A father living in Canada faces indefinite separation from his son with Trump’s travel ban

Noor, 19, lives in Michigan with his grandparents. His refugee claim was severed from his parents in 2019. He was deemed inadmissible because he was born in the U.S.

After years of living in Canadian immigration limbo, a father fears that U.S. President Donald Trump’s new travel ban will separate his oldest child from him.

Mohammad Alshuwaiter is a Yemeni refugee living in Ottawa, but his son, Noor, lives in Dearborn, Michigan with his grandparents.

Yemen is one of the 12 countries included in Trump’s executive order banning its citizens from entering the U.S. The others are Afghanistan, Myanmar, Chad, Republic of the Congo, Equatorial Guinea, Eritrea, Haiti, Iran, Libya, Somalia and Sudan.

The U.S. president has accused the countries of insufficient vetting of travel documents, high visa overstay rates, and in some cases, of being state sponsors of terrorism.

When it takes effect on June 9, immigration lawyers say there could be thousands of foreign nationals like Alshuwaiter in Canada who will be prevented from entering the United States.

“People who are not yet citizens of Canada will be affected deeply and be caught up in the sweeping breadth of this proclamation,” says Ottawa immigration lawyer Warren Creates.

He says permanent residents from banned countries should expect to have their freedom curtailed at the border.

“Some who’ve already had their backgrounds vetted by our national security services, by our law enforcement and think that they’re safe and in the past have been able to freely travel to the United States -- that will no longer be true,” Creates said.

Such warnings are adding to the weight on Alshuwaiter’s shoulders.

The 49-year-old international law and human rights researcher says Trump’s new policy will add a “layer of suffering” to what he has experienced so far in the Canadian immigration system.

He last saw his 19-year-old son in March and worries that it could be years before he can embrace his son again.

“(Noor) is studying abroad. How can I support him? I am broken-hearted,” said Alshuwaiter in an emotional interview with CTV News.

Alshuwaiter’s immigration challenges began under the first Trump administration.

After he was awarded a U.S. Fullbright scholarship to study law at American University in Washington, D.C., Alshuwaiter moved his wife and two kids to the U.S. They arrived just three months before civil war broke out in Yemen.

Because his wife was related to Yemen’s deposed president Ali Abdullah Saleh, the couple, concerned about their safety, applied for asylum in the U.S. They were rejected in 2018, a year after Trump issued his first travel ban on countries with predominantly Muslim populations.

That’s when the family decided to claim refugee status in Canada. The threat of family separation has hung over the family since they began the process to get permanent residence status.

In May 2019, the Immigration and Refugee Board of Canada ruled that Noor, who was 13-years-old at the time, could not be part of his parent’s asylum claim because he was born in the U.S. and was therefore “neither a conventional refugee, nor a person in need of protection.”

After being categorized as a failed refugee applicant, the possibility of deportation loomed over Noor. But Alshuwaiter was hopeful all would work out once their permanent residence application was approved.

Alshuwaiter’s immigration lawyer Jacqueline Bonisteel says in immigration cases in which a minor is born in another country, the child is usually granted PR status, once the parents’ applications are approved.

It’s a process that usually takes about three years, but Alshuwaiter’s PR application has dragged on for more than twice that length of time. Despite multiple requests for updates, Bonisteel says immigration authorities have refused to provide information as to what is causing the delays.

Meanwhile Alshuwaiter could see the growing frustration in his eldest son as he entered high school.

“I’m happy to sacrifice my career to give my kids a better life - but when I’m screwed - my kids’ (lives) are screwed too.”

As an American kid without status living in Canada, Noor couldn’t do basic things that teenagers take for granted. He couldn’t get a social insurance number, so he could not open a bank account. He couldn’t get a job or get a driver’s license.

“It made me feel different. More different than my parents. They didn’t have (PR) status, but I was even less than that.” said Noor in a FaceTime interview from Detroit.

Noor said he also wanted to start applying for college programs, but because he was born in the U.S., he would have to pay international student fees, which his parents could not afford.

After Noor told his father that he “felt like nothing,” Alshuwaiter and his wife made the decision to send Noor to Michigan to live with his grandparents in 2023 and to continue his schooling.

Enrolled in a college construction engineering program, Noor would take a break from his studies every few months to return to Ottawa.

His journey across the border by Greyhound bus would always involve being pulled aside for additional questioning. But after explaining to Canadian border officials his family’s immigration status and showing them his American passport, Noor says he would usually be waived through. But those visits ended abruptly last month.

In May, a CBSA agent decided to enforce the 2019 immigration ruling which labeled Noor a failed refugee applicant. He was denied entry into Canada and flagged for deportation should he return. He was only a half hour away from where his parents and younger brother were waiting for him in Windsor, Ont.

Meanwhile his father is suing Immigration Refugees and Citizenship Canada in Federal Court to force the government to disclose the reasons for delay and to issue a decision on granting him permanent residence. It has been seven years since he first applied, and so far, no court date has been set.

Even if Alshuwaiter gets permanent residence status, it won’t be enough to get around Trump’s new travel ban. For that, he needs to be a Canadian citizen.

Until then, the Alshuwaiter family remain in a state of limbo, forced to separate by the immigration policies of two countries they had hoped to call home.