Trump’s Travel Ban Prompts Fear and Frustration for U.S. Immigrants

An Afghan tech worker in California now faces a prolonged separation from his wife, who he had hoped would soon join him in America. A Somali American filmmaker in Minnesota has become afraid to do what he is legally able to, travel abroad. A refugee from Afghanistan in Idaho worries that she will be stereotyped as a terrorist in her adopted home.

President Trump signed an order on Wednesday barring citizens of a dozen countries, primarily in Africa and the Middle East, from traveling to the United States. Immigrants from those countries said they were not surprised by the president’s move — on the campaign trail, he had promised repeatedly to revive the contested travel bans from his first term — but nonetheless described being hurt and confounded.

“I don’t understand why the president has to target us nonstop,” said Frantzdy Jerome, a Haitian asylum seeker with a work permit who works the overnight shift at an Amazon warehouse in Ohio.

There was widespread fear and confusion in immigrant communities across the nation, in big cities with bustling African and Middle Eastern enclaves, and in small towns where clusters of refugees and immigrants were gaining footholds in their new homes.

Those from the affected countries said the ban would wrench families apart by upending travel plans and immigration cases. They said they worried that the ban would foment distrust and hostility toward Muslims and others from the targeted places. And they said that economic and business relationships would be cut off.

The ban is scheduled to go into effect on Monday, and bars travel to the United States by citizens of Afghanistan, Myanmar, Chad, the Republic of Congo, Equatorial Guinea, Eritrea, Haiti, Iran, Libya, Somalia, Sudan and Yemen. There are some exemptions, including for those who have existing visas or green cards that allow them to live in the country.