A Somali woman and her two children were detained at Dulles Airport in Chantilly Virginia for 20 hours without food.
In an interview with ABC News, Najib Abi, a cousin of the family, explained that the family had flown from Kenya and arrived at Dulles at 8 a.m. yesterday. The children, although born in Kenya, possess U.S. passports. Their mother, however, is from Somalia — one of the countries named on Trump’s arbitrary immigration block list.
“They called the husband, he’s from Minnesota,” Abi explained to ABC, “They told him that you have to get your children because they’re U.S. citizens, but your wife we will deport to Africa — we’ll send her back to Africa today at 10 a.m. So if you don’t come by 10 a.m. we’ll deport her.”
In the meantime, the woman—thus far unnamed—was pressured to sign papers and told that her visa had been canceled. When she refused to sign, asking to wait until her husband arrived, immigration officers threatened that she would not be permitted to return to the United States. She was then told to sign her children’s paperwork so that they could accompany her back to Africa. Still, she demurred, emphasizing that she would do nothing until the family was reunited.