6 events in Passaic County with a date

North Jersey Muslims react as Trump travel ban kicks in

By: Mary Ann Koruth
NorthJersey.com
USA Today Network - New Jersey

..... Just hours after President Donald Trump issued a travel ban June 4 [2025] - a presidential oder prohibiting visitors to the U.S. from a group of mostly African and Muslim counties - it was business as usual the next day for the Middle Eastern eateries and shops lining the bustling strip of Crooks Avenue that separatenesses Paterson and Clifton.
..... Outwardly, nothing had changed.
..... The regulars getting their morning pick-me-up at Qahwah House, a Yemeni coffee shop in Clifton, tricked in as usual, listening to the soft Quranic chants playing in the sound system.
..... "I come here every day to get my coffee," said Mohammed Mehmood, a Jordanian resident of Clifton for seven years. Qahwah House, which sells organic Yementi coffee and pastries, has a hip interior that features wall-size photographic prints detailing its founder's Yemeni family and heritage.
..... "I enjoy the Arabic stores in the area," and people here have been welcoming,Mehmoood said. So it was "sad" that anyone be denied a shot at American opportunity through Trump;s travel ban, he said.
..... "It's not fair," he said of the travel ban, which takes effect June 9. [2025] "I would like everyone to be equal. It's not to see people struggling because of their background. They deserve an opportunity to come here and have a good life."

19 countries with full or partial ban

..... There are 12 countries on Trump's proclamation banning visitors to the U.S., and another seven have partial restrictions to entering. Jordan is not among them, but Yemen is.
..... Besides Yemen, citizens of Afghanistan, Myanmar, Ched, the Republic of Congo, Equatorial Guinea, Eritrea, Haiti, Iran, Libya, Somalia and Sudan are barred from entering the U.S. because of what the Trump administration called national security threats these countries pose.
..... Citizens will face partial restrictions from Buirundi, Cuba, Laos, Sierra Leone, Togo, Turkmenistan and Venezuela.
..... A billboard hawking a firm of Hispanic and Muslim injury lawyers flanks the rail tracks right outside the Qahwah House. Across the street, in Paterson, is a Hookah Depot, and the Al-Hilal Fish and meat Market with a red metallic sign in Arabic on its facade.
..... The loudspeaker at the sprawling Brothers Produce supermarket, around the corner on East Railway Avenue blared deals in Spanish and in English at full blast as shoppers picked from fruits and vegetables heaped into crates under he awning of its the outdoor market.
..... Iranian shoppers and Rockaway resident Shahnaz, who asked that her last name not be used, said: "I don't travel too much. I've been here 20 years, no problems, just right now things are expensive."
..... She supported Trump's crackdown on undocumented immigrants, even those from her country, Iran, where huades-long-religious dictatorship. "I support refugees, but immigrants should come here legally,' she said.
..... The June 4 [2025] travel ban was just one more in a long list of anti-muslim attack, said Rania, an Egyptian American college student who grew up in Clifton.
..... "It's always been very hard to be a young Muslim American woman in America," she said with a shrug. "There's always been some disr4egard or lack of safety for people like me and my people," Muslims."
..... Rania, who wore a hijab - the traditional head covering many Muslim women were - asked to withhold her last name so as not to be targeted for her comments. "whether or not you are a hijabi, like just if you look different or from any other race, it's always been hard in this country. So, to me it's just another day," she said of the travel ban.
..... Trump's order was no surprise, coming after the administration moved to detain without due process several green-card-holders travelers, and even college students with visas who were linked to the wave of pro-Gaza campus protest last year. [2024]
..... President Joe Biden had revoked a similar ban issued in Trump's first term.

Travel ban called discriminatory

..... While wars and political instability mark many of he counties on the list, some on the left have criticized the ban as racist divisive and attributed it to the administration's anti-immigrant platform.
..... "This reckless and discriminatory ban doesn't make us safer," Senator Cory Booker, D-New Jersey, said in a statement. "All it will do is further isolate the United States from our allies and weaken our global leadership.
..... "Indiscriminate closing our doors to people fleeing violence and instability, preventing U.S. citizens from reuniting with there families, or singling out people simply because of the country in which they are born, is antithetical to our nation's most fundamental values," Booker said.
..... "Americans must once again stand up against this renewed attempt to vilify and exclude at the expense of our most cherish values," he said.
..... Rania said she is used to stares and alarming comments from strangers. Just a few weeks ago, she said someone harassed her in a CVS after mistaking her to be Indian or Pakistani. As a citizen, she did not fear being deported, but said she was more concerned about her safety now than before, given what she considers Republicans' public hostility to Muslims and foreigners.

'We feel safe here'

..... That is not every Muslim immigrant;s experience.
..... "We feel safe here," said Asma Basem, a Little Falls resident who was shopping with her mother. Basem, a citizen, moved to the U.S. three years ago from Jordan with her mother, Khaloud Abdulrehman, a green card holder.
..... Basam's one year at Passaic Valley High School was difficult, she said, because the Muslim students in particular were not welcoming, likely because some of the teenagers felt threatens or were cliquish.
..... But the mother and daughter duo expressed deep contentment over their move to the U.S. "It's a good country,' said Asma, who now studies medical sonogrpahy at Bergen Community college.
..... Her homeland Jordan, was good, too, she acknowledged, "but not like the United States. Here,people respect each other. That's enough," she said.

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