Travelers were denied access into the United States and detained at Sea-Tac Airport Saturday, hours after President Donald Trump signed an executive order banning certain groups — based on religion and nationality — from the country.
“We have a family here today, a citizen of the United States, the Donald Trump administration allowed her husband to get on a plane in Vienna, waiting to get into the arms of his wife, but didn’t let him go the six feet across this gate to embrace his wife,” said Washington Governor Jay Inslee. “What type of cruel attitude based on demagoguery and fear does that to people? To anybody?”
Inslee called Trump’s executive order unconstitutional, illegal, and “religious discrimination in its barest and obvious form.”
“The manifest and unjustifiable chaos and cruelty caused by President Trump’s executive order is now on full display here at Sea-Tac Airport,” Jay Inslee said Saturday.
Related: Seattle Mayor Murray defies Trump’s “authoritarian order”
On Friday, President Trump signed an executive order banning entry into the United States by residents of Iraq, Syria, Iran, Sudan, Libya, Somalia and Yemen. It includes refugees. It also orders that Christians and other religious minorities will be given priority over Muslims when vetting refugees.
Under the order, refugees are prevented from entering the country for 120 days while federal officials come up with vetting procedures to ensure they pose no threat. Syrian refugees are blocked indefinitely. Trump calls the measure part of extreme vetting to keep radical Islamic terrorists out of the country.
Shortly after Trump signed the order, Canada’s government went the other way saying it will still accept refugees and not discriminate based on religion.
Washington state elected officials held a press conference at Sea-Tac Saturday afternoon in the wake of several people being held at the airport, denied entry into the United States. Officials were clearly disturbed by what was happening. It is unknown exactly how many have been held back, but reports indicate as many as 13. Some detainees were flown out of the country on deportation orders at 5 p.m., the Seattle PI reports .
Sea-Tac is not the only airport affected. There are reports of similar situations around the country where refugees have been detained or turned away.
Governor Inslee and airport officials said that they were given no notice of Trump’s plans and were not able to prepare. The order was signed after planes were already in the air and headed to the United States. Of the airlines affected, British Airways, Delta, Eva Air, and Emirates had people on board who have been held.
“These people couldn’t run a two-car funeral,” Inslee said of Trump’s administration.
Inslee has called the White House to express his “profound disappointment.” He has also met with the state attorney general to pursue legal action, but notes that it will be difficult as the Trump administration will not inform the governor about the characteristics of the people detained in his own state.
“These aren’t just refugees,” Inslee said. “These are business people who might be in the technology sector, or physicians. They can’t leave the country now because they can’t get back in. Even though they are legally here in this country. This is damaging to the economy of my state. It is unacceptable.”
Lt. Governor Cyrus Habib said that he too worries for the economy of Washington state. He reports that Microsoft has at least 70 local employees who will be affected by this executive order. He noted that his family would have also been affected by the order. His parents escaped Iran in the ’70s, and his father had permanent residency until about 20 years ago while he worked at Boeing. But his father would be detained under Trump’s order, he said.
King County Executive Dow Constantine also commented on how the “cruel” executive order will affect the region’s economy, pointing out that major companies such as Boeing, Starbucks and Microsoft are international companies with an international workforce.
“These actions not only target those individuals, but these companies and their ability to compete on the world stage,” Constantine said. “It is not only cruel, it is not only grossly un-American, it is economic sabotage. This is a betrayal of who we are and what makes America truly great.”
Constantine didn’t just speak to the logical, economic aspects of Trump’s executive order at Sea-Tac.
“This is chilling,” Constantine said. “If you are frightened by this, if it somehow reminds you of a history we thought we put behind us, you are right to be frightened. The first week of this administration, it has done more damage to America’s prospects and its position in the world than any terrorist acting alone can hope to do.”
“Instead of being the hope of humanity, what this country has always held itself to be, we are turning our back on those who need us must – people feeling oppression and violence,” he said.
Inslee noted that he lives on Bainbridge Island where Japanese citizens and immigrants were first taken from their homes and forced into internment camps — also under an executive order. He knows such history well, and said it was repeating itself through President Trump.
“Let’s hope common sense and humanity is restored in this country in the next few hours,” Inslee said.
Seattle Mayor Ed Murray has also called upon the history of the Japanese interment camps that have since left an embarrassing scar on American history. On Wednesday, he defied another of Trump’s executive orders for immigration that targeted sanctuary cities like Seattle.
“On Wednesday, the authoritarian hand of an authoritarian government came down on cities,” Murray said. “Today, that same authoritarian hand, of that authoritarian government came down on immigrants and refuges throughout the world.
