that supports Trump’s policies called the decision a “tremendous victory.”

“Today’s Supreme Court ruling is monumental,” America First Policies spokeswoman Erin Montgomery said. “It states that deciding who can and cannot enter our country does indeed fall within the realm of executive responsibility. Note the word ‘responsibility.’”