PHILADELPHIA -- Ghassan Assali, an Allentown dentist who identifies as Christian, said he received a call Saturday from a man who did not identify himself.

According to Assali, the man on the phone told him he wouldn't be able to see his two brothers, visa holders who were flying to Philadelphia International Airport from Syria. Assali's brothers were not allowed to enter the United States because of an executive order President Donald Trump signed Friday, Assali said, and they were put on a flight back to Damascus, Syria's capital.

Gov. Tom Wolf held a news conference Sunday with Assali and his wife, Sarmad, to denounce the executive order that restricts immigration from seven Muslim countries.

Wolf said Assali's brothers had worked for their visas for 13 years, but officials denied them at the Philadelphia airport Saturday.

Sarmad Assali said her brothers-in-law are not safe back in Damascus as Christians.

"Not if they catch them," Sarmad Assali said. "Not if [the Islamic State] catches them, it's not safe, no. They have to convert, or they kill them. ISIS, that's the choice they give Christian families when they capture them."

Jonathan Grode, a lawyer for Green and Spiegel, said his firm is reaching out to the American Immigration Lawyers Association and American Civil Liberties Union to see what legal action they can take to help the Assalis.

Sarmad Assali said one of her brothers-in-law was in Allentown as recently as 2013, but he wanted to wait for his visa process to be completed before he returned. The trip to Philadelphia was the first for either of Ghassan Assali's brothers since they received their visas.

Sarmad said she has talked with her family members who landed safely in Syria.

"They are back in Damascus, back in their homes at this point," she said. "They are very tired."

In the executive order that restricted immigration, Trump wrote that his goal was to keep Americans safe. The move has been met with protests in cities across the country and lawsuits from the ACLU, and a federal judge ruled to stay part of the executive order Saturday night.

"In order to protect Americans, the United States must ensure that those admitted to this country do not bear hostile attitudes toward it and its founding principles," Trump wrote in the opening section of the executive order, according to CNN.

Wolf told the Assalis on Sunday he would work to support their family. The governor added he believed Trump didn't think through his actions.

"The United States is a place people come to escape oppression," Wolf said. "The United States is not a place people come to to experience oppression. And that's what their family members experienced. I, for one, as an American, as a Pennsylvanian, I'm outraged."

Meanwhile, protesters took to Philadelphia airport to voice their opposition to Trump's executive order. We'll have more coverage of that later, and a gallery from the protest is below.

Philadelphia International Airport protests 10 Gallery: Philadelphia International Airport protests

-- @AaronKazreports