The grandparents and uncle of four-month-old Fatemah Taghizadeh have been eagerly awaiting her arrival, planning for open heart surgery at Oregon Health & Science University. Her uncle and grandparents live in Portland for 13 years and arranged for Fatemah and her parents to travel to Oregon for the life-saving heart surgery. After leaving Iran, they were stopped in Dubai for their connecting flight to the states and were told to turn back:
"For getting the visa, they ask for lot of the paperwork. You have to do many things, you know. For three weeks we working for every single thing they wanted," said Taghizadeh.
But then, when they landed in Dubai Saturday, they heard about President Trump's executive order and were told they couldn't finish their trip.
"All the paper, everything was ready, and just in the last minute they canceled everything," Taghizadeh said.
The family says baby Fatemah urgently needs the surgery and they do not know what to do:
"It's like a nightmare. You know, in the one night everything changes. Now you don't know what you're going to do," said Taghizadeh.
And while Taghizadeh said he was willing to give President Trump a chance, now he's afraid for his niece's future, as well as his own.
"Why we came to U.S., we came here for freedom. For a better life. I'm feeling no where is safe," Taghizadeh said.
Fatemah isn’t the only child who may die as a result of this un-constitutional ban targeting Muslims. From the Washington Post:
They were deemed the most vulnerable cases: refugees suffering from medical conditions so severe that normally their journeys to the United States would be expedited.
One is a 9-year-old Somali child in Ethiopia with a congenital heart disease that cannot be treated in a refugee camp. Another is a 1-year-old Sudanese boy with cancer. A third is a Somali boy with a severe intestinal disorder living in a camp that doesn’t even have the colostomy bags he needs.
After President Trump’s executive order last week, their resettlement in America was put on hold. Now, the organization responsible for processing refugees in sub-Saharan Africa, Church World Service, says that order could be their death sentence.
And an 18-month-old boy who suffered severe burns in a refugee camp is separated from his family, who are desperately trying to get to the United States for his surgery next week:
After preliminary surgery, his dad returned to their war-ravaged country to be with his wife as she gave birth to Dilbreen’s little brother. It was November 8, an hour before Donald Trump won the election. They named the baby “Trump.”
Dilbreen was set for a second surgery this month. His family was set to stay at the Peace House in Ipswich. Then they got the news their visas were suddenly revoked.
“So they are stranded in Iraq,” Schuchardt said. “The child is here. The need for surgery is pressing.”
The cruelty is astounding.