Fuad Sharef and his family waited two years for a visa to settle in the United States, selling their home and quitting jobs and schools in Iraq before setting off on Saturday for a new life they saw as a reward for working with U.S. organisations. BBC reports.
But Sharef, his wife and three children were prevented from boarding their connecting flight to New York from Cairo airport on Saturday. They were sudden victims of U.S. President Donald Trump’s new travel ban on seven Muslim-majority countries.
Their passports confiscated, the distraught family was detained overnight at Cairo airport and forced to board a flight back to the northern Iraqi city of Erbil on Sunday morning.
“We were treated like drug dealers, escorted by deportation officers,” Sharef told Reuters by telephone from Cairo airport.
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“I feel very guilty towards my wife and kids. I feel like I’m the reason behind their dismay.”
In the most sweeping use of his presidential powers since taking office a week ago, Trump signed an order on Friday suspending the entry of people from Iran, Iraq, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria and Yemen for at least 90 days. He said this would help safeguard the United States from terrorists.
The travel curbs took effect immediately, wreaking havoc and confusion for would-be travellers with passports from the seven countries. Sharef and his family were among the first victims.
Sharef and his family arrived at Erbil International Airport looking demoralised, wondering how Trump could sign a document that shattered their dreams in an instant, even though their papers were in order.
He likened Trump’s decision to the dictatorship of former Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein.
“I believe it is a terrible error in the U.S., terrible error in the history of the United States. I thought America is an institution and democracy,” said Sharef.
“I see (it is) like autocracy, someone signs and effective
immediately what does this mean? It is just like Saddam Hussein’s decisions. Yeah without going back to the Congress, I don’t understand.”
Sharef said he was employed by a pharmaceutical company before leaving Iraq, but had worked on projects funded by U.S. organisations such as USAID in the years following the 2003 U.S.-led invasion and occupation of Iraq.
The family applied for a U.S. visa in September 2014 as security conditions in Iraq deteriorated, with Islamic State insurgents seizing swathes of the country and carrying out mass killings.
Sharef’s work with the United States made him particularly vulnerable to attack by militants who view him as a traitor.
“I am broken, I am totally broken, I don’t understand how he rewards those people who helped him. I don’t understand this. When we worked with them, we put our lives, my life, my family’s life, in jeopardy,” said Sharef.
“And we were easy target every day for terrorist groups. Everyone who works with Americans is regarded as an infidel.”