Monday, Jan 30, 2017

Dubai: Dubai residents who hold passports from some of the seven countries temporarily banned from travel to the US by President Donald Trump say the US order is causing real hardship for untold numbers of families across the Middle East and in the United States.

One Syrian national living in Dubai for nearly two decades told Gulf News that he was feeling sorry for a colleague who works in Dubai but maintains a family and home in the United States. The colleague’s wife just gave birth to a son and he cannot return home to see his newborn boy because of the travel ban.

“It is very disappointing that these policies are being issued in a way that are impacting millions around the world,” Samir told Gulf News on Monday. “Painting everyone with the same brush is wrong. It is harsh and unjust.”

Tanya, a British national who was born in Iran, raised in the UK and now lives in Abu Dhabi, said her family has been unnerved since the US presidential order was handed down on the weekend.

“You know at one point yesterday we thought we weren’t going to see my sister in the foreseeable future. She has a green card and lives in Chicago, while I am a British national with a valid US visa. My parents are British citizens in UK, but we were all born in Iran,” she told Gulf News. “As for the rest of my family, my cousin, another Iranian British citizen married to a Brit, was supposed to go to Florida with her family in February but it looks like she won’t be allowed to go. My uncle in Iran got his US immigration status approved just two weeks ago. God knows what his status is now.”

The UK Foreign Office confirmed with Gulf News on Monday that British nationals and dual citizens holding British passports are exempt from the US travel ban.

A Foreign Office spokesperson said if a person is a “UK national who happens to be travelling from one of those countries to the US, then the order does not apply to you — even if you were born in one of those countries.

“If you are a dual citizen of one of those countries travelling to the US from outside those countries, then the order does not apply to you,” the spokesperson said. “The only dual nationals who might have extra checks are those coming from one of the seven countries themselves — for example a UK-Libya dual national coming from Libya to the US.”

By Derek Baldwin Chief Reporter

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