Oscar-nominated Iranian director is blocked from attending awards ceremony, seven U.S.-bound migrants are stopped in Cairo and 12 refugees are held in JFK as Trump's immigration ban kicks in
- Iranian director Asghar Farhadi may not be allowed to attend Oscars next month
- Farhadi is nominated in best foreign film category for his movie The Salesman
- His native Iran is one of seven countries on Trump's tough new immigration bans
- Seven migrants stopped from boarding Cairo flight to New York on Saturday
- Twelve refugees were also detained at New York's JFK airport on Friday night
- It came just hours after Trump signed an executive order with tough new bans
- One Iraqi detained at JFK for 14 hours was released on Saturday afternoon
- The 53-year-old had worked for the U.S. army in Iraq for 10 years as a translator
- Dutch airline KLM had to turn away seven would-be passengers given new rules
- People are protesting outside JFK airport in anger over those being detained
An Iranian director nominated for an Oscar won't be able to attend the Hollywood award ceremony after Donald Trump signed off on his tough new immigration bans.
Asghar Farhadi is nominated in the best foreign film category for his movie The Salesman but there are fears he may now not be able to attend next month's Academy Awards.
His native Iran, which is where The Salesman was filmed, is one of seven countries listed in Trump's executive order that has placed a 90-day pause on visas and immigration to the U.S.
The fallout from Trump's immigration crackdown grew on Saturday as a number of non-American citizens realized they were now barred from the country where they were studying or had lived, perhaps for years.
It comes as seven refugees bound for the U.S. were stopped from boarding a plane in Cairo on Saturday and 12 migrants were detained in New York overnight because they arrived just after the executive order was signed.
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Award-winning Iranian director Asghar Farhadi, who is nominated for an Oscar for his film The Salesman, won't be able to attend after Donald Trump introduced tough new immigration bans
Trita Parsi, president of the National Iranian American Council, tweeted on Saturday morning that Farhadi would be banned from attending the Oscars in what has become yet another fallout from Trump's immigration bans.
'Iran's Asghar Farhadi won't be let into the US to attend Oscar's. He's nominated for best foreign language film... #MuslimBan,' he wrote.
Panic broke out after Department of Homeland Security issued a directive at 4.30pm on Friday enforcing Trump's executive order to close down the borders to refugees and visa holders from a list of banned Muslim-majority countries.
In addition to Iran, the other countries on Trump's blacklist are Iraq, Syria, Sudan, Libya, Yemen and Somalia.
An Iranian-born actress who stars in Farhadi's The Salesman vowed to boycott the Oscars over Trump's immigration bans.
Taraneh Alidoosti, the 33-year-old known as the Natalie Portman of Iran, took to Twitter with a message for fans on Thursday.
'Trump's visa ban for Iranians is racist. Whether this will include a cultural event or not, I won't attend the #AcademyAwards 2017 in protest,' she tweeted.
Farhadi won an Oscar in 2012 for his film A Separation.
Asghar Farhadi is nominated in the best foreign film category for his film The Salesman, which was filmed in his native Iran
Trita Parsi, president of the National Iranian American Council, tweeted on Saturday morning that Farhadi would be banned
President Donald Trump signed an executive order on Friday afternoon providing for 'extreme vetting' of immigrants and visa holders
The visa ban sparked fear for some refugees who were already on their way to the U.S. when the order came into effect and were detained on arrival.
Hameed Khalid Darweesh, one of the Iraqi refugees who was detained for 14 hours at New York, was released on Saturday afternoon.
The 53-year-old had arrived in America on a flight from Istanbul on Friday night, just hours after Trump implemented the immigration ban.
He had worked for the U.S. government in Iraq for 10 years as a translator, engineer and contractor and had a valid special immigration visa to relocate to America.
Darweesh pumped his fist in the air outside the airport following his release, as a crowd of supporters cheered him on.
'First of all I want to thank the people that take care of me and support me. This is the humility, this is the soul of America,' he told a crowd gathered outside the airport.
'This is what pushed me to move - leave my country and come here. America is the land of freedom… America is the greatest nation, the greatest people in the world.'
Asked what he thought of Trump he said: 'I don't know. He's a president, I'm a normal person.'
He was travelling with his wife and three children at the time but they were not detained. They were heading to Charlotte, North Carolina to start their new life in America.
Protesters assemble at JFK airport on Saturday to protest Trump's arriving refugee ban
Protesters gathered outside New York JFK's airport on Saturday after 12 refugees were detained trying to enter the United States under Trump's immigration ban
The Iranian star of Oscar-nominated film The Salesman has already said she is boycotting the Oscars in protest at President Donald Trump's 'racist' ban on Muslim immigrants
Lawyers for Darweesh and another Iraqi Haider Sameer Abdulkhaleq Alshawi, who is still detained at JFK, filed a lawsuit on Saturday morning in a bid to have them released.
