LOS ANGELES _ At least seven people, all of whom either hold green cards or U.S. visas, are being detained at Los Angeles International Airport as a result of an executive order signed Friday by President Donald Trump, according to the American Civil Liberties Union.
As activists scrambled to fight for their release on Saturday, hundreds of demonstrators descended on Los Angeles International Airport and San Francisco International Airport to rail against Trump's travel ban, which many argue unfairly targets Muslims.
The president's executive order suspends all refugee entries for 120 days and bars entry to the U.S. for 90 days for those traveling from seven Muslim-majority countries: Iran, Iraq, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria and Yemen.
An Iranian woman whose citizenship swearing-in ceremony will take place in two weeks was among those detained at Los Angeles International Airport on Saturday, according to Jordan Cummings, an immigration attorney. The woman has held a green card for five years, Cummings said.
It was not immediately clear how many people were being held at LAX and SFO. Messages sent to spokespeople for U.S. Customs and Border Protection were not immediately returned.
As of 5 p.m. Saturday, the ACLU said it was working on habeas petitions for at least seven people being detained at LAX, according to Jennie Pasquarella, director of immigrant rights for the ACLU.
All seven detainees, four of whom are Iranian, either hold green cards or visas, according to Pasquarella, who said Trump's rush to enact the executive order has exposed countless people to potentially illegal detentions.
"I would say it has been done without regard to the legality of it. Green card holders are not only being detained, but they're being turned around and deported to the country that they came form. It is unlawful," she said. "Certainly the discriminatory nature of the executive order we think is unlawful."
Hundreds of people descended on the Tom Bradley International Terminal at LAX Saturday evening to protest the detentions, holding candles and signs denouncing Trump's decision.
"No hate, no fear, refugees are welcome here," they chanted.
Beverly Weise, 66, said she felt a moral obligation to protest on Saturday. She spent two weeks last year volunteering at Souda Refugee Camp in Greece, where 3,000 people from Syria, Afghanistan, Sudan and Somalia lived.
"They're running away from war, persecution _ they can't understand why we are so hostile," she said. "All they want is a peaceful life."
Off-duty airport employee Molly Oleary, 56, said she sees hundreds of immigrants pass through the LAX every day.
"I understand being careful," she said, holding a candle. "I don't understand outright banning people, innocent people."
At least 100 people also turned up at San Francisco International Airport to protest the ban on Saturday, according to a report in the San Francisco Chronicle.
Ten to 15 immigration attorneys had gathered at the airport on Saturday to help detained travelers, many of whom flew in from Iran, Cummings said. Immigration officials were not allowing the detainees to contact their families or seek legal representation, creating a chaotic situation at the terminal, as advocates try to figure out who might need their aid.
"We're literally walking around asking people, are you waiting for someone who has been detained?" she said, describing a scene of worried family members who had arrived bearing flowers and welcome signs for their loved ones.
The ban was one of Trump's signature campaign promises, one that has been derided as ineffective and unfairly discriminatory by civil rights advocates, immigration rights activists and political opponents. Several advocacy groups, including the ACLU, filed the first legal challenge to the order on Saturday on behalf of two Iraqis being detained at JFK in New York.
Both men, including a former government interpreter, Hameed Khalid Darwish, hold valid U.S. visas, according to the legal filing.
Ashley Rickards, star of the MTV comedy "Awkward," was one of several dozen people holding lighted candles and signs in support of those being detained inside LAX on Saturday.
"It's not American," Rickards said. "I'm not affected personally by what he's doing, but that's what makes me feel so much more strongly about fighting for everyone else."
Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti released a statement Saturday in support of peaceful protest at the airport, skewering Trump's executive order while also urging demonstrators to remain calm.
"Congress outlawed the banning of immigrants by nationality more than 50 years ago, because we have long known that it does not make us safer," Garcetti said in a statement. "It only fans the flames of hatred that those who wish us harm seek to spread."
