U.S. Soldier's Elderly Iraqi Mom Detained For 36 Hours At JFK Airport

JOHN F. KENNEDY INTERNATIONAL AIRPORT, NY — An American soldier on active duty in the U.S. Army spent 36 hours of his weekend waiting for his elderly mother to be released from Customs and Border Protection custody at JFK Airport, according to an attorney and congressman who helped reunite the soldier with his mom.

The soldier is stationed in South Carolina and had to fly to JFK on Saturday, where his mom was detained under Donald Trump's Muslim ban after a connecting flight, their volunteer attorney said.

Yet as the ordeal finally came to a close Sunday evening, the soldier, who would give his name only as Ali, told Patch: "There's just one thing I want to say."

"I'm grateful," Ali said.

"I'm grateful for the crowd, the community, the protesters," he said, adjusting a U.S. Army baseball cap as he pushed his mother's wheelchair into an elevator at Terminal 4.

Ali's mom was one of approximately 45 immigrants detained at JFK — and two deported — as a result of Trump's ban over the weekend, according to a group of attorneys tracking their cases. Many of them were held for upward of 30 hours, attorneys said, despite a federal court order barring their deportation. (Updates here.)

Congressman Hakeem Jeffries traveled to JFK on Sunday afternoon to ensure Ali's mom was released from federal custody. Jeffries said the Iraqi woman told him "she was not only detained for over 30 hours, but was handcuffed and treated disrespectfully."

And while Ali was "at peace as it relates to seeing his mom," Jeffries said, he was "disturbed" about her time 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.")

Customs and Border Protection officials did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Jeffries said both the soldier's mother and father had secured visas from the U.S. government to come stay with their son in South Carolina. But tragedy struck a couple weeks ago, Jeffries said, when the soldier's father died. So his grieving mother traveled to America alone — only to be detained by Customs officials and held in a room in the annals of Terminal 4 from around 4 a.m. Saturday to 4 p.m. Sunday.

Samaa Haridi, a volunteer attorney who spoke to the soldier's mom, said the Iraqi woman did have one positive memory from her 36 hours in custody.

At one point, "two women officers walked in the door" of the room where she and other female detainees were being held, Haridi said, "and apologized to the women for what they were being subjected to."

Before finally departing to South Carolina on Sunday night, Ali's mother left behind a parting gift for the dozens of lawyers working out of JFK's Terminal 4 arrivals hall over the weekend: a red, tin box of sweets from Baghdad.

"She wanted you all to have one," said the lawyer who delivered the tin.

Photos by Simone Wilson/Patch