“This is humanity. This is the soul of America,” Hameed Darweesh said when he stepped out of John F. Kennedy International Airport on Jan. 28, 2017, to a crowd of New Yorkers cheering his release from detention.
Darweesh had arrived seeking safety in the United States after risking his life for a decade in Iraq working to support the U.S. mission, only to be ensnared in former President Donald Trump’s “Muslim Ban”—the executive order banning the entry of people from certain Muslim-majority countries.
