News around the globe have been reporting on New York Arab and Muslim travelers detained at different American airports, and even taken off planes headed to the United States. This was in compliance with US President Donald Trump’s order to ban the entry of travelers or visitors from seven Muslim countries.
The executive order bars all people coming from Iraq, Syria, Iran, Libya, Somalia, Sudan and Yemen from setting foot into the United States. Those countries were declared as “countries of concern” in a 2016 law concerned with immigration visas. The executive order, however, exempts members of international organizations and diplomats.

“We want to ensure that we are not admitting into our country the very threats our soldiers are fighting overseas,” said President Trump as he signed the order at the Pentagon. The order supposedly calls for “Protecting the Nation from Foreign Terrorist Entry into the US.” That being said, it’s important to note that it was left with an open possibility of further countries to be added to the ban list.

Trump’s executive order was challenged by a New York federal judge who temporarily blocked the order for the citizens of the seven Muslim majority countries who already arrived in the US as well as others who are in transit, as long as these citizens hold valid visas ruling that they can’t be removed from the United States.

That move limited part of President Trump’s executive order. Other legal rulings in Virgina and Washignton states followed. Two Massachusetts judges were able to go further, claiming that the government should notify travelers who are going to be affected by the executive order and that for the next seven days they would be able to travel freely to Boston. Judges Allison Burroughs and Judith Dein wrote “Customs and Border Protection shall notify airlines that have flights arriving at Logan Airport of this Order, and the fact that individuals on these flights will not be detained or returned based solely on the basis of the Executive Order.”