Af­ter some T&T Mus­lim fam­i­lies en­coun­tered prob­lems with US im­mi­gra­tion au­thor­i­ties in re­cent weeks–in­clud­ing visa can­cel­la­tion–at­tor­ney Nafeesa Mo­hammed is call­ing for T&T and US au­thor­i­ties to find mech­a­nisms to en­sure peo­ple are fair­ly treat­ed.

"... Be­fore this sit­u­a­tion reach­es para­noia lev­el–which is al­ready build­ing –T&T and US au­thor­i­ties should try to deal with the sit­u­a­tion via diplo­ma­cy and di­a­logue to pre­vent un­fair tar­get­ing," Mo­hammed told the T&T Guardian yes­ter­day.

Her call comes three weeks af­ter some of her rel­a­tives en­coun­tered is­sues with US Im­mi­gra­tion on land­ing in Amer­i­ca. One fam­i­ly mem­ber was ques­tioned about their re­la­tion­ship to her nephew, Tariq Mo­hammed.

Tariq, son of her broth­er Shamoon Mo­hammed, was an Is­lam­ic stud­ies stu­dent in Sau­di Ara­bia for sev­er­al years. He and his fam­i­ly re­turned home for a vis­it last Au­gust 15, when he was in­ter­viewed by Spe­cial Branch. When the fam­i­ly re­turned to Sau­di Ara­bia via Turkey as they usu­al­ly did, he was de­tained in Sau­di Ara­bia on sus­pi­cion of ter­ror­ism.

Af­ter the Mo­hammed fam­i­ly lob­bied for his re­lease–stat­ing he was in­no­cent–Tariq was re­leased and sent home just be­fore Christ­mas.

Yes­ter­day, Mrs Mo­hammed said, "Be­cause my name has been heard in con­nec­tion with per­sons who were de­tained, I'd like to en­sure the process is fair and my names–and oth­ers'–isn't red-flagged for the wrong rea­son.

"I'd like to know what mech­a­nism ex­ists through our Gov­ern­ment of­fi­cials to en­sure in­no­cent peo­ple aren't treat­ed un­fair­ly. The cur­rent sit­u­a­tion has cre­at­ed un­cer­tain­ty in our fam­i­ly."

She added, "I'm sure Gov­ern­ment can help get mech­a­nisms in place with US col­lab­o­ra­tion to help TT na­tion­als trav­el­ling to the US to ver­i­fy if they've been red-flagged in any way and give us the op­por­tu­ni­ty to go be­fore any au­thor­i­ty and help clear our names.

"A lot of stereo­typ­ing is oc­cur­ring, pre­sent­ing awk­ward, ar­bi­trary and some­time dis­crim­i­na­to­ry sit­u­a­tions which are harsh and op­pres­sive. We live in a democ­ra­cy and al­ways had good US re­la­tions."

T&T Guardian checks in oth­er Mus­lim quar­ters re­vealed that oth­er Tri­nis en­coun­tered sim­i­lar is­sues, but these pre-dat­ed last week's US visa ban on sev­en coun­tries.

Sources, who re­quest­ed anonymi­ty for the peo­ple in­volved, con­firmed that an­oth­er Mus­lim fam­i­ly–re­lat­ed to Tariq Mo­hammed– al­so en­coun­tered dif­fi­cul­ties on a trip to Mi­a­mi in Jan­u­ary. The fam­i­ly was kept in a room overnight and ques­tioned and their visas were even­tu­al­ly can­celled. They were told their visas had an er­ror and they re­turned to T&T af­ter re­lease.

A young South en­gi­neer, who trav­elled to Fort Laud­erdale last No­vem­ber, was al­so ques­tioned on ar­rival, his visa was can­celled and he was sent back to T&T, the T&T Guardian con­firmed.

A Port-of-Spain busi­ness­man who has long-stand­ing busi­ness ties with the US, was al­so called re­cent­ly and his visa was can­celled, it was con­firmed.

For­eign Af­fairs Min­is­ter Den­nis Moses–un­avail­able yes­ter­day to com­ment on Mo­hammed's con­cerns–had said on Tues­day that T&T recog­nis­es the sov­er­eign rights of the Unit­ed States, or any oth­er coun­try, to grant or de­ny en­try of na­tion­als of oth­er coun­tries in­to the US.

Moses said so re­gard­ing con­cerns by T&T green card hold­ers about is­sues they could en­counter on seek­ing to re-en­ter the US if they vis­it T&T for Car­ni­val 2017.

The con­cern comes fol­low­ing last week­end's US ex­ec­u­tive or­der stip­u­lat­ing a 90-day visa ban on sev­en coun­tries–Syr­ia, Iran, Iraq, Libya, Yemen, So­ma­lia and Su­dan–to se­cure the US from ter­ror­ism.

Con­tact­ed on the Mo­hammed fam­i­ly case yes­ter­day, US Em­bassy of­fi­cials said is­sues con­cern­ing peo­ple land­ing in the US were han­dled by Home­land Se­cu­ri­ty.

Clar­i­fy­ing con­cerns by T&T na­tion­als about the ex­ec­u­tive or­der, Em­bassy of­fi­cials said the visa ban doesn't af­fect T&T na­tion­als who are per­ma­nent le­gal res­i­dents of the US and who hold TT pass­ports. It al­so does not af­fect T&T cit­i­zens hold­ing dual cit­i­zen­ship of oth­er coun­tries, who use T&T pass­ports.

The Em­bassy stat­ed: "TT cit­i­zens who are le­gal per­ma­nent res­i­dents of the US–and are not dual na­tion­als of one of the sev­en coun­tries af­fect­ed by the US ex­ec­u­tive or­der–are not af­fect­ed by the (ex­ec­u­tive) or­der."

They said clar­i­fi­ca­tions are still in­com­ing. On whether T&T na­tion­als may be red-flagged by the US be­cause of the 130 T&T na­tion­als which Gov­ern­ment con­firmed have been in­volved in ter­ror­ist ac­tiv­i­ties over­seas, Em­bassy of­fi­cials said there was no visa ban on sev­er­al oth­er coun­tries where for­eign ter­ror­ist fight­ers (FTFs) have orig­i­nat­ed.