HOUSTON – When President Joe Biden rescinded former President Donald Trump’s ban on immigrant visas from many Muslim-majority countries on his first day in office, those eagerly awaiting the move were elated.
“I was so happy, so happy,” said Safieh Mohammadi, a US green card holder who lives in Houston and has been separated for five years from her Iranian husband, Bahram, who is currently in Canada. “I started to really do something since I heard that my husband was coming. So I went shopping, got a blanket for my bed. I wanted to do something, you know, because I thought he would come. “
But Biden’s reversal of one of Trump’s signature actions did not result in a flurry of meetings at the airport or any rapid change in his visa application. Instead, like almost every family affected by the ban, his case is stuck in limbo. Her case is pending and she has no idea when her family will be reunited.
“I have to take care of my son, go to work, go to school and manage everything as a single mother,” she said. “I am not a single mother. So it’s very difficult. I just want my family back. That’s it. We came here legally and my husband wants to come legally. “
Mohammadi is just one of thousands of people across America who still live separated from their loved ones because of what has been widely dubbed the former president’s “Muslim ban”. Her sister Massy, a US citizen, has been separated from her adult children for years.
Trump’s executive order in 2017 sparked massive protests at airports and major cities across the country. Several iterations of the ban were challenged through the legal system and overturned in the courts, but a version was finally upheld by the Supreme Court in 2018. Different countries were added to the list, with what became known as Presidential Proclamations 9645 and 9983 of the longest ban part of immigration comes from 13 countries: Myanmar, Eritrea, Iran, Kyrgyzstan, Libya, Nigeria, North Korea, Somalia, Sudan, Syria, Tanzania, Venezuela and Yemen.
Last September, more than 40,000 applications were denied due to the prohibitions, according to State Department figures. But that number does not include people with pending applications or the unknown number of people from those countries who have never applied for fear of rejection.
These cases are included in what has become a huge backlog of immigrant visas that has increased significantly over the past year, in part thanks to coronavirus travel and restrictions on social distance, closings and adjustments at embassies and consulates abroad.
As of January 2020, some 75,000 immigrant visa cases were pending at the National Visa Center ready for interviews, but in February 2021, there were 473,000 cases, Assistant Deputy Undersecretary for Visa Services Julie Stufft announced at a meeting in earlier this month. This number does not even include cases where candidates have not yet been interviewed or where individuals are still gathering the necessary documents.
A State Department official cited the decline in revenue due to coronavirus as the reason for the increase in the visa portfolio, telling NBC News in a statement: “The Bureau of Consular Affairs relies primarily on revenue from visa and passport fees to finance our operations. Dramatic reductions in fee revenues due to the pandemic will have continued effects on our staff and resources available for several years. “
Contributing to the buildup was also Trump’s freeze on green cards issued during last year’s pandemic with the aim of protecting the U.S. labor market. Biden resumed its broadcast in February.
There is no deadline for resolving these cases, only increasing anxiety among people who have been separated for years.
For Mosed Mohamed and his son, American citizens who live in the California Bay Area, every day without an intact family has been difficult. His Yemeni wife lives in Cairo, separated from them as they face various health problems.
Although Biden rescinded the bans offered some hope, and Mosed recently received an email from the embassy to resend his wife’s paperwork, he describes the waiting game as brutal, “running through a tunnel in all the darkness, there is no end . “
“We are not asking for anything more – just to be together with the family, a single family, that’s it,” he said. “Just seeing your kids, in front of your eyes, you know, it’s difficult. I mean, we work hard to get to America, to live the dream, but not for me or just for my son. I need my wife to be there, because without her, I mean, the family is not there, it is nothing. “
Mohamed’s immigration lawyer, Lina Baroudi, who represents a series of cases related to the travel ban, said he is his only client who has received a recent update.
“What I am seeing is a generalized tragedy,” she said. “I don’t just want to frame this as a sad situation because it is more than that, it is irritating. Because this is something that can be changed by the US government, and they need to take responsibility and be accountable. … I have all kinds of cases, you know, spouses trying to get together with their spouses, with their children. I have some cases of American citizen parents who requested their children. Your adult children are basically in limbo waiting to come here. “
Safieh Mohammadi even wrote a personal letter to Biden asking him for help to speed up the case. “I know he is busy with Covid and everything in the country, but I asked him if it is possible to do something for us,” she said.
His immigration lawyer, Mana Yegani, considered the situation to be heartbreaking because “America is a place where we are proud of family unity and we can see that families separated in this way really affect people.”
“If Trump’s travel ban was not enforced, Bahram would be in the United States now with a green card,” she said. “Your case was basically on the verge of obtaining a visa when the travel ban was signed, which delayed your case for years. And now, unfortunately, it has fallen into the backlog of the system. “