Among those blindsided Saturday by President Donald Trump's executive order slamming the nation's borders shut to immigrants were 50 people detained at DFW International Airport, including a Syrian couple hoping to visit their sons, an SMU student and graduate.
Dozens of people showed up at DFW Airport in support of Muslim families, some carrying signs protesting Friday's order.
"Refugees are welcome here!" one read, and another said: "We turned Jews back, now Muslims?"
The growing crowd in Terminal D erupted into jubilant chants of "USA! USA! USA!" when Arya Neal Behgooy of Plano and his wife, Shima, emerged from the door that spits out international travelers.
Arya Behgooy is a U.S. citizen. Shima Behgooy is a green-card holder from Iran.
Ahmad Behgooy embraced Arya, his son. Shima dissolved into the arms of her mother-in-law, Afsaneh Behgooy, who was holding a bouquet of roses that had begun to wilt during the hours-long wait.
Shima, whose eyes were bloodshot from crying, blew kisses to the crowd.
She and her husband had flown from Tehran to Frankfurt, Germany. Mid-flight on their flight to Dallas, the couple learned about the ban on travelers from Iran, including green-card holders.
"She was in shambles," Arya Neal Behgooy told reporters.
Immigration officers ultimately gave Shima an exemption, her husband said, though he noted that 30 to 40 other travelers were still being held.
Dallas Mayor Mike Rawlings made his feelings about Trump's order known at a downtown news conference Saturday night.
"I am very sad about what this does for Dallas," he said. "Dallas is not this sort of city."
While the mayor said he supports the president, he can't support the ban Friday's order put in place.
"It's just not good for our city. It's not good for the state," Rawlings said. "This is not a solution. This is a foul insult to the rest of the country."
Around the nation, security officers at major international gateways had new rules to follow. Humanitarian organizations scrambled to cancel programs, delivering the bad news to families who were about to travel. Refugees who were airborne on flights when the order was signed were detained at airports.
"We've gotten reports of people being detained all over the country," said Becca Heller, director of the International Refugee Assistance Project. "They're literally pouring in by the minute."
There were numerous reports of students attending U.S. universities who were blocked from returning to the United States from visits abroad. One student said in a Twitter post that he would be unable to study at Yale. Another who attends the Massachusetts Institute of Technology was refused permission to board a plane. A Sudanese student at Stanford University was blocked for hours from returning to California.
Human rights groups reported that legal permanent residents of the United States who hold green cards were being stopped in foreign airports as they sought to return from funerals, vacations or study abroad.
Those detained Friday and Saturday included an Iranian scientist headed to a lab in Boston, an Iraqi who had worked as an interpreter for the U.S. Army, a Syrian refugee family headed to a new life in Ohio and an Iraqi interpreter stopped on his way to Texas.
"I have the visa in my passport," said Labeeb Ali, who was stopped at the Qatar's international airport.
Ali has been working for years for an American security company and endured years of background checks in hopes of moving to the United States one day.
"They have killed my dream," he told The Washington Post. "They took it all away from me, in the last minutes."
There were happier endings Saturday, as well. At DFW Airport, Miriam Yasin was eventually reunited with her 54-year-old mother, Najah Alshamieh.
"It feels so good, but it's sad for the other ones," Yasin said, the crowd cheering at their tearful reunion. "I feel like I want to stay here for the other ones."
Alia Salem, executive director of the Council on American-Islamic Relations, said about 50 people had been detained at DFW Airport on Saturday morning.
By midafternoon that number was down to nine, some joined by local family members in a detention area at the airport.
