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Portland lawyers from the American Immigration Lawyers Association and the American Civil Liberties Union are volunteering to help immigrants and refugees who may be stopped at Portland International Airport this week.

(Courtesy of ACLU)

Portland lawyers from the American Immigration Lawyers Association and the American Civil Liberties Union are volunteering to help immigrants and refugees who may be stopped at Portland International Airport this week.



Mat dos Santos, legal director for Oregon's ACLU, said lawyers spoke with three people Monday who were stopped for secondary interrogation.

Dos Santos spoke with one green card holder, through an interpreter, Monday night, who said he had been held for three hours after returning from Iran. The man did not want to be quoted by name but said he had been treated fairly. Officials offered him coffee and food, he told dos Santos.



A Portland couple was also stopped in Denver, according to The Denver Post. The paper reported that agents stopped to question Dr. Abolfazi Mehdizadeh Kashi, 62, and his wife, Dr. Shahla Chaichian, 61, after the couple got off a Lufthansa flight from Frankfurt.



Attorneys told The Denver Post that the couple was allowed to continue traveling after two hours.



"There is no reason for two respectable surgeons, married, in their 60s, to be detained," Abolfazi's sister Zahra Kashi told The Denver Post. "They've done nothing and are simply coming home."



In Portland, lawyers were not allowed into the airport's customs area, dos Santos said, so have been waiting in the international arrivals area.



"We'll do it as long as it makes sense to," dos Santos said. "This is a fluid situation. The executive order has created chaos and confusion. People are desperately seeking information about what their rights are. We need to make sure people know we're there."



-- Casey Parks





503-221-8271

cparks@oregonian.com; @caseyparks

The Oregonian/OregonLive's Jim Ryan contributed to this report.