Trump's immigration ban divides Delmarva residents

President Donald Trump’s executive order that temporarily bans immigrants from countries where ISIS has a significant presence has rattled members of the local Muslim community, some of whom come from one of the seven countries from which immigrants are banned.

Trump signed the order Friday, which caused protests at U.S. airports over the weekend.

Farah Yahya, a member of the Islamic Society of Delmarva, said she has spoken to some members who are from Sudan, who may be affected by the ban along with residents of Iraq, Syria, Iran, Libya, Somalia and Yemen.

“Everyone has left their loved ones at home,” she said. “They are asking ‘what do we do now?’ ”

Imam Ashraf Ahmed, who is an American citizen of Sudanese descent, said there are about 100 families from Sudan who live in the area, many of whom have family members in their native country.

He believes the law eventually will prevail and the ban will be lifted.

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"I cannot understand it," he said. "But at the end, even the president himself will come back to the law."

But many local Trump supporters, including Julie Brewington, a member of the Wicomico County Republican Central Committee, agreed with the ban.

“My understanding is he is doing what he promised he would do,” she said.

Brewington said Presidents Chester Arthur, Franklin Roosevelt, Theodore Roosevelt, Jimmy Carter, Ronald Reagan and Barack Obama, as well as Congress during the Truman administration, all imposed immigration bans.

“This is nothing new,” she said.

The congressman representing Maryland’s Eastern Shore said Monday he fully supports the ban, too.

“The Executive Order temporarily suspends visas issued to individuals from seven specific countries prone to terrorism — similar to President Obama’s temporary ban on visas for refugees from Iraq in 2011 for the same reason,” U.S. Rep. Andy Harris, R-Md.-1st District, said in a statement to the news media. “The vetting of individuals seeking to immigrate into the United States from countries where ISIS has a significant presence must be increased to better protect Americans’ safety and our national security."

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Ripple effect

Over the weekend, Trump's action prompted protests at most major airports across the country and the American Civil Liberties Union shattered fundraising records after taking the White House to court over the ban.

The ACLU said it has received more than 350,000 online donations totaling $24 million since Saturday morning. The nonprofit organization, whose stated purpose is to protect individuals' rights and liberties guaranteed in the Constitution, typically raises about $4 million online in a year, according to Executive Director Anthony Romero.

In a statement issued by the White House, Trump said that visas will not be issued to residents from the seven countries for the next 90 days to allow the administration time to review and revise its policies. After that, they will be subjected to what he calls extreme vetting before they are allowed to come to the U.S.

“My policy is similar to what President Obama did in 2011 when he banned visas for refugees from Iraq for six months,” Trump said. “The seven countries named in the executive order are the same countries previously identified by the Obama administration as sources of terror.”

According to a USAToday fact-checking report, there was a delay in processing Iraqi refugees in 2011 after it was discovered that two Iraqi refugees living in Kentucky had been involved in roadside bombing attacks on U.S. troops in Iraq. One of the refugee’s fingerprints were found on a detonation device in Iraq, prompting U.S. immigration, security and intelligence agencies to use federal databases to rescreen about 58,000 Iraqi refugees in the U.S. and more than 25,000 Iraqis who had been approved to enter the U.S., but had not yet been admitted, Department of Homeland Security officials testified at the time.

The Kentucky case not only caused a backlog in processing Iraqi refugees in 2011, but it also resulted in an overhaul of the refugee screening process.

The Obama administration’s actions were limited to one country and in response to a specific threat — the potential for other Iraqi refugees to take advantage of a flaw in the screening process.

"A sad day"

Other area residents said they oppose the ban and the way it was carried out.

“We want America to be safe and feel safe, but we can’t just blanketly block people from coming here,” said Gail Jankowski of Berlin.

Both Salisbury University and the University of Maryland Eastern Shore have foreign students, but spokesmen for both campuses said they were unaware of any students or staff who were unable to get back into the country over the weekend.

Robert L. Caret, chancellor of the University System of Maryland, said all its institutions, including SU and UMES, remained deeply committed to diversity and inclusion.

“We join many higher education institutions nationwide in expressing our concern over the temporary banning of individuals from seven predominantly Muslim countries from entry into the United States,” Caret  said. “We do not yet know whether, and to what extent, such a ban may impact members of our academic communities.”

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Maryland’s two U.S. senators, both Democrats, have voiced opposition to the immigration ban, calling it a threat to freedom and national security.

“It's a sad day for our country when our Commander-in-Chief is acting more like Vladimir Putin than an American president,” Sen. Chris Van Hollen said in a post to Twitter over the weekend.

Sen. Ben Cardin, a ranking member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, released a statement after two Iraqis with valid visas who served with the U.S. military were denied entry.

“Compounding this tragic ordeal, the immediate families of the two detainees are already here in the United States,” Cardin said. “This betrayal of our friends and those who stood with us - indeed of our deepest values as a nation -- promises to make the U.S. less safe and places our courageous servicemen and women in even greater danger as they fight against terrorism.”

Cardin called on Trump to rescind the executive order.

And on Monday, Van Hollen, a member of the Senate Appropriations Committee, joined U.S. Sen. Chris Murphy, D-Conn., and six of their colleagues to introduce legislation to block the immigration ban. Specifically, the bill would withhold any funding to enforce the executive order and declares it illegal based on the 1965 Immigration and Nationality Act, which banned discrimination against immigrants on the basis of national origin.

“President Trump’s order to suspend America’s refugee programs and ban immigration from certain Muslim-majority countries is an attack on everything our country stands for and has jeopardized our nation’s security by playing into ISIS’s propaganda. We have immediately seen the consequences of this harmful executive order," Van Hollen said in a news release. "A 5-year-old American citizen from Maryland was detained for hours without access to his mother or a legal representative this weekend – just one of countless stories we’ve heard about at airports across the country."

Maryland Attorney General Brian Frosh, one of 17 state attorneys general to condemn the order, also took to Twitter: “It is saddening and disgraceful when the President misuses his authority to demonize immigrants, spew hate and sow fear.”

U.S. Sen. Chris Coons of Delaware, in an interview with CNN, called the ban “illegal, unconstitutional and un-American.”

USAToday contributed to this report.

On Twitter @LizHolland5