For many who come from countries targeted by Trump’s order, relief has been short-lived as obstacles for green card applications and traveling abroad remain

After moving over from Iran to attend graduate school in Utah seven years ago, Pooya has settled into life in the US.

He works as an architect at a busy firm in New York City, lives with his American girlfriend, and supports the Brooklyn Nets.

The 30-year-old, who asked that his surname not be used, had completed two of the three steps involved in applying for his green card when Trump’s first travel ban executive order was announced in January.

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“I always thought it’s my second home. And one day you wake up and find yourself in this situation and just have to think how stable your life is. You may have to pack up tomorrow, you have no other choice,” said Pooya.

He is one of many caught up in the turbulent winds of the executive order: it’s not entirely certain that the travel ban affects him directly, but it might. Many citizens from the six listed countries in Donald Trump’s executive order – Iran, Syria, Yemen, Somalia, Libya and Sudan – are terrified of what will happen even if they have legal status in the US, while those awaiting to reunite with families entering as refugees hold legitimate concerns that they will never see their loved ones again.



Pooya was heartened by the news late on Wednesday that Trump’s second travel ban had been at least temporarily blocked by the courts.

“It gives me more hope that this is not going to go easy,” he said. “It’s really great to have [an] independent justice system, that is one of the best things.”

But after several rounds of announced travel bans and legal limbo, uncertainty has become a way of life for him and others who think they may be affected by the ban.

Pooya’s work visa runs out next year, and is not renewable. His attorneys filed the last element of his green card application last week, before the latest travel ban order, although he says his attorney is not entirely sure if his application will be affected or not.

He has not returned to Iran since he left, as his student visa and work visas are all only valid for single entry. A friend completing her PhD in the US went back to Iran for a family wedding and it took her nine months to get issued another visa, and Pooya didn’t want to risk his US life. He hasn’t seen his father in seven years. His mother visited in 2014, after waiting 10 months for background checks (“It was not an easy process” before the travel ban, he notes).

“Just have to wait and hope, that’s pretty much it. Even after that, I’m not sure. Is it safe to travel, even if I get approval?” he asked.

•••

“You felt relieved the first time,” said Motasim Adam from the Darfur People’s Association of New York, referring to when courts overturned the initial ban from 26 January.

But now, the second court suspension of the travel ban hasn’t relaxed him.

“[Trump] will definitely keep fighting for that,” he said. “He doesn’t care about other consequences, he only cares about meeting his promises to his constituents in the election. That means many people can be victims of him fulfilling his promise and people will pay the price of that.”

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Adam says as part of his work with Darfuris, he’s heard dozens of cases of people unable to pick up their approved visas from US embassies overseas or visa applications seemingly put on hold, despite the government’s public statements that applications are being processed as normal.

His daughter, Wesal Adam, might be just 12 years old, but she asks tough questions.

“Every day she asks me, ‘Daddy, will my case be approved or not? Do you have an idea? What if I go outside [the US] and I have problems coming back? Will you go into the United States and leave me outside?” Adam told the Guardian.

Now a seventh-grader at PAVE Academy in Brooklyn, Wesal fled civil war in Sudan and arrived in 2009 on a humanitarian visa. Her younger siblings were born in the US, and her father is a US citizen but Wesal – and her mother – are both green card holders.



Facebook Twitter Pinterest Motasim Adam. Photograph: Motasim Adam

Her father applied for her to become a naturalized citizen seven months ago and is nervously awaiting news. Immigration authorities had told him to expect it within six months. He believes Wesal’s case has been put on hold because she’s from one of the six listed nations, despite the legal suspension of the executive orders.

“It’s really scary, I don’t know what is going to happen to her, whether they will approve her case or not. I have no idea. I would like to go on vacation this summer. If we go outside, will she be able to come back?” asked her father.

“I worry her case will be pending forever.”

He also fears for his older brother in Jordan, who was approved for resettlement in the US with his wife and four children a year ago but is still going through the refugee process. Adam, 46, describes his 66-year-old brother as a politically active critic of the Sudanese government who would be killed if he was made to return to Sudan.

“He keeps calling himself ‘the most unluckiest person on Earth’,” said Adam.

•••

Saed Mohamoud, 56, is a pediatrician from Somalia who got separated from his wife and eight children when they fled the country’s civil war in 2011.



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When both his kidneys failed, Mohamoud was sent to Malaysia for medical treatment. He applied for refugee resettlement in 2012, and arrived in Decatur, Georgia in May 2014. In October that year, he petitioned for his family to join him in the US.

His wife and kids (who range in age from nine to 20) are stuck in Ethiopia. They have jumped through nearly every hoop of the refugee application process and are just awaiting the last: a final health screening and then travel.

US refugee aid organizations here in the US had the family classified as “ready for departure”, but their application now appears as “on hold”, for reasons unknown. Their travel documents are only valid until 23 March and if they don’t leave before then, his wife and children will have to start the whole process again.

Both versions of Trump’s travel ban included a cap of 50,000 refugees, down from 110,000 under the Obama administration. The suspension by a federal court in Hawaii on Wednesday night includes the cap on refugees, although more legal challenges of it are expected.

But it’s not just about having his family in one place – Mohamoud receives dialysis three times a week, too sick to work or cook for himself.

“Truly, in addition to this being a heartbreaking reunification, he literally needs a kidney and one of his children will be a match,” said Amy Crownover from New American Pathways, an organization who helps resettle refugees in Georgia.