Updated: Chicago Doctor Barred From Returning To U.S. Sues Over Trump's Immigration Ban
By Stephen Gossett in News on Feb 1, 2017 6:31PM
Update, 4:30 p.m.:
Both Al Homssi and the Iranian man, who filed a separate suit, will reportedly be allowed entry to the United States. The cases were scheduled to go before a judge on Wednesday, but authorities admitted that both men should have been allowed to board their respective flights.
Original:
A local doctor who has been stranded in the United Arab Emirates since the weekend is the latest to file suit in Chicago over Donald Trump’s immigration-ban executive order.
Dr. Amer Al Homssi, 24, a resident of internal medicine at Advocate Christ Medical Center in Oak Lawn and visitor-visa holder, traveled to the UAE for his wedding, on Jan. 23. He was prevented by U.S. security from boarding his flight from Abu Dhabi International Airport to O’Hare International Airport, the lawsuit reportedly alleges. Al Homssi is a citizen of both UAE and Syria.
The suit names Trump and both Department of Homeland Security and Customs and Border Protection—along with each agency’s head—as defendants. It claims that the plaintiff is “collateral damage in President Trump's ill-planned and discriminatory executive order."
"Classic insanity. I mean, it's just so ignorant and stupid. I don't understand it. I'm just embarrassed that my country would do something like that," Thomas Durkin, Al Homssi's attorney, told ABC7.
American security cancelled Al Homssi’s visa, Durkin told reporters, and he may have to return to Syria, where he reportedly has not lived since the age of 17.
“He could end up back in Damascus, where he’s never lived, and which is a war zone. It’s an insane Catch-22,” Durkin told CBS.
Donald Trump’s executive order suspended refugees from Syria and temporarily bars travel to the US for citizens from seven Muslim-majority countries: Iran, Iraq, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria and Yemen. Trump’s order caused widespread chaos and prompted large-scale protests over the weekend at airports, including O’Hare.
Al Homssi is the second person to file suit in Chicago over Trump’s order. A legal permanent resident of the United States and an Iranian citizen sued as John Doe after he was barred from a flight to Chicago, where he hoped to be for the birth of his grandchild.