4 refugees due to arrive in the Las Vegas Valley had flights canceled following Trump’s executive order

Four refugees approved for resettlement and due to arrive in the Las Vegas Valley in the next two weeks have had their flights canceled following President Donald Trump’s executive order freezing the U.S. Refugee Admissions Program, a representative of their sponsor organization said Monday.

Statewide refugee coordinator Carissa Lopez-Ramirez said nine refugees from six countries were slated to arrive within the next two weeks to begin their lives anew in the Silver State, but two from Iraq, one from Iran and one from El Salvador did not board their respective flights.

“We received the formal cancellations this morning,” Lopez-Ramirez said, adding that plans for the arrival of the other five refugees are so far continuing as normal.

The nine refugees would have brought the total resettled in Southern Nevada to 853 for the first four months of fiscal 2017. The totals for fiscal years 2015 and 2016, respectively, were 2,214 and 3,068. This year’s tally was on track to exceed that of previous years.

Under directives from the Obama administration, the total number of refugees that could have entered the United States in fiscal 2017 was set at 110,000. The executive order signed by Trump reduced that number to 50,000.

The United States has already determined that refugees fear persecution, said UNLV law professor Michael Kagan.

“That’s why they were granted refugee resettlement,” he said. “Nevertheless, they are being denied entry.”

Trump’s executive order also barred entry of all refugees for 120 days, Syrian refugees indefinitely and citizens of Syria, Sudan, Iran, Iraq, Libya, Yemen, and Somalia for 90 says. Since then, the Trump administration has stepped back and said legal U.S. residents from those seven countries, or green card holders, could enter the United States.

The ban, however, still includes “a number of categories other than permanent residents,” Kagan said. “That would mean temporary workers, like H-1B visas. That would mean student visas. It means tourists. It means people coming for artistic purposes, and it means refugees.”

Protesters throughout the United States and abroad, including more than 100 at McCarran International Airport on Sunday, demonstrated against the travel ban over the weekend. On Monday, activists and attorneys continued to stand vigil at McCarran’s international arrivals area.

Amy Rose, the legal director of the state branch of the American Civil Liberties Union, described Trump’s executive order as “unprecedented in the fact that not only is someone acting in such a blatantly unconstitutional manner, but they seem to be acting with such little care in carrying those unconstitutional orders out.”

No one has been “officially detained” at McCarran, Rose said, but “people are being held for unreasonable amounts of time.”

One of those people, according to immigration attorney Hardeep Sull, is an Iranian woman who was traveling back to Las Vegas from Iran over the weekend. The woman, who is a legal U.S. resident, was held for nearly four hours and questioned at McCarran Sunday night, Sull said.

Jacob Deaville, co-founder and treasurer of UNLV Campus Conservatives, defended the executive order.

“President Trump is taking steps to ensure the safety of our country,” he said. “The countries listed on this particular executive order have a high influence and susceptibility to terrorism. It is not simply a Muslim ban.”

Contact Lucy Hood at lhood@reviewjournal.com or 702 387-2904, Follow @lucyahood on Twitter.