California man stranded in Africa with daughter joins lawsuit against Trump

Ahmed Ali, the Yemen-born Los Banos, Calif., man stuck in east Africa with his 12-year-old daughter, joined a class action lawsuit late Friday seeking to overturn the portion of President Donald Trump’s executive order that is blocking Ali from bringing his daughter to the United States.

Ali, whose full name is Ahmed Mohammed Ahmed Ali, and his 12-year-old daughter, Eman Ali, say that Trump’s executive order banning immigration from seven countries “has shattered (their) lives and their prospects for being reunited as well as the lives and reunification prospects of the scores of similarly situated families and individuals,” the suit says.

The lawsuit was filed Friday in U.S. District Court for the Western District of Washington in Seattle, and published online by the American Immigration Council, which also filed the lawsuit along with the Northwest Immigrant Rights Project and the National Immigration Project.

The suit challenges the constitutionality of Trump’s order suspending travel visas and other immigration benefits to Iran, Iraq, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria and Yemen.

Ali and his daughter have been stuck in a hotel in east Africa since the ban went into effect Friday. The 39-year-old father of three has said he can’t send his daughter back to war-torn Yemen and he can’t leave Djibouti without her.

“He’s hoping the U.S. government does the right thing and he is eager to get this resolved and return to his family,” said Katy Lewis, an immigration attorney who has been working with the family for several years.

The suit also lists as plaintiffs two other children from Somalia and Syria with similar stories to Ali’s.

It claims hundreds of people were harmed in the wake of the executive order, which the suit describes as a “Muslim ban.”

The suit attributes a quote to Trump made during his presidential campaign in which he called for “a total and complete shutdown of Muslims entering the United States until our country’s representatives can figure out what is going on.”

It also cites Rudolph Giuliani, Trump’s advisor on cybersecurity, who they say “confirmed that the current executive order was intended to be a ‘legal’ ban on Muslims.”

The lawsuit further cites a New York Times story reporting Christian refugees are granted priority over Muslims in the immigration process from the targeted countries.

Along with Trump, the lawsuit names as defendants the heads of the State Department, Department of Homeland Security, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services and the director of national intelligence.

Ali, manager the Buy N Save Market in Los Banos, has been a U.S. citizen since 2010. He has worked for more than a decade to bring his family out of Yemen. His wife also is a citizen, his 14-year-old daughter was naturalized and his 2-year-old child was born in America.

Eman, however, was born in Yemen and the family has been struggling to secure the girl’s visa for seven years, which was issued just hours before Trump’s controversial order.

The White House press office did not respond to an email request for comment shortly after noon Monday, and also did not immediately respond to after-hours email Monday night seeking comment on the lawsuit.

This story was originally published January 31, 2017 at 11:18 AM with the headline "California man stranded in Africa with daughter joins lawsuit against Trump."