2 days ago
Trump Travel Ban Rattles Immigrant Communities across U.S.
Valerie Plesch/For The Washington Post
A woman carries a platter and groceries for Eid al-Adha as she leaves the Afghan Market in Alexandria, Virginia, on Thursday.
Immigrants from the dozen countries targeted by President Donald Trump's travel ban have put down roots in all 50 states, many escaping violence or political instability in their homelands. They left spouses, children and friends behind, hoping one day to be reunited.
Overnight, those hopes have been shattered. Even plans for visits to or from relatives – for graduations, weddings or funerals – are now very uncertain.
'There's already this heightened awareness and heightened atmosphere of fear,' said Amaha Kassa, executive director of the nonprofit African Communities Together.
In his executive order, Trump said the ban was based on 'foreign policy, national security, and counterterrorism goals.' Yet immigrants like Roozbeh Farahanipour, who left Iran in 2000 and now owns three restaurants in Los Angeles, said Trump's action will punish individuals and families who pose no threat to the United States.
Farahanipour was fielding calls Thursday from fellow Iranians in his community and back home, who are terrified about what the ban means for their future. His own story, he said, reflects a quintessential American success story.
'I want other people to follow me,' he added. 'I don't want to be the last American Dream.'
Haitians in Ohio
Gangs have taken over much of Haiti since the 2021 assassination of its president, pushing families to seek safety anywhere they can. Yet those who fled the violence now face a different danger in the United States: The temporary protected status (TPS) that has allowed hundreds of thousands of Haitians to work in the U.S. is set to expire in August.
Yvena Jean François is among those whose future is at risk. She hadn't heard about the president's travel ban until she clocked into work Thursday at an Amazon warehouse in Springfield, Ohio, where many of those laboring around her were also Haitian.
Everyone has been scared since Trump's election, she said, with the travel ban only the latest blow. Innocent civilians are the ones trying to escape Haiti, she noted, and her friends back home say the situation has only deteriorated since she left. François, a journalist, saw the carnage firsthand as she documented events.
'Following all the news,' she said, 'is nothing but stress.'
As many as 15,000 Haitians have settled in her county, according to local estimates, with most of the newcomers arriving legally in the past five years. As Springfield pushed to revive its once-prosperous manufacturing sector, business leaders aimed recruitment efforts at Haitians to alleviate labor shortages. Some plants in town now employ Creole-speaking interpreters.
Haitian restaurants, convenience stores and hair salons have opened their doors. At the same time, the burst of arrivals crowded medical clinics and classrooms, sparking some complaints in the city of roughly 60,000 and attention from far-right pundits.
Trump blasted the immigrants last year during the campaign, saying they had 'destroyed' Springfield. The city's Republican mayor pushed back against the 'mischaracterization of our city.'
Under the still-glaring political spotlight, community leaders say many Haitians in town are scared to venture out beyond school, work and church. The new ban may only intensify their fears.
François, 39, prays that a judge will rule to preserve her protected status, as was the case in 2018. The Trump administration, she said, 'keeps making life harder for us.'
Afghans and Somalis in Texas
Valerie Plesch/For The Washington Post
An employee at the Afghan Market in Alexandria carries a platter of homemade pastries on the day before Eid al-Adha.
Thousands of Afghans raced to escape their country in 2021 when U.S. troops withdrew and the Taliban assumed power. In Somalia, another country on the travel ban list, humanitarian groups say the government suppresses citizens' basic rights.
Immigrants from both of these places settled in Houston's Gulfton neighborhood, filling apartments and working to rebuild their lives. In one small strip mall here that caters to Afghans – with a clothing store, barbershop, restaurant and bakery offering familiarity – workers set trays of cookies outside as a steady stream of families flowed through Thursday, shopping for the Eid al-Adha holiday.
Hasebullah Akhundzada, 20, migrated from Kabul four years ago, first to Boston, then to Houston. He left most relatives behind, in a country still controlled by the extremist Taliban regime.
'The whole family is over there,' he said as he helped customers at the Afghan Bazaar peruse glittering bangles, leather sandals, and racks of colorful embroidered shalwar kameez, traditional Afghan dress.
