Bed-Stuy Doctor Stuck In Sudan Indefinitely Under Trump Executive Order

BED-STUY, BROOKLYN — Colleagues are rallying for a resident at Bed-Stuy's hospital Interfaith Medical Center, Kamal Fadlalla, who is stuck in Sudan and cannot return to America due to President Donald Trump's executive order banning travel from seven Muslim-dominant countries. Fadlalla left the U.S. a week before Trump's inauguration and traveled more than two hours to the Sudan international airport last Saturday morning in the hopes of returning back to the U.S., he said. He was originally going to stay in Sudan with his parents through early February, but many people warned him of the ban and said it would be safer if he returned sooner. Unfortunately, it wasn't soon enough.

Fadlalla was about to board his flight back to Brooklyn when a voice from the loud speaker said he had to go to the counter, where an officer said he couldn't board the plane on orders from Emirates Airlines, he told ProPublica in a phone interview from Sudan. He waited four hours at the airport and then went back to his family's house — another car ride of over two hours.

His coworkers at Interfaith Medical Center held a demonstration in the hospital on Tuesday. It was run by a union he is part of, Committee of Interns and Residents.

One colleague, Dr. Mazin Khalid, held a sign that said, "I am taking care of your mom... but I can't go see mine." Khalid's mom also lives in Sudan, and he was planning to visit her in April, he told NY1. His plans changed after the executive order. He is a permanent resident, but he said he is "definitely not going out" because "things are rapidly changing." Any plans his family might have made to come visit him in America are put on hold, he said.

"This Dr. lives in my district in Crown Heights and serves at a hospital that I fought hard to save in my beloved BedStuy," Council Member Robert Cornegy, Jr. wrote in a Facebook post. "Congratulations President Trump for protecting us from life saving, tax paying, productive contributors to American society."

"Many of our resident physician colleagues made great sacrifices and moved to the United States to be of service to our patients and our communities," the residents union said in a statement against the travel ban. "Among our members are brilliant scientists, asylum-seekers, and refugees from environmental disasters and war. These are the faces of immigration in America, and they are saving lives every day."

"Simply put, lives will be put at risk by these actions," the statement said.

Interfaith's chief LaRay Brown told ProPublica that Bed-Stuy needs Fadlalla; he helps many underserved patients who are suffering from dire health issues.

"Individuals like Dr. Fadlalla are not the folks that I presume the president and others are wanting to keep the us safe from," Brown said. "These are folks who are contributing to the country and in particular to communities that my hospital services. Like other foreign medical students from generations past, they are trying to carry out the American dream, doing good for others and in that way also trying to do good for themselves and their families."

Fadlalla told ProPublica he's sad because his life is in America, and he's stressed that he'll fall behind in his residency if he is banned from the country for 90 days.

"Everything's there," he said. "My bank accounts are there. My house is there. My friends. I have research there. I have my patients. I have my whole life there."