The two men were on separate flights when immigration officials stopped them on Friday night and took their passports when they landed in New York.
Alshawi - who was approved for a visa on January 11 - was flying to America to join his wife and son in Texas.
Eleven other refugees are still being held at JFK airport. Protesters gathered outside the airport on Saturday in anger over those being held in detention.
Cairo airport officials said seven U.S.-bound migrants - six from Iraq and one from Yemen - were prevented from boarding an EgyptAir flight to New York's JFK airport.
The officials said the seven migrants, escorted by officials from the U.N. refugee agency, were stopped from boarding the plane on Saturday after authorities at Cairo airport contacted their counterparts in JFK airport.
The action at Cairo airport was the first there since Trump imposed the three-month ban on refugees.
Dutch airline KLM says it had to turn away seven would-be passengers because they would no longer have been accepted into the United States.
'We would love to bring them there. That's not the problem. It's just that this is what the U.S. sprang on the rest of the world - that these people are no longer welcome,' Manel Vrijenhoek, at KLM's press office, said.
She said the seven, who were from the seven blacklisted countries, were due to fly with KLM from different airports around the world.
It is not clear how many refugees or visa holders are already being detained across the country.
Hameed Khalid Darweesh, who had worked as a interpreter with the U.S. Army in Iraq, was released from detention on Saturday. He was detained after flying into New York on Friday night
The Arab-American Anti-Discrimination Committee said there was chaos at airports and in the air following Trump's ban with the organization already receiving calls for help from green card and other visa holders after being refused admission.
'Visas being denied immediately. Chaos at airports and in the air. #MuslimBan will apply to green card holders attempting to return tonight,' the ADC's Abed Ayoub tweeted on Friday night.
Trump's ban puts a 90-day pause on visas and immigration from seven countries including Iraq, Syria, Sudan, Iran, Libya, Yemen and Somalia.
The order also puts a 120-day ban on all refugee entries into the country and declares that refugees from Syria are not welcome until further notice.
After that period of time, refugees will be accepted only from countries that the State and Homeland Security Departments decide are safe to work with.
It comes as Iran's foreign ministry suggested the country would limit issuing visas to American tourists in retaliation for Trump's suspension of immigration and visas.
The official IRNA news agency carried a statement by the Iranian foreign ministry on Saturday that said Iran will resort to 'counteraction' to Trump's executive order.
'Iran, to defend the dignity of the great Iranian nation, will implement the principle of reciprocity until the removal of the insulting restriction against Iranian nationals,' the statement read.
'It will apply corresponding legal, consular and political actions.'
The two countries have had no diplomatic relations since 1979 when militants stormed the U.S. embassy.
Google urged its staff travelling overseas on Friday to immediately return to the U.S. if they would be affected by the order.
CEO Sundar Pichai issued a memo slamming Trump's order saying 100 employees were affected, Bloomberg reports.
The tech company feared its employees, even though they have valid visas, would be stopped from returning to the country.
Facebook's Mark Zuckerberg hit out at Trump condemning his anti-immigration bans.
'The United States is a nation of immigrants, and we should be proud of that,' Zuckerberg said.
Emotional: Muslim travelers were nervous as they arrived in JFK today as chaos was apparent over the enforcement of Trump's immigration executive order
Permitted: Tourists were permitted from Dubai which is not a country on Trump's anti-terror list
Uncertainty: Many have been left unsure of where they stand in relation to the new rules which denies entry even to Green Card holder from the seven banned states
It follows reports that Muslim-majority countries with ties to Trump's business empire have been excluded from the order
Google CEO Sundar Pichai urged its staff travelling overseas on Friday to immediately return to the U.S. if they would be affected. Zuckerberg also penned a post opposing the ban
It follows reports that Muslim-majority countries with ties to Trump's business empire have been excluded from the order, Bloomberg reports.
Statistics show Trump doesn't have any business relations with the seven black-listed countries, but does with Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Egypt and Turkey.
Trump's order declares that U.S. policy is 'to protect its citizens from foreign nationals who intend to commit terrorist attacks in the United States; and to prevent the admission of foreign nationals who intend to exploit United States immigration laws for malevolent purposes.'
It also gives Homeland Security 60 days to begin providing the president with the names of other countries to add to the list.
The nation will limit the total refugee resettlement numbers to 50,000 per year, according to the order.
Trump's executive order declares that the U.S. will 'prioritize refugee claims made by individuals on the basis of religious-based persecution.' But that only applies when 'the religion of the individual is a minority religion in the individual's country of nationality.'
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