Bed-Stuy Doctor Trapped In Sudan Under Trump 'Muslim Ban' Returns Home

BED-STUY, BROOKLYN — The Bed-Stuy doctor who was trapped in Sudan for more than a week because of President Donald Trump's "Muslim ban" returned to New York relieved on Monday after Washington state issued a temporary restraining order nationally on the ban.

Dr. Kamal Fadlalla was visiting his family in Sudan when Trump issued the executive order barring entrance to the U.S. from Sudan and six other predominantly Muslim countries. The doctor at Interfaith Medical Center in Bed-Stuy had cut his vacation short after his co-workers warned him about the ban, he said. While at the Khartoum airport in Sudan about to travel home on Jan. 29, officials told Fadlalla he couldn't board the plane.

As soon as Fadlalla heard about the temporary restraining order issued by Washington state last Friday, he booked a flight to NYC, he told ABC News. He was embraced by his family, friends and colleagues at JFK International Airport on Monday.

"I'm glad justice won," he told the New York Times. "I need to get back to my work."

Fadlalla is a second-year resident in internal medicine at the Bed-Stuy hospital. His co-workers held a protest demanding his return from Sudan last week, saying his patients needed him. The doctor is in America on an H-1B visa for special occupations.

Fadlalla is one of 2,000 refugees nationally who were expected to be rebooked on flights to the U.S. between Monday and Feb. 17, Leonard Doyle, a spokesman for the International Organization for Migration, an intergovernmental agency that works in refugee resettlement, told the New York Times.

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