Lawyers for two Iraqis with
ties to the US military who had been granted visas to enter the United
States have filed a lawsuit against President Donald Trump and the US
government after they were detained when they arrived in New York
Friday.
The lawsuit could represent the first legal challenge to Trump's controversial executive order,
which indefinitely suspends admissions for Syrian refugees and limits
the flow of other refugees into the United States by instituting what
the President has called "extreme vetting" of immigrants.
Trump's
order also bars Iraqi citizens, as well as people from six other
Muslim-majority nations, from entering the US for 90 days, and suspends
the US Refugee Admissions Program for 120 days until it is reinstated
"only for nationals of countries for whom" members of Trump's Cabinet
deem can be properly vetted.
According
to court papers, both men legally were allowed to come into the US but
were detained in accordance with Trump's move to ban travel from several
Muslim-majority nations.
The
lawyers for the two men called for a hearing because they maintain the
detention of people with valid visas is illegal. They were still at John
F. Kennedy International Airport as of late Saturday morning, one of
the lawyers told CNN.
"Because
the executive order is unlawful as applied to petitioners, their
continued detention based solely on the executive order violates their
Fifth Amendment procedural and substantive due process rights," the
lawyers argue in court papers.
The
two Iraqi men named as plaintiffs in the suit are Hameed Khalid
Darweesh, who worked as an interpreter for the US during the Iraq War,
and Haider Sameer Abdulkaleq Alshawi. The suit said Darweesh held a
special immigrant visa, which he was granted the day of Trump's
inauguration on January 20, due to his work for the US government from
2003 to 2013.
The lawsuit said the
US granted Alshawi a visa earlier this month to meet with his wife and
son, whom the US already granted refugee status for their association
with the US military.
Court papers
said Customs and Border Protection authorities did not allow the lawyers
to meet with the men and told them to try reaching Trump. Democratic
Reps. Jerrold Nadler and Nydia Velázquez, both of New York, attempted to
speak to Darweesh and Alshawi at JFK's Terminal 4 but were denied.
"When
Mr. Darweesh's attorneys approached CBP requesting to speak with Mr.
Darweesh, CBP indicated that they were not the ones to talk to about
seeing their client. When the attorneys asked, 'Who is the person to
talk to?' the CBP agents responded, 'Mr. President. Call Mr. Trump,'"
the court papers read.
Lawyers for
Iraqi refugees filed the suit in federal court arguing Darweesh and
Alshawi were being unlawfully held "solely pursuant" to an executive
order issued on January 27, 2017.
Arguing that their clients have "valid entry documents," they say the were blocked from exiting JFK and detained.
One
of the attorneys, Mark Doss of the International Refugee Assistance
Project, told CNN his clients knew they had to get to the US as soon as
possible so they boarded the first flight they could.
The
two men, one of whom has now been held for 14 hours, have been allowed
to make phone calls. The two men do not know each other, and it is
unclear if they are being held together or separately, or if they are
being kept in a holding cell, according to Doss. One man traveled from
Sweden and one from Iraq.
One man
is married and his wife lives in the US. She had prior refugee status
and she had secured the same for her husband. The other man had a
US-affiliated special immigrant visa, which allows Iraqis and Afghans
who had served on behalf of US troops to enter, Doss said.
Some
of the International Refugee Assistance Project's clients entered
Friday with no issue, Doss said, adding that a handful of families
entered JFK and Los Angeles International Airport without any problems.
Immigration-rights
groups, including the National Immigration Law Center and the ACLU, are
representing the Iraqi men. Lawyers for the Iraqis are aiming to file a
class-action lawsuit on behalf of other refugees.
"Our
courageous plaintiff and countless others risked their lives helping US
service members in Iraq. Trump's order puts those who have helped us in
harm's way by denying them the safe harbor they have been promised in
the United States," said Karen Tumlin, the legal director of the NILC.
An
administration official told CNN if a person has a valid visa to enter
the US but is a citizen of one of the seven countries under the
temporary travel ban, then the person cannot come into the US. If the
person landed after the order was signed Friday afternoon, then the
person would be detained and put back on a flight to their country of
citizenship.
Separately,
Department of Homeland Security officials acknowledged people who were
in the air would be detained upon arrival and put back on a plane to
their home country. An official was not able to provide numbers of how
many have already been detained.
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