Several US-bound migrants prevented from boarding plane to New York
Posted January 28, 2017 9:23 am.
Last Updated January 28, 2017 1:01 pm.
This article is more than 5 years old.
NEW YORK – Cairo airport officials say seven US-bound migrants – six from Iraq and one from Yemen – have been prevented from boarding an EgyptAir flight to New York’s JFK airport.
The officials said the action Saturday by the airport was the first since President Donald Trump imposed a three-month ban on refugees from seven Muslim-majority countries: Iraq, Syria, Iran, Sudan, Libya, Somalia and Yemen.
The officials said the seven migrants, escorted by officials from the UN refugee agency, were stopped from boarding the plane after authorities at Cairo airport contacted their counterparts in JFK airport.
The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to brief the media.
France and Germany formed a united front Saturday in the face of Trump’s halt in the US refugee program, with the German foreign minister noting that loving thy neighbour forms part of America’s Christian traditions.
After meeting Saturday, the foreign ministers of both nations, Jean-Marc Ayrault and Germany’s Sigmar Gabriel, said they want to meet with Rex Tillerson, Trump’s nominee for secretary of state who is still awaiting confirmation.
Ayrault said Trump’s order on Friday that bars all refugees from entering the United States for four months – and those from war-ravaged Syria indefinitely – “can only worry us.”
“We have signed international obligations, so welcoming refugees fleeing war and oppression forms part of our duties,” the French minister said.
“There are many other issues that worry us,” he added. “That is why Sigmar and I also discussed what we are going to do. When our colleague, Tillerson, is officially appointed, we will both contact him.”
Gabriel – on his first trip abroad since his appointment Friday – said offering refuge to the persecuted and those fleeing death are western values that Europe and the United States share.
“Love thy neighbour is part of this tradition, the act of helping others,” he said. “This unites us, we Westerners. And I think that this remains a common foundation that we share with the United States, one we aim to promote.”
Trump declared the ban necessary to prevent “radical Islamic terrorists” from entering the United States.
The order immediately suspended a program that last year resettled to the US roughly 85,000 people displaced by war, political oppression, hunger and religious prejudice.
