President Biden Has Stopped the Muslim Ban - My Thoughts as an Immigration Lawyer

President Biden stopped the Muslim Ban yesterday. I have been wanting to put into words how I feel. I am happy, most definitely. At the same time, I feel a weird sense of unease. The Ban has defined my professional life for the last four years. I wrote an article regarding the Muslim Ban that received thousands of inquiries.

For four years, I have been working with families as they do everything right, go through all the checks and security protocols, and yet, they got stuck in limbo for years because of the Ban. Visa processes that would usually take about a year would take a minimum of two and half years. Many times, people had to wait for four years or more and every time they would try to follow-up, they would get the usual runaround. The only effective way to get an answer was to sue the government for unjustly delaying the case.

​We are not talking about distant uncle cases or second cousin removed cases. We are talking about spouses of U.S. citizens and tourist visas for parents to visit their first grandchild being born.

​I cannot tell you how many times I heard: “I am a U.S. citizen; don’t I have rights? Shouldn’t I be able to be with my wife?”

Killed me every time.

I think my unease comes from the fact that this Ban should never have been a thing. Let alone something that endured for four years and now to celebrate something stopping feels like the bare minimum. This is a step forward, but this is not an OK “normal.” We have a lot of work ahead. People from Muslim-majority countries are still subject to unreasonable delays.

Many are still separated. They are still hurting. I am not jumping for joy, only because I have to put my head down and get to the real work at hand and make sure that my clients and others are treated fairly in this process. Much like Bernie Sanders yesterday at the inauguration, I got things to do after this.
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​Najmeh Mahmoudjafari, Esq.
Najmeh is the Founder and Lead Immigration Attorney at ImmigraTrust Law, an immigration law practice in Orange County, California, representing individual and corporate clients in all 50 U.S. States and internationally. Najmeh can be reached at [email protected].

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