Hameed Darweesh aided U.S. military in Iraq as a translator and electrical engineer which put his life at risk. After his home was raided by Baghdad police and two of his colleagues were killed at work, Hameed and his family fled to another part of Iraq.
He and his family had to flee again when a shopkeeper told him that men driving a BMW wanted to know where he lived. Darweesh is one of thousands of Iraqis who have risked their lives by cooperating with the U.S. government according to Rolling Stone. Congress created the Iraqi and Afghan Special Immigrant Visa (SIV) program to help people like him.
But the process is slow, and the number of people who get visas is shameful. The Darweesh family received their visa last week, but when they were in the air, President Trump signed a cruel and illegal executive order on immigration.
The order bans nationals from seven Muslim nations from entering the United States for 90 days; it also includes those people who are lawful U.S. permanent residents who had been out of the country temporarily. It also stops all refugee admissions from anywhere in the world for 120 days according to The Guardian, and all refugee admissions from Syria indefinitely.
Trump's executive order is illegal because the Fifth Amendment bars the U.S. government from depriving individuals of their liberty without due process of law. The Immigration and Nationality Act and U.S. obligations under international law give any alien who is in the U.S. the right to apply for asylum.
The United Nations Convention Against Torture bars the U.S. from returning a noncitizen to a country where this person faces persecution or torture. Trump lacks the authority for his actions under the Immigration and Nationality Act because it forbids discrimination on the basis of a person's race, nationality or place of birth or residence in the issuance of visas.
