Abubakr Mohamed Hamid boarded a plane in Sudan on Feb. 21 — the same day he received his renewed visa. The flight back to the U.S. would be “very stressful.”
“I got on the flight and just hoped that nothing would change and that a new executive order would not be signed,” said Hamid, an engineering doctoral student at the University of Maryland, in an interview Wednesday.
Hamid got back to this university about two weeks ago, about a month into the spring semester and a few weeks after President Trump signed his initial travel ban that left Hamid stuck abroad after winter break. Hamid’s student visa had expired while he was home, and when he went to renew it, he was unable to, as U.S. embassies were no longer issuing visas to citizens of the seven Muslim-majority countries banned under Trump’s Jan. 27 executive order.
[Read more: A Sudanese UMD student is back in the U.S. after a federal judge blocked Trump’s travel ban]
“I had a lot of mixed feelings [about the ban],” Hamid said. “There was a lot of uncertainty about being able to travel back and continuing to pursue my career and my dreams.” A first-year doctoral student studying aerospace engineering, Hamid serves as a mentor in the Language House, teaching Arabic to residents. He also received his masters in systems engineering from this university and has been a student here for three years.
Though he had been in Sudan since the start of winter break, Hamid said he’d followed the news before Trump’s travel ban went into effect, and had heard rumors circulating that an executive order banning travel might be signed. Once the travel ban unfolded, Hamid said he’d held onto hope of returning to this university.
When he heard a federal judge in Seattle had halted the ban in early February, Hamid said he went back around Feb. 10 to the embassy in Khartoum, his hometown and the capital of Sudan, where his family and friends live. The embassy then informed him it was issuing visas again.
“The Graduate Student Government is elated and happy that Abubakr is back,” said Garrett Bradford, Graduate Student Government’s vice president for committee affairs, on Wednesday. “We hope he is readjusting to being back in the United States and his classes.” Hamid and Bradford exchanged emails throughout the time Hamid was unable to return from Sudan, Bradford said.
The initial executive order banned citizens from Iraq, Iran, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria and Yemen for 90 days, barred refugees for 120 days and banned Syrian refugees indefinitely. Monday’s updated version of the order bans for 90 days citizens from six of those Muslim-majority countries, excluding Iraq, and places Syrian refugees under the 120-day ban. It also protects valid visa card holders such as Hamid. The order goes into effect March 16 to give those affected time to prepare.
The executive orders are disheartening, Hamid said, because people from Sudan are welcoming and warm-hearted. He added that it’s frustrating to see the government associate his home country — and the other nations the ban applies to — with terrorism.
Twenty percent of the 46 Muslim-Americans associated with violent extremism in 2016 had families stemming from the seven countries initially covered by Trump’s ban, according to a report by Duke University’s Triangle Center on Terrorism and Homeland Security. There are no reported fatalities in the U.S. executed by extremists with family backgrounds in these countries.
[Read more: A Sudanese doctoral student can’t return to UMD because of Trump’s travel ban]
A federal judge has approved a lawsuit Hawaii will file challenging the latest travel ban and requesting that a federal judge issue a temporary restraining order to block the ban’s implementation, according to CNN. January’s executive order caused chaos and protests at airports across the country, including at Washington Dulles International Airport. Security officials detained Maryam Aida Mohammadi, another student from this university and a green card holder with Iranian citizenship, and her 5-year-old cousin at Dulles for about five hours on Jan. 28. They’d been returning from a visit with family in Turkey.
Hamid said he was very appreciative of the support he received while the ban was in effect and when he got back to this university. His friends went to rallies in Washington and held up signs with his name on them to support him. He added that his friends and other supporters were always in touch with him over email and phone. Friends saved newspaper clippings and articles about him for when Hamid returned to Maryland, which he described as his second home.
His academic adviser, Mumu Xu, said she knew Hamid had gone home for winter break, and that she’d worried about his ability to return to Maryland. Prior to the ban, the embassy had delayed granting his visa for a few days — something that is common, Xu said.
However, once the embassy canceled Hamid’s visa processing following the ban, Xu said she reached out to the U.S. embassy and Maryland Sen. Chris Van Hollen’s office in an effort to bring Hamid back to the U.S. The International Scholars and Student Services office also helped contact the embassy to speed up the process of renewing his visa.
When the ban was lifted, Van Hollen’s office sent a letter, along with an additional letter from ISSS, to expedite Hamid’s visa approval.
Van Hollen has also taken to social media to denounce Trump and his executive orders. In a statement Monday, he said Trump has “engaged in fear-mongering about visitors and refugees from these six countries, and this executive order is now a fake solution to the real security issues we face.”
“I’m really appreciative of the senator’s office,” Xu said.
Hamid said Xu went above and beyond in her support for him.
“It really felt amazing to be surrounded by such community,” he said. “My family back home also did a great job in supporting me … through everything that happened.”
University President Wallace Loh’s statements and messages to the campus community that urged solidarity following Trump’s initial order meant a lot as well, Hamid said. About 350 people from this university — largely graduate students, postdoctoral researchers and visiting scholars — were affected by the ban, according to a Jan. 31 message to the campus.
Hamid said he remains uncertain that he will be able to return to Sudan to visit his family following the installment of Trump’s second executive order. If his visa expires, he fears he won’t be able to come back again.
“Before I was worried I couldn’t come back,” Hamid said, “and now I’m worried that I can’t travel to visit my family because my visa might expire while I’m there. Will I face the same situation?”
Amid uncertainty, he’s trying to stay optimistic.
“I don’t want anyone to go through what I went through,” Hamid said. “I am worried about other people in this situation. I wish for the best in the upcoming days.”
