Sun, 26 Apr 2026

 

Yemenis stranded in Africa over travel ban arrive in LA. (Pictures)
 
By:
Thu, 9 Feb 2017   ||   Nigeria,
 

Majority of Yemen citizens stranded in Africa over the travel ban imposed on seven Muslim countries by the United States of America’s President, Donald Trump, arrived in Los Angeles (LA) yesterday.

Ceoafrica gathered that the group's flight landed at about 4:30 p.m. at Los Angeles International Airport after court orders allowed their travel from Djibouti by way of Turkey.

The travellers and their attorney came out of customs about 90 minutes later to little fanfare and few greeters other than a handful of reporters and TV news cameras.

The State Department had claimed their visas were invalidated as part of Trump's temporary ban on travel from Yemen and six other majority Muslim countries; the order also barred visitors from Iraq, Iran, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, for three months and Syrians indefinitely.

Migrants have begun arriving in the United States after a federal judge in Seattle put Trump's executive order on hold. Trump administration lawyers have appealed that decision and the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals is expected to rule later this week.

Attorney Julie Goldberg filed suit on behalf of 28 Yemeni citizens who had immigrant visas and got stranded in the tiny east African nation, as her clients were all children, parents and spouses of United States citizens, she said.

Like many of those caught off guard by the hastily announced travel ban, the Yemenis were in limbo. They couldn't return to Yemen because it is engulfed in civil war and they were running out of money in Djibouti, which is expensive.

"They can't go back to Yemen, they would be killed," Goldberg told journalists last week, adding that "It's super frustrating".

Yemen has been in conflict since 2014 and many Yemenis have fled by boat across the Bab al-Mandab strait to Djibouti or other Horn of Africa countries.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Tag(s):
 
 
Back to News