An Iranian woman with a valid visa was detained at the Portland International Airport yesterday evening, spent the night in custody at a jail in The Dalles, and is scheduled to be sent back home early this afternoon, the ACLU of Oregon says.
"I'm in shock, how can they treat us like that?" said Laila Ahranjani to KATU last night after her sister, Alia Ghandi, was detained after getting off her flight at PDX. Her sister was just going to visit for a few weeks, she said. She reached out to the ACLU of Oregon. "Imagine you want to go visit a country, you get off the plane, you're excited to see your nieces after five, six years and they take her."
Mat dos Santos, ACLU of Oregon Legal Director, tells the Mercury that they've been given little to no information from the U.S. Customs and Border Patrol (CBP) about why Ghandi has been denied entry into the country.
"It's unclear why they're holding her, she should have been released,' he said. "She's here on a valid tourist's visa. We have gotten very little in terms of clarity from CBP, I don't know what grounds they're holding her. It's been very challenging to advocate on her behalf."
The civil rights group says that Ghandi spent last night at Northern Oregon Regional Correctional Facility in The Dalles (PDX doesn't have the ability to keep people overnight, they said), and that she's currently on her way back to the airport, forced to go on a 1 p.m. flight to Amsterdam.
President Donald Trump's executive order banning travel from six predominantly Muslim countries, including Iran, is currently on hold as it's challenged in the courts.
Portland's Resistance is calling for people to show up at the airport. Some are there right now.