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Friday 27 december 2019

termination to keep his plications were filed by zen since 1996, had been
promise that they would people seeking waivers to living in Syria with his fam-
be reunited and his willing- move to the U.S. between ily when civil war started.
ness to go as far as suing December 2017 and Oct. He came back to the U.S.
the government in fed- 31, 2019. Of those, 11,325 in 2012, assuming he could
eral court. Advocates say have been deemed quali- transfer citizenship to his
the process for obtaining fied for waivers and 16,775 children and apply sepa-
a travel ban waiver is still have not. rately for his wife to receive
shrouded in unpredictabil- It was unclear how many a green card making her a
ity, which causes delays for of those who have been permanent legal resident.
thousands of American citi- deemed qualified have His wife got the card in
zens waiting for loved ones. actually received visas and early 2017, but paperwork
The “system is messed up,” how quickly. At the begin- problems got in the way
said Curtis Morrison, the Los ning of 2019, waivers were of the children’s transfers,
Angeles-based attorney being issued in a trickle, requiring him to submit im-
In this Dec. 3, 2019, photo, Mohammed Hafar hugs his daughter who has filed several fed- with only 2,673 granted for migrant petitions for them.
Jana after she arrives at JFK Airport in New York. eral lawsuits, including Ha- both immigrant and non- He was told in 2018 that
Associated Press far’s, against the adminis- immigrant visas from De- his son would get his visa,
tration on behalf of dozens cember 2017 to January but there was no word on
Continued from Front That she landed at Ken- of plaintiffs from countries 2019, according to State when Jana would.
There was “nothing I could nedy Airport on a recent affected by the travel ban. Department figures. “When I heard that, it was
tell her, because nobody December day was testa- Many of those he has rep- In an emailed statement, very, very painful for me,”
knows when.” ment to her father’s de- resented have received vi- the State Department said Jana said last week in the
sas. But he said those cases changes made in late family’s New Jersey apart-
represent only a fraction June have “significantly” ment, where she never
of the people in need and increased the number strayed far from her moth-
that the decision to grant handed out monthly, and er. “Because I understand
those visas is unfair to thou- officials “believe this is rep- that I’m going to be left
sands of other immigrants resentative of the new nor- alone.”
who cannot sue or do not mal” and that “applicants Her brother, Karim, came
know how to take their frus- who qualify for a waiver to the U.S. in May, leaving
trations to court. will likely be issued their visa Jana behind in Damas-
“The government should much sooner than possible cus with her cancer-strick-
not be able to do this,” before the changes.” en grandfather and her
Morrison said. “It should not But while some applications grandmother, who spent
be able to cherry-pick the for immigrant and non-im- most of her time looking af-
visas that it wants to issue so migrant visas submitted in ter him.
that it can evade review.” recent months are seeing There were frequent daily
The third version of the ad- faster processing and ap- calls to her parents, who
ministration’s ban took ef- proval times, earlier cases worried constantly about
fect in December 2017, are still languishing, with their daughter. She was too
keeping citizens of Iran, no transparency from the distraught to go to school
Libya, Somalia, Syria, Ye- government, said Mahsa and living in a country torn
men and North Korea, and Khanbabai, an immigra- apart by armed conflict,
government representa- tion lawyer in North Easton, even though Damascus
tives from Venezuela, from Massachusetts. had settled down.
traveling or immigrating to “They have fooled people Hafar couldn’t understand
the United States. The Su- to think, ‘Oh, with our new it. “I have my son and my
preme Court upheld the automated process, it’s wife here. Why on earth is
ban in June 2018, in part working now,’” Khanbabai my daughter back home?”
because of the promised said. “They’re able to dis- he said.
waiver system that would tract by granting a few Farida Chehata, an im-
allow people to come de- here and there. They’re migrant rights attorney for
spite the ban if certain cri- fooling people into thinking the Council on American-
teria were met. that it works.” Islamic Relations in Califor-
The government says Hafar, a Syria native and nia, worked with the family
28,100 immigrant visa ap- naturalized American citi- before they sued.q