Speaker, I rise today to call attention to a 12-year-
old girl Emon Ali, who is stuck in Djibouti. Emon and her father, Ahmed
Ali, who is an American citizen, are in Djibouti because of President
Trump's flawed executive order to ban travel to the United States. The Ali family is like many immigrant families throughout our
country, including my own, who came to the United States in hopes of
achieving the American Dream. As Americans, we know that the Statute of Liberty is a symbol of
freedom and new beginnings for immigrants past and present, and it is a
symbol around the entire world for the values that America holds. Since the founding of our country, immigrants from all over the world
have been coming to the United States to make a better life for
themselves and their families, or to escape persecution. Mr. Ali and his wife immigrated to the United States and earned their
U.S. citizenships in hopes of achieving that American Dream. They had been making a living in my district and are supporting their
two daughters in Los Banos, California. But they have also been living
in sadness and heartbreak because their 12-year-old daughter, Emon, was
born in Yemen before the civil war. For 6 years, the Ali family has been working through the appropriate
channels to get their daughter a visa so she can gain U.S. citizenship
and be reunited with her family legally. On January 26, after years of going through a thorough vetting
process, Emon finally received her immigrant visa--after 6 years. You
could call that extreme vetting. One day later, on the 27th, President Trump turned the Ali family's
and hundreds of other families' lives upside down by signing an
executive order to implement a travel ban to prohibit refugees and
others from coming to the United States. That is not the American way. Hours after this executive order was signed, Emon and her father went
to the airport in Djibouti, passed through security, and, when boarding
the plane, Emon was told by the airline that she could not board
because of the recently signed executive order. The immigrant visa issued to Emon would have given her status as a
lawful permanent resident upon entering the U.S. And since she is 12
years old and both of her parents are U.S. citizens, Emon would have
immediately been eligible to file for U.S. citizenship. President Trump's executive order is preventing this legal process
from taking place and is putting Emon and her father in harm's way
while they wait in Djibouti. In the past 48 hours, the Trump administration has been defending
this executive order, saying it is not a travel ban or a ban on
refugees. So I would like to ask the President: How is this executive
order not a ban on refugees or individuals who have been legally
approved to enter the United States? It certainly is a ban for Emon. And how is keeping this 12-year-old girl out of the United States from
joining her family making America safer?
Keywords matched
visa immigrants immigrated immigrant refugees