DETROIT (WXYZ) — The Trump administration implemented a travel ban today targeting 12 countries, including Yemen, which has left many in Detroit's Yemeni community concerned about their ability to visit family members abroad.
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Nationals from Afghanistan, Myanmar, Chad, Congo-Brazzaville, Equatorial Guinea, Eritrea, Haiti, Iran, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, and Yemen are now barred from entering the United States.
Seven additional countries - Burundi, Cuba, Laos, Sierra Leone, Togo, Turkmenistan, and Venezuela - face partial travel restrictions.
For Abdo Al Wajeeh, a kitchen helper at Haus of Brunch in Downtown Detroit, the ban means uncertainty about when he'll see his family again.
"I miss them," Al Wajeeh said.
Al Wajeeh moved to Michigan in 2000 to support his wife and three children in Yemen. Every month, he sends home $1,000 to support his family, whom he typically sees once every two years.
Now with the travel ban in effect, Al Wajeeh fears returning to Yemen, worried he won't be able to re-enter the US.
"It's sad," Al Wajeeh said.
The ban is also affecting local businesses. Maher Obeid, owner of the newly opened Haus of Brunch restaurant, says many of his employees are Yemeni nationals with family overseas.
"The majority of our employees are Yemeni," Obeid said. "Being Yemeni, I can see a close connection for us, and then it's easy to communicate, but a lot of them have come here either on visas, you know, to stay here and find a second home or a place to live. So it affects us when it comes to business."
Obeid explained that most of his employees see their families in Yemen only once every two years, if they're fortunate.
"Some people are getting stuck there. Banning them and the travel ban, making sure that they can't come back, that's just like they were not willing to jeopardize going to see their family, their livelihood," Obeid said.
Rocky Raczkowski, who has been part of the Michigan GOP for the last 38 years, defended the policy.
"These countries have deficient screening and vetting services, which historically refused to take back their own citizens when they overstayed their visas or they created a crime here in the United States," Raczkowski said.
Nabih Ayad of the Arab American Civil Rights League, who previously filed a federal lawsuit against the 2018 travel ban, questioned the selection criteria for the banned countries.
"If you look at possibly other nations that have worse vetting process, they're not on their list, possibly," Ayad said.
Ayad noted that the current ban appears more targeted than previous versions.
"This one is more clarified and more centered, meaning that they had to basically identify why each nation was on that ban to justify their actions so it could possibly pass muster on the judiciary challenges that may face down the road here," Ayad said.
While Ayad investigates potential legal challenges to the ban, he believes the White House relied on selective data.
"That's kind of what we're looking into, all the other numbers of other nations that were not put on that list that could possibly show that this is just intended to really discriminate against certain black and brown Middle Eastern individuals from those nations and predominantly Muslim nations," Ayad said.
Meanwhile, Al Wajeeh hopes to eventually bring his family to the United States.
"I want to bring them," Al Wajeeh said. "Because it's very hard to stay there."
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