President Comments on Possibly Rewriting Executive Order on Travel Ban; Traumatic Effect of Immigration on Refugees Examined
PAUL: Take a nice deep breath. It is Saturday. All is well. I'm Christi Paul.</s>BLACKWELL: I'm Victor Blackwell. Good morning to you. There is growing fear and confusion for some immigrants and their families. Federal immigration authorities launched new waves of raids, arresting hundreds of undocumented immigrants in at least half a dozen states this week. This is the first large scale enforcement, some say, of the president's crack down on illegal immigration.</s>PAUL: But immigration officials say it's just business as usual. Homeland Security Secretary John Kelly had this to say about it.</s>KELLY: First of all, they're not rounding anyone up. The people that ICE apprehend are people who are illegal and then some.</s>PAUL: About 160 undocumented immigrants were arrested in Los Angeles alone this week. Agents also conducting operations in Georgia, Illinois, New York, North Carolina, and South Carolina.</s>BLACKWELL: President Trump plans to announce new national security measures this week, and that could include a new executive order on immigration. The White House says it will not immediately appeal a federal court's decision blocking the president's travel ban to the Supreme Court. But that option has not been ruled out. Sources tell CNN that the president is considering possible tweaks, maybe explicitly stating that the ban does not apply to legal, permanent residents. The president argues that the country needs swift action.</s>TRUMP: I feel totally confident that we will have tremendous security for the people of the United States. We will be extreme vetting. I've learned tremendous things that you can only learn frankly if you were in a certain position, namely president. There are tremendous threats to our country. We will not allow that to happen.</s>BLACKWELL: Meanwhile stress, anxiety, depression, it plagues Syrian refugees here in the U.S. And some have told me they feel afraid because of the uncertainty over the president's travel ban.</s>BLACKWELL: In Dearborn, Michigan, just outside of Detroit, many of these families call themselves the fortunate ones, blessed by God, because they escaped this.</s>BLACKWELL: The years-long civil war in Syria. Now having survived the conflict that has killed more than an estimated 400,000 civilians and completing the exhaustive process to settle in the U.S., some refugees now fear they face a new threat.</s>TRUMP: This is the protection of the nation from foreign terrorist entering into the United States.</s>BLACKWELL: President Donald Trump's executive order banning entry of most nationals from seven countries including Syria. An appellate court has upheld a temporary hold on the travel ban, but the president promises to fight the decision. The January 27th order applies to new entrants only, but that does nothing to quell the fears of Shaimaa Anmadni, who worries that she and her family will have to return to Syria.</s>SHAIMAA ANMADNI, SYRIAN REFUGEE (via translator): We don't know what will happen in the future. After we arrive, we had hopes that we will establish a new life. Now we are frightened that we'll be stopped at this stage and cannot carry on further.</s>BLACKWELL: She and her husband Omar Kojan and their four children have come to Dearborn from homes. Beyond their family's future, they say other families could face a future worse than deportation.</s>OMAR KOJAN, SYRIAN REFUGEE (via translator): Some families have been split into two parts, one that arrived and the other one that was ready to get in but was halted, like some dads with their children and vice versa. So this separated the families. And if this thing continues, we will end up completely separated.</s>BLACKWELL: Wayne State University Professor Dr. Arash Javanbakht has interviewed hundreds of Syrian refugees and is examining the invisible, psychological wounds caused by the war and the resettlement process. The researchers found that roughly one-third of the adult Syrian refugees they evaluated screened positive for post-traumatic stress disorder. Javanbakht says stressors like the uncertainty over the ban exacerbate those challenges.</s>DR. ARASH JAVANBAKHT, DIRECTOR OF STRESS, TRAUMA, AND ANXIETY RESEARCH CLINIC, WAYNE STATE UNIVERSITY: They come in with the stress of immigration. They have the stress of poverty. They don't know how to cope with the environment. They have to learn about the culture. They don't know how much they're wanted by the environment. With the uncertainty which is going on now, they don't even know if tomorrow they will be this in country or not.</s>MOHAMMED AL SAUD, RESEARCH ASSISTANT AT WAYNE STATE UNIVERSITY: The stress level has increased since the travel ban.</s>BLACKWELL: Mohammed al Saud is part of the research team.</s>AL SAUD: They feel like they're not going to be treated as well or things won't live to their expectations.</s>BLACKWELL: Al Saud has experienced similar pain. He came to the U.S. in 2008 as a refugee from Iraq. In fact, all of the volunteer researchers are former refugees from Iraq.</s>AL SAUD: Living the experience myself made me decide to do whatever is possible to help them.</s>BLACKWELL: Farhan Nasif is nearly brought to tears by thoughts of family members still besieged by war.</s>FARHAN NASIF, SYRIAN REFUGEE (via translator): I've received a voicemail from my brother saying if God willing I will see you in the hereafter life in heaven as we won't see each other again here. These words really touched me a lot as there's no hope we see each other again here, only in heaven.</s>BLACKWELL: His wife Huda Hamada says their daughters, Xena (ph) who is five, and Sheha (ph), who is ten, have suffered too.</s>HUDA HAMADA, SYRIAN REFUGEE (via translator): The girls had fear from the word we are returning to Syria because they lived through wartime and heard the sounds of explosions, so that left a fear in them and do not want to return to Syria.</s>BLACKWELL: The researchers say the vast majority of the child refugees from Syria they've spoken with suffer from separation anxiety and more than half have developed an anxiety disorder.</s>AL SAUD: They don't have the sense of independence or, like, things will be fine if you're just a little bit away from your parents.</s>JAVANBAKHT: A six-year-old Syrian kid who came here in 20 years is going to be an American adult, right? So now this is our questions as Americans. They have to ask themselves, do they want this kid when they are an adult being integrated, functioning, and happy productive American, or do we want them to be segregated, a low socio-economic class, a person who sees others as the Americans and themselves as the group of refugees who came here? Integration is very important. And that's on us.</s>BLACKWELL: For now this family is focusing on settling into their new life in their new country. But as the fight over immigration and national security wages on, many still wonder if they'll be forced to pack up and look for a new place to call home.</s>BLACKWELL: And researchers plan to track the refugees they've interviewed for up to 20 years to assess their mental health and their growth. They're also working on a plan to treat them with culturally focused, family centered homecare.</s>PAUL: President Trump declared we're going to see you in court. That was after his travel ban remains suspended by an appeals court. Up next, our legal experts are taking a look at what is ahead and how this could all play out here. First, though, have you gone on vacation and something's been stolen, particularly your money? In today's "Wander Must," CNN Money has examined some ways to help you avoid that misfortune.</s>UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: We've found some theft proof travel gear that promises to make your trip less stressful and safer. If you've ever had your purse stolen, you know what happens in the matter of seconds. Arden Cove's cross body purse can literally be chained to you or your chair when you're out having a good time. The inside also protects against electromagnetic signals that thieves use to steal your credit card information. And hey, it's kind of fashionable, too. The Vault card protects you against thieves who are trying to access your credit cards using electromagnetic signals. Simply place the Vault card into your wallet and it helps block those signals. 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