In the barbershop at the back of the store, Said Jallal, 27, a security guard from outside Kabul, said that when he heard about the travel ban, he immediately thought of his wife, brother and father. All remain in Afghanistan.
A few doors down in the same strip mall, Ali Ahmed nursed tea at Chai n Paan, a cafe broadcasting Al Jazeera and Arabic language news on several big screens.
Ahmed, 41, came from Somalia 25 years ago after spending a decade in a Kenyan refugee camp. His wife and six children, ages 2 through 11, have been visiting Somalia for a family wedding and are due to return by summer's end – which makes the travel ban 'scary.'
All have U.S. passports, he said, but 'you never know what's going to happen.'
He has his own travel horror stories, though. He says immigration officials always pull him aside at airports for added screening in windowless rooms – traumatizing encounters that in recent years have taken seven to 10 hours, forcing him to miss flights and causing 'humiliation' and 'stigma.'
He now shows up at airports five hours in advance. 'It makes you think you're doing something wrong, even though you're not.' And with the travel ban, he predicted, 'this is going to get worse, much worse.'
Iranians in California
On the west side of Los Angeles, in a neighborhood known as Tehrangeles, Iranian Americans received news of the president's ban with a mixture of resignation and dread. Iran was targeted in Trump's 2017 ban, and the country is in the middle of tumultuous negotiations with the United States over its nuclear program. Many figured it was only a matter of time until the travel prohibition was revived.
Farahanipour recounted how he was imprisoned and tortured for his role helping to lead the Iranian student uprisings of 1999. He sought exile in the U.S. after his country's government issued a death sentence against him.
From a table inside his Mary and Robb's Westwood Cafe, he said Trump's order is overly broad and will punish average Iranians who are just looking to visit relatives, receive medical care or study in the U.S.
'I don't think they're going to make the country safer,' he said. 'It's a blanket ban for normal, random people.'
Alex Helmi, another Iranian business owner, said the policy will be especially harmful for Iranian students – who for years have studied in the United States as part of a cultural and academic exchange that Helmi still believes will ultimately lead to a more open Iran.
'Students come and see the democracy here and they go back,' he said. 'It's good for our country.'
Down the street at Shahrzad Travel, a travel agency that primarily serves the city's Iranian community – the world's largest outside Iran – phones were ringing nonstop Thursday morning.
Sherry Tahouri, the company's owner, said she is telling her clients that they must wait and see whether the president's order changes or is challenged. 'I think it's wrong,' she said. 'But I cannot say what he should do or not because I don't have control.'
Stuck in limbo
Krish O'Mara Vignarajah, who leads Global Refuge, a resettlement agency that handles refugee placements across the U.S., said Thursday that the organization was fielding calls from terrified clients who don't know whether their cases will proceed or family members will ever make it to the U.S.
The emotional toll is enormous, she said, adding anxiety to families who 'are putting down roots and so eager to become contributing Americans.'
'People who have spent years doing everything we asked of them, navigating an already complex system, now face indefinite limbo,' she said. 'For many immigrants from these countries, this order is equally personal. It effectively says, because of where you're from, your family doesn't deserve the same chance to be together. You don't deserve the chance to make your case.'
Late Thursday afternoon outside an Afghan supermarket in Alexandria, Virginia, Parwin Azizi Omari, 38, waited with her four children to be picked up from her grocery shopping for Eid al-Adha. It had taken her family a couple of years to get from Afghanistan to the U.S. They fled after the Taliban took over their country, first to Canada, then to New York and finally to the D.C. area, where she found a job as a cook at a local snack company.
She has been grateful for the opportunity to rebuild her life. 'In our country, it's not safe,' she said. And since Trump suspended refugee admissions earlier this year and froze aid to resettle refugees, friends and former colleagues back home have become only more desperate. One woman she knew killed herself, Azizi Omari said.
'It's very difficult, because they are waiting for a long, long term,' she said. Now, they probably will have to wait even longer.
Kassa, the executive director of African Communities Together, is focusing on supporting the large pockets of Sudanese and Eritreans in the U.S. He fears the ban will prompt some to withdraw from civic life and be less willing to engage with government services.
'What this does, he said, 'is make a region that feels like home to many African immigrants feel less like home.'
