After 13 years in Hong Kong as a refugee, John received plane tickets that would grant his family new lives in the US — only for them to be snatched away with a stroke of the pen by US President Donald Trump.
Trump’s executive order to suspend all refugee admissions and halt the US asylum program, signed hours after taking office, has left adrift dozens in the territory approved for US resettlement.
John’s scheduled flight to Los Angeles barely missed today’s deadline — had he been allowed to board, the executive order would have taken effect while he was in the air.
Photo: AFP
“It was devastating news for the whole family,” said the 37-year-old, who fled persecution in an East African country and spoke using a pseudonym.
“[We had] just a few days remaining,” he said.
The order — despite being up for review in 90 days — has already caused “pain” and a “huge ripple effect” as asylum seekers in Hong Kong now fear being sent back to square one, advocates for refugee rights said.
John said he had completed years of stringent US vetting, including security and medical checks.
The UN International Organization for Migration (IOM) had “prepared everything” to resettle him, his wife and their children.
“We actually asked [the IOM], ‘Is there any way we can buy the ticket for our own and just travel maybe on Sunday?’ They say, ‘No way possible.’”
Trump’s order temporarily cuts off a legal migration pathway for the estimated 37.9 million refugees fleeing wars, persecution or disasters around the world.
In his order, Trump said the US had been “inundated” and could not absorb migrants in a way that protects Americans’ safety and security. In last year’s fiscal year, more than 100,000 refugees resettled in the US, the most in three decades.
James, who was cleared for US resettlement this month after waiting 14 years in Hong Kong, said it was “not fair” to halt all arrivals.
“[The] first time we heard the news, I wasn’t able to sleep… until now it’s still difficult,” said James, 31, who fled an East African nation and asked to use a pseudonym for safety.
“How many millions of people doesn’t sleep... because of what [Trump] signed?” he said.
John and James belong to the tiny fraction of the 15,800 asylum seekers living in Hong Kong who successfully jumped through all the hoops for resettlement, typically in the US or Canada.
Both men said they were given short notice, forcing them to quit their jobs, end home leases and bid farewell to friends.
Social worker Jeffrey Andrews at the Christian Action Centre for Refugees estimates there were up to 50 people similarly “on the way out.”
Typically up to 70 refugees would leave for the US every year, he said.
“I thought this is the year we’re going to say goodbye to more people,” Andrews said, citing an upward trend last year, “but now it’s turned upside down.”
POLITICAL PRISONERS VS DEPORTEES: Venezuela’s prosecutor’s office slammed the call by El Salvador’s leader, accusing him of crimes against humanity Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele on Sunday proposed carrying out a prisoner swap with Venezuela, suggesting he would exchange Venezuelan deportees from the US his government has kept imprisoned for what he called “political prisoners” in Venezuela. In a post on X, directed at Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, Bukele listed off a number of family members of high-level opposition figures in Venezuela, journalists and activists detained during the South American government’s electoral crackdown last year. “The only reason they are imprisoned is for having opposed you and your electoral fraud,” he wrote to Maduro. “However, I want to propose a humanitarian agreement that
ECONOMIC WORRIES: The ruling PAP faces voters amid concerns that the city-state faces the possibility of a recession and job losses amid Washington’s tariffs Singapore yesterday finalized contestants for its general election on Saturday next week, with the ruling People’s Action Party (PAP) fielding 32 new candidates in the biggest refresh of the party that has ruled the city-state since independence in 1965. The move follows a pledge by Singaporean Prime Minister Lawrence Wong (黃循財), who took office last year and assumed the PAP leadership, to “bring in new blood, new ideas and new energy” to steer the country of 6 million people. His latest shake-up beats that of predecessors Lee Hsien Loong (李顯龍) and Goh Chok Tong (吳作棟), who replaced 24 and 11 politicians respectively
Young women standing idly around a park in Tokyo’s west suggest that a giant statue of Godzilla is not the only attraction for a record number of foreign tourists. Their faces lit by the cold glow of their phones, the women lining Okubo Park are evidence that sex tourism has developed as a dark flipside to the bustling Kabukicho nightlife district. Increasing numbers of foreign men are flocking to the area after seeing videos on social media. One of the women said that the area near Kabukicho, where Godzilla rumbles and belches smoke atop a cinema, has become a “real
‘WATER WARFARE’: A Pakistani official called India’s suspension of a 65-year-old treaty on the sharing of waters from the Indus River ‘a cowardly, illegal move’ Pakistan yesterday canceled visas for Indian nationals, closed its airspace for all Indian-owned or operated airlines, and suspended all trade with India, including to and from any third country. The retaliatory measures follow India’s decision to suspend visas for Pakistani nationals in the aftermath of a deadly attack by shooters in Kashmir that killed 26 people, mostly tourists. The rare attack on civilians shocked and outraged India and prompted calls for action against their country’s archenemy, Pakistan. New Delhi did not publicly produce evidence connecting the attack to its neighbor, but said it had “cross-border” links to Pakistan. Pakistan denied any connection to