Anas Alhajj, 26, said he was involved in student uprisings in Sana. He received asylum, and now works for a Yemeni newspaper based in Bay Ridge. He said he is worried that his status could be revoked.

“You have to understand where we came from, there’s a lot of hardship, dictatorships,” Kaled Alamarie said. “In their mind, they’re thinking that they’re going to disappear, just like they disappear in Egypt, in Yemen. They just don’t believe it.”

The meeting was organized by Debbie Almontaser, the president of the board of directors for the Muslim Community Network and a national board member of the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee.

“If you know people who are at the airports, let them know to refuse to go back on the plane and not to sign any documents. Ask for a lawyer,” she said to the group of men around the table.

“Fear,” she said earlier in the day, “is reverberating through our community.”

But there was also pride. Ibrahim Qatabi, a legal assistant at a nonprofit, said that his great-grandfather came by boat to the United States from Yemen. He then worked in Buffalo for the railroad. Mr. Qatabi’s grandfather worked for the Ford Motor Company.