On any given night, the atmosphere at New York’s John F. Kennedy Airport’s Terminal 4, one of the largest of the international arrivals halls, is chaotic. On Sunday night, it was atypically so. President Donald Trump’s abusive new immigration Executive Order, issued January 27, led to huge protests Saturday. A day later, the situation was still tense. On top of JFK’s ordinary bustle – waiting family members, hired taxi drivers holding up signs, public announcements, huckster drivers whispering their illegal pitches (“Taxi? Taxi?”) – a smaller crowd of protesters still stood chanting outside, as a surge of security federal and state law enforcement personnel rotated through the hall, including New York State Troopers in their archaic Stetson hats – all of whom were men.
At the center of Terminal 4 stands the Central Diner, and its circa 1950s lunch counter dovetailed with the Mad Men aesthetic of the troopers. Inside, a lone Reuters photojournalist sat eating eggs and grits, amid a few ragged travelers. Outside the diner, however, a more modern scene: An army of more than 40 immigration attorneys, interpreters, and volunteers were working on laptops and smartphones, preparing court filings challenging the detention of non-citizens detained inside the terminal’s pre-entry area. A media table provided live updates uploaded to social media.
At around 9:15 p.m., lawyers told me they had counted 52 persons detained since the orders went into effect, of which 30 had been released, and two deported, including an Iranian MBA student at SUNY Stonybrook, who was sent back to Geneva, and a Sudanese woman, reported to be a doctor resident at the prestigious Cleveland Clinic with an H-1B visa for workers in “specialty occupations.”
The numbers remained in flux through the evening. About 9:30 p.m., a New York congressman, Rep. Joseph Crowley, emerged from the secure area of the terminal and gave an impromptu media briefing, telling reporters that Department of Homeland Security officials had told him only six persons were still detained. Rumors about additional detentions at Terminal 1 were floated by journalists from waiting family members. I asked Crowley, noting his long work helping refugees in places like Burma, what he thought about the temporary ban on refugee resettlement from around the world – even places like Congo and Malaysia. “It’s ridiculous,” he said, noting the orders had placed “a terrible stain on the record of the United States in standing up for human rights around the world.”
The attorneys worked through the night, in shifts, issuing a statement at 7 a.m., indicating that 11 more had been released, leaving the number of detained less than 10 – and possibly only one.
On Monday, the attorneys remained on vigil outside Central Diner, but they now believe the front line of the battle about the new orders is overseas, at airports where people are being kept from boarding flights by airline officials or US security personnel working at airports overseas. The show of legal force, however, demonstrates a new resourcefulness from civil society in the US that stands in stark opposition to the retrogressive actions of the Trump administration in its first 10 days.
Update, Monday Jan 30
We have heard reports that as many as 9 individuals from Saudi Flight 021, which arrived at JFK Terminal 1 at 11:40am EST, are currently being held for questioning. Among those being reportedly held include one elderly individual and one child.
Update 2: On February 6, days after a US federal court placed a stay on President Trump's Executive Order, the Iranian SUNY Stonybrook MBA student named above was able to fly into JFK and was lawfully admitted to the United States.
We will continue to provide more information as it becomes available.
