PORTLAND, Maine (AP) - An Iraqi immigrant couple who arrived in Maine with two daughters days before citizens of seven nations were temporarily banned from entering the U.S. is awaiting word on their oldest daughter, who was slated to join them in Portland.
Labed Alalhanfy, his wife, Soso, and their 13- and 19-year-old daughters, arrived in the United States on Tuesday from Baghdad and reached Portland the next day.
They were awaiting the arrival of their oldest daughter, Bananh, 20, a student at the American University in Iraq who had planned to follow her parents and sisters within days when President Donald Trump blocked immigration from Iraq. Now they don’t know what will happen.
“She is now very anxious and scared,” Alalhanfy, who described his family as secular Muslims, said of Bananh.
Alalhanfy said his oldest daughter didn’t accompany her family to the U.S. because she needed more time to make the final arrangements. The family only told their closest relatives they were moving to the United States.
“The neighbors will start to notice. People will start questioning, especially because she is female. It is a critical situation,” Alalhanfy said Saturday in an interview with the Portland Press Herald (https://bit.ly/2k5RGhO).
The family is now living in Portland with Alalhanfy’s brother, Aqeel Mohialdeen, an Iraqi immigrant. He is the editor-publisher of Maine’s first Arabic-language newspaper, The Hanging Gardens of Babylon.
Please read our comment policy before commenting.