Disabled Yemeni Child, Cited in Supreme Court Review of Travel Ban, Gains Entry to U.S.
A disabled Yemeni girl whose exclusion from the U.S.
was questioned by Supreme Court justices reviewing the Trump administration's travel ban is expected to arrive in New York Saturday for resettlement.
After denying her application in January, the U.S.
Embassy in Djibouti reversed course and issued visas Wednesday allowing 10-year-old Shaema Alomari and her family to immigrate to the U.S., her father, Nageeb Alomari, said in a telephone interview.
Shaema was born with cerebral palsy, a disorder that leaves her unable to walk, talk or feed herself, Mr Alomari said.
"When she is in pain, she just cries and can't tell what is wrong with her," he said.
"She cannot take care of herself.
Her mother cleans her, changes her clothes and does all things Shaema needs.
I help my wife as much as I can," said Mr Alomari, who is a naturalized U.S.
citizen.
Another of his three daughters also holds U.S.
citizenship, while his wife, Asma, and other two children do not.
The travel ban, signed by President Donald Trump in September after courts blocked two previous versions, currently bars entry by citizens of five Muslim-majority nations—Iran, Libya, Somalia, Syria and Yemen—as well as North Koreans and some individuals associated with the government of Venezuela.
The Justice Department has said the ban is necessary because the affected governments have been unable to provide U.S.
authorities with adequate information about their nationals who may present security risks.
Challenges to the ban, led by the state of Hawaii and now being heard in the Supreme Court, contend it is based on religious prejudice, tracing back to Mr Trump's campaign pledge to effect "a total and complete shutdown of Muslims entering the United States.
Lower courts largely have agreed that the ban lacks adequate justification and violates immigration laws prohibiting discrimination based on nationality in issuing visas.
In defending the ban, the Justice Department has noted it provides exceptions for individuals with compelling reasons to enter the U.
, among them "an infant, a young child or adoptee [or] an individual needing urgent medical care.
At oral arguments before the Supreme Court in April, several justices suggested their view of the ban could hinge on whether the waiver provisions were faithfully implemented.
They focused on Shaema's case, which had been highlighted in a friend-of-the-court brief filed in March, where she was identified as "S.".
"How do you deal with the example that was brought up of the child with cerebral palsy?" Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg asked the administration's lawyer, Solicitor General Noel Francisco.
"Your Honor, the waiver is built to address those issues.
I am not familiar enough with the details of that case to tell you what happened in that particular case," Mr Francisco said.
A State Department spokesman declined to comment on Shaema's case, saying that privacy laws preclude discussing specific visa applications.
The spokesman referred to a department report indicating that as of May 15, "at least 655 applicants were cleared for waivers after a consular officer determined the applicants satisfied all criteria and completed all required processing.
The number of Yemeni applicants whose waivers were approved appears to have increased following the Supreme Court arguments, said Mosheer Fittahey, a translator and immigration consultant in Schenectady, N.Y., who is working with Mr Alomari and other Yemenis.
Himself a Yemeni immigrant, Mr Fittahey said that like Mr Alomari, many of those applicants previously had been denied without explanation or opportunity to appeal.
Mr Alomari, along with Mr Fittahey and lawyers who prepared the Supreme Court brief, described a long struggle with an opaque immigration bureaucracy to relocate his family from the inland Yemeni city of Ibb to the U.
, where prospects for Shaema were better.
Mr Alomari, 39, says his own education reached only primary school in Ibb, where documents list his occupation as laborer.
He first visited the U.S., where he has relatives, in the 1990s and has lived in California and Alabama, working restaurant and gas station jobs, according to immigration documents and people familiar with his case.
He periodically returned to Yemen and in 2000 was married there and planned to start a family.
He and his wife "kept waiting for a child and prayed to God that He gives me a child," Mr Alomari said, but to no avail.
"I visited many hospitals in Ibb and Sana'a, but all went in vain.
Therefore, I felt disappointed and got depressed.
Later, my wife and I decided to travel to Egypt hoping that I receive better treatment to help me get a child," he said.
"Doctors there decided that I should have varicocele surgery," a procedure to address male infertility.
"The operation was a big success and I got my child, Shaema," he said.
"Although I have two more daughters, Shaema is our first and last love.".
Caring for her, however, has been a major focus for the family.
"Shaema cannot study and cannot move," Mr Alomari said.
"We don't feel like we deal with a 10-year-old girl, her brain is like a baby brain.
She is just like a baby, she eats like a baby.".
Mr Alomari was granted U.S.
citizenship in 2010 and began to consider moving his family to America.
Shaema had been receiving treatment in Sana'a, the Yemeni capital, but Mr Alomari said things became increasingly difficult.
"Many doctors fled the country and there is a shortage of medicine," he said.The family learned Shaema needed surgery on one of her legs.
"We cannot do it in Yemen, and I was hoping I can do it in the U.S.," Mr Alomari said.
After filing immigration paperwork, the Alomaris waited years for a visa-interview appointment with U.S.
consular officers, which was scheduled for January 2018.
While they were waiting, Mr Trump was elected president and, within days of taking office in January 2017, began the contested effort to ban entry from Yemen and some other Muslim-majority countries.
Nevertheless, Mr Fittahey, who had been advising Mr Alomari, said he was certain Sahema's waiver would be granted.
After the January interview, however, a consular officer denied the application.
Mr Alomari received a form letter, where a box was checked by the line, "Taking into account the provisions of the Proclamation, a waiver will not be granted in your case.".
"Today's decision cannot be appealed," it added.
A place where authorities could indicate that the case remained under review wasn't marked.
A day before the Supreme Court arguments, an American vice consul in Djibouti sent an email to Mr Alomari saying that after the January interview, "I determined the very same day that your family's case clearly met the standard of hardship and necessity specified.
and I therefore recommended your family for a waiver.
"However, I could not inform you of this at the time of the interview because under department rules, the waiver still required review from my supervisor.
The waiver was approved," the email stated, and the visas would come after further processing.
The vice consul didn't explain why there was no check by the line on the form letter indicating that the review remained under way.
Mr Alomari, who is expected to arrive with his family at John F.
Kennedy International Airport Saturday afternoon, had his own explanation for the government's about-face on his family's application.
"Thanks to the Supreme Court that mentioned Shaema and helped me get the waiver," he said.
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