NEW YORK // Donald Trump lost the first round in his attempt to reinstate a travel ban on seven mainly Muslim nations on Sunday as stranded travellers scrambled to enter the United States before their legal status changed yet again.
Among them was a Sudanese doctor at a New York hospital who arrived on Sunday and an Iraqi immigrant family who were flying in from Erbil.
Both had been turned back at airports outside the US after Mr Trump signed an executive order barring entry to travellers from Iran, Iraq, Syria, Libya, Sudan, Somalia and Yemen.
But a federal appeals court in San Francisco on Sunday declined to overturn a temporary suspension of the order, giving thousands of stranded travellers hope and dealing another setback to one of Mr Trump’s defining policies.
His lawyers have been given until 3pm on Monday to supply more documents supporting their case that the president has the power to control entry to the country on grounds of national security.
In the early hours of Sunday morning local time they argued that James Robart, the judge in Seattle who issued the suspension order on Friday, was guilty of “second guessing” the president.
“The power to expel or exclude aliens is a fundamental sovereign attribute, delegated by Congress to the executive branch of government and largely immune from judicial control,” the government said in papers submitted to the court.
The stage is now set for days or weeks of legal wrangling when arguments begin in San Francisco on Monday.
With the travel ban in legal limbo, there has been a surge in affected travellers using what may yet be a short window to return to the US.
In Cairo, airport staff reported 33 migrants boarding flights for the US – including Yemenis, Iraqis and Syrians.
It was in Cairo that the Sharef family’s hopes of a new life in America were shattered on January 28.
Fuad Sharef, his wife and three children were prevented from boarding their flight to the US, just hours after Mr Trump signed his executive order.
Mr Sharef, a former US subcontractor who had sold all his family’s possessions and pulled his children out of school to make the move to Nashville, Tennessee, said at the time that Mr Trump had destroyed his life
On Sunday, he said he had come out of a tumultuous week with a lesson he wanted his children to learn as well.
“Yeah, my life changed dramatically. You know, ups and downs, and I learned a lesson that if you have a right, never surrender,” he told Reuters before he and his family departed from Erbil, the capital of the Iraqi Kurdish region, on a Turkish Airlines flight with a connection to New York in Istanbul.
Letitia James, public advocate for New York, an elected position designed to hold authorities to account, welcomed the decision by the appeals court. She said the president was learning that he had overstepped the limits of his power and was subject to judicial oversight.
“I think Trump is going to lose because his ban is unconstitutional, illegal and immoral,” Ms James said.
She was at Kennedy Airport on Sunday morning to welcome back Kamal Fadlalla, a Sudanese doctor at one of the city’s hospitals who found himself unable to return last week because of the travel ban.
“I believe this doctor who has done much for central Brooklyn needs to be celebrated. He needs to know America is a safe harbour and has always extended its hand,” Ms James said.
Dr Fadlalla, 33, arrived on an Emirates flight from Dubai and entered the arrivals hall of terminal four to whoops and cheers. Colleagues from the Interfaith Medical Centre had gathered to greet him.
“It is great to be home,” he said.
A second year resident in internal medicine, Dr Fadlalla had been visiting his family in Sudan when Mr Trump’s executive order made it impossible for him to return to New York despite holding a H1B work visa.
Travelling on January 28, a day after Mr Trump signed the order, he was taken out of line at Khartoum airport and told he could not board his flight.
After a week at his mother’s home, Dr Fadlalla’s lawyer informed him on Saturday that he had a chance to get back to New York if he moved fast.
He said it had been a tough week but that he was impressed by the way the American system had worked.
“It was really horrible, it was shocking for everyone,” he said. “But justice is justice, the law is the law.”
Dr Fadlalla said the first thing he would do was telephone his mother, who would be worrying about whether he made it into the US safely.
Mr Trump’s travel ban is presenting him with his biggest test since he took office a little over two weeks ago. The policy has energised an opposition that was largely leaderless after the defeat of Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton and the exit of the Obamas from the White House.
The legal battles are an embarrassment to a president whose campaign made much of his reputation as a successful businessman who would bypass Washington’s vested interests and get things done.
Instead Mr Trump has seen one of his landmark policies to “make America safe again” bogged down in the courts.
He has attempted to use the populist tactics that propelled him to power to hit back at judges who ruled against him
On Saturday night he again took to Twitter to express his disgust.
“The judge opens up our country to potential terrorists and others that do not have our best interests at heart,” he wrote. “Bad people are very happy!”
Campaigners have seized on the court victories to encourage people stuck overseas to return immediately, in case Mr Trump’s administration is able to reinstate the restrictions.
“While we are confident the court will continue to reject the president’s Muslim and refugee ban, we believe valid visa holders should travel here now to ensure they are let into the country,” said Javier Valdes, co-executive director of the activist group Make the Road New York.
foreign.desk@thenational.ae
