Banned From U.S.: ‘You Need to Go Back to Your Country’

Social media shook with emotion. Headlines shouted the news. Legal scholars debated the order’s scope. But the most immediate effect ofPresident Trump’s executive order barring refugees from entering the United States and halting entry from seven predominantly Muslim countries could be

quantified on a human scale: refugees and other immigrants from those seven countries, some on their way to the United States on Friday when Mr. Trump signed the order, who were no longer able to enter the United States.Here are some of their stories.

Fuad Shareef’s family, Iraq

Hearing of Mr. Trump’s plan to slam the door on Muslim immigrants this week, Mr. Shareef hurried his wife and three children onto a plane in the Iraqi city of Erbil in the early hours of Saturday. They had been cleared to resettle in Nashville — a new life that Mr. Shareef considered a great opportunity. After the American invasion of Iraq in 2003, Mr. Shareef worked as a translator with American officials, and he received death threats. But after the Shareefs arrived in Cairo on Saturday, a check-in official spoke to Mr. Shareef.

“He said they had just received an email from the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad,” Mr. Shareef said. “It said we could not get on the flight.”Speaking by phone from an airport lounge, Mr. Shareef said he had sold the family home and car. His wife had given up her job. His two daughters, 10 and 17, had quit school. He had spent $5,000 on flights.

 “I thought in America there are institutions, democracy,” he said. “This looks like a decision from a dictator. I don’t understand.”

“Donald Trump ruined my life,” he said.

Nisrin Omer, Sudan

Ms. Omer, 39, is a green card holder, has lived in the United States since 1993, and graduated from Harvard University. On Friday night Ms. Omer was detained at Kennedy International Airport as she returned from Sudan, where she is a citizen, after a research trip for her anthropology Ph.D. at Stanford University.

Ms. Omer said customs officials were apologetic and appeared confused about what they were supposed to do with the detained travelers. “I have to do this,” one told her. For five hours they asked about her travels, her academic research and her views on Sudanese politics, which they admitted to knowing little about.

At one point, she said, they aggressively patted her down and handcuffed her. They removed the restraints when she began to cry, but the detainees brought in for questioning after her arrived in handcuffs, she said.

“For the brief moment I was handcuffed, I couldn’t control myself and I just started crying,” Ms. Omer said. “It was humiliating. I thought I was going to be returned to Sudan.”

After Ms. Omer was released she said she felt like one of the lucky ones.

“There are a lot of people being treated much worse or are being sent back,” she said. “If they get sent back to Iraq or Syria it is a life-or-death situation.”