Emotional Reunions at Boston's Logan Airport for Those Impacted by Travel Ban

A "welcome rally" was held at Boston's Logan International Airport on Friday afternoon as Lufthansa passengers affected by President Donald Trump's executive order on immigration arrived in the country.

On Thursday, Lufthansa began allowing passengers affected by the travel ban to board planes bound for the U.S. in accordance with the temporary order issued by a federal judge in Massachusetts Sunday.

One man, who said he did not want to be identified, touched down in Boston Thursday through Air France.

"I was the first one to get on the plane," he said.

He was visiting his sick mother in Syria, and said it was a little more difficult to get back to his family and home in Watertown.

"He had to make a dangerous journey from Damascus to Beirut to Paris to Boston," a family member said of the man.

Their return came as a U.S. district judge in Boston ordered a State Homeland Security Department memo be released Thursday afternoon. The order revoked all visas, with a few exceptions, from people from the seven Muslim-majority countries listed in President Trump's executive order last Friday.

"It's completely shocking that they included immigrant visas," said immigration lawyer Jeff Goldman. "That means green card holders."

Goldman believes it's unconstitutional and also affects people already in the U.S.

"This specific memo from the state department canceling their visas absolutely affects people who are already here, because it means that they can't leave and come back," Goldman said.

It has the Watertown resident wondering if he'll ever see his sick mother in Syria again.

"It was hard to have to leave her suddenly," he said.

A federal court hearing was held on the temporary order in Boston on Friday.

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