Trump bans Canadian dual citizens from 7 Muslim-majority countries from U.S.
U.S. President Donald Trump’s new executive order has created mass confusion around the world.
Protesters gather at New York's JFK airport to demonstrate against U.S. President Donald Trump's executive order. (BRYAN R. SMITH / AFP/GETTY IMAGES)
By DANIEL DALEWashington Bureau
Sat., Jan. 28, 2017
WASHINGTON—Canadian citizens who are also citizens of seven Muslim-majority countries have been banned from entering the United States by President Donald Trump in a massive break from the traditional free flow of travellers between citizens of the two countries.
The countries targeted by Trump’s 90-day ban are Iran, Iraq, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria and Yemen. Tens of thousands of Canadians have dual citizenship in one of them.
Trump’s Friday order even bars entry to the U.S. by permanent residents with “green cards” who are also citizens of one of the countries. That means, for example, that an Iranian-Canadian green card holder who makes her home in Chicago cannot come to Canada to visit her parents and then cross back over the U.S. border.
The order has created mass confusion around the world as governments, businesses and ordinary people attempted to decipher just what Trump meant. It is still not exactly clear. After the Homeland Security Department said green card holders would be banned, a Trump official told U.S. outlets that they could be approved on a “case-by-case basis” and would have to check in with a government official before leaving each time.
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and his ministers had not commented directly on the order as of Saturday at 5 p.m. On Twitter, Trudeau posted photos of himself greeting Syrian refugees, adding the words “#WelcomeToCanada.”
“To those fleeing persecution, terror & war, Canadians will welcome you, regardless of your faith. Diversity is our strength #WelcomeToCanada,” Trudeau wrote.
The order has resulted in travellers with visas to enter America being turned away from their flights and detained at U.S. airports upon landing. One of the people detained, according to multiple U.S. news reports, worked as an interpreter for the U.S. military in Iraq.
Air Canada, WestJet and Porter Airlines are no longer letting people carrying passports from the seven countries board flights to the U.S. All three are waiving their cancellation fees.
The order is a modified version of the “total” ban on Muslim entry that Trump proposed during his campaign. It was greeted with dismay, horror and panic by Canadians from the affected countries.
Matt Tayfeh, an Iranian technology entrepreneur living in Saskatchewan, wrote on Twitter that he had been accepted into a prestigious business “incubator” in California and just this week received a business visa.
“Useless now,” he wrote.
“Called Delta Airlines, told the lady about my story. I was very angry. She apologized for Trump. Then cried. I was not angry anymore,” he wrote.
Canadian dual citizens said they were worried that the order would affect their work and their relationships. A Canadian-Iranian immigration consultant, who asked for anonymity out of concern about potential U.S. consequences, lives in Chicago with her American-Canadian husband and holds a green card. But her business is based in Toronto, where her parents still live, and now she is not sure if she can get back to the U.S. if she travels to Canada.
“I may lose potential clients if I can not conduct meetings in Toronto. I will also not be able to see my family, which is heartbreaking for me,” she said Saturday.
Trump’s order, titled “Protecting the Nation from Foreign Terrorist Entry Into the United States,” suspends the U.S. intake of refugees from Syria indefinitely and refugees from everywhere else for 120 days. |
