2 Immigrants Still Detained At JFK, 2 Deported Under Trump's Ban, Attorneys Say (UPDATES)

JOHN F. KENNEDY INTERNATIONAL AIRPORT, NY — Approximately 45 travelers from the seven Muslim countries listed on President Donald Trump's Friday immigration ban were detained at JFK Airport on Saturday and Sunday, including two who were deported, legal aid workers said.

By Monday morning, all the detainees had been released, according to the group of volunteer attorneys working out of the Terminal 4 arrivals hall.

However, they said they got word Monday afternoon that two additional immigrants — one of them from Iraq — had been detained by Customs and Border Protection officers. "We will continue to update the press as we learn more," the attorneys said in a joint statement around 2:30 p.m. Monday.

See also: Thousands Protest Muslim Ban Sunday In Battery Park

Two women — one from Iran and one from Sudan — were deported from JFK under Trump's ban, in the hours before a Brooklyn federal judge temporarily overrode the ban and halted all deportations, attorneys said.

Neither Customs and Border Protection (CBP) nor Department of Homeland Security (DHS) officials have responded to repeated requests for comment on how many travelers had been detained at JFK over the weekend, and why.

However, DHS told ABC News and NBC News that as of Monday morning, there were zero people detained at airports across the U.S.

Records of people detained under Trump's ban were being constantly updated Monday by a team of dozens of lawyers handling the immigrants' cases from a makeshift legal help center in Terminal 4.

"The number of overall detained persons has been going down, we believe, because individuals from the affected countries of origin are either not being allowed on their respective flights or are choosing to cancel their travel plans to the U.S in fear of detention," the lawyers said in a joint statement Monday morning.

By around 6 p.m. Sunday night, there were still anywhere from six to 20 travelers detained, according to a growing cadre of volunteer attorneys gathered in the Terminal 4 arrivals hall at JFK. Without clear information from federal officials, the attorneys were forced to track cases based on reports from detainees' families and friends.

Ever since this detention fiasco began Saturday morning, the feds have refused to release the names or tallies of people held at JFK — making it almost impossible for politicians, attorneys and reporters to come up with an accurate count.

The detained immigrants have, however, have been allowed to contact their family members — many of whom have then reached out to legal aid organizations and elected officials for help.

Congressman Hakeem Jeffries consulted with dozens of volunteer attorneys in the Central Diner seating area at Terminal 4 on Sunday afternoon, trying to grasp the magnitude of the problem.

"There's a lot of fluidity to the situation," the congressman said.

Jeffries (pictured below, far right) said around 5 p.m. Sunday that he estimated, based on conversations with attorneys and families of detainees, that as many as 10 immigrants were still being held at JFK — almost a full day after a Brooklyn federal judge ruled that anyone whose flight took off before Trump signed his executive order could not be ordered to their home countries.

However, that estimate was still fluctuating wildly by Sunday night, as attorneys spoke to families who said their relatives were still detained.

A U.S. citizen named Monica had been waiting anxiously in Terminal 1 late Sunday night for more than three hours, she said, while her husband — an Iranian citizen with a green card who has lived in the U.S. for seven years — was interrogated by Customs. The couple had been passing through JFK Sunday on a return trip from their vacation in Morocco, Monica said, when her husband was detained.

"In Morocco, I don't think they were aware this was going on," she said.

Of the two women deported from NYC on Saturday, one was identified as Suha Abushamma, a 26-year-old Sudanese citizen raised in Saudi Arabia. She's currently in residence at the prestigious Cleveland Clinic in Ohio, and holds an H-1B visa for workers in “specialty occupations," according to ProPublica.

Abushamma's flight back to Saudi Arabia reportedly took off minutes before a Brooklyn judge halted Trump's ban Saturday night. She said she begged Customs and Border Protection officers to delay her flight until the judge's decision came down, but that her request was denied.

Attorneys requested that the other woman deported from JFK not be identified in the press. However, they did say she's an Iranian citizen who was flown back to Switzerland, and is currently stuck in Geneva.

Since Saturday morning, signs with phrases like, "LAWYER OR TRANSLATOR?" and "LEGAL ADVOCACY" have been propped among the condiments and napkin holders on tables outside the Central Diner.

Trump's executive order Friday banned anyone from Iraq, Libya, Syria, Somalia, Iran, Yemen or Sudan from entering the U.S., regardless of their legal status as a refugee, visa holder or green-card holder.

One by one Saturday and Sunday, the JFK detainees were freed.

Sahar, a Stony Brook University student who waited for her Iranian parents in the airport for nearly 30 hours — and hadn't seen them for three years before that — was finally reunited with her mom and dad around 3:40 p.m. Sunday.

Sahar, 32, burst into tears of joy as she embraced her father. "Thank you to all the lawyers," she said, waving to a group of volunteer attorneys as she walked her parents out of Terminal 4.

Around an hour later, a U.S. Army soldier — who did not wish to give his name, due to his active-duty status — welcomed his elderly Iraqi mother to America at Terminal 4. She, too, had been detained for 36 hours. (Read her story here.)

Rep. Jeffries said the Iraqi woman described being handcuffed and "treated disrespectfully" by Customs officers while in detention. Jeffries said that while the woman's son was finally "at peace as it relates to seeing his mom" Sunday night, he was "disturbed" about how she had apparently been treated in U.S. custody.

"Others have indicated they've been heckled," too, Jeffries said. This was all very preliminary information, he stressed, and would necessitate "a full and independent investigation."

In a moment that perfectly captured the disorder surrounding the closed-door Customs and Border Protection operation at JFK, a family of four detained Iraqis — of whom no attorney had been previously aware — was released from the annals of Terminal 1 into the cold NYC night in the wee hours Sunday, not sure where they would go from there. (Their trip to JFK had just been a connecting flight.) The family told an AP reporter who happened to be standing nearby that they'd come from a room full of many others in their same situation.

This is a developing story. Refresh the page for updates.

Pictured at top: Family members of immigrants detained at JFK wait for word on their relatives Saturday night. Photo by Simone Wilson