An Afghan and two Iraqi immigrants who helped U.S war efforts were among the first to be detained at airports on Friday night after President Donald Trump signed an executive order targeting Muslims and refugees.
 
According to U.S media reports, an Afghan interpreter was detained at San Francisco International Airport on Friday while his wife and children were allowed through, said Matt Zeller, founder of No One Left Behind, a nonprofit that helps Afghan and Iraqi combat interpreters with special immigrant visas resettle safely in the United States.
 
Protesters gathered around the country on Saturday in support of the detainees.
 
“The idea that we could be detaining Iraqi interpreters who put their lives on the line to help troops like myself in Iraq is disgraceful,” Huffington Post quoted Jon Soltz, a veteran and the chairman of VoteVets, said in a statement.
 
“Not only does this not do anything to protect America, but it now sends the message that even if you put your life on the line to help America, if you are Muslim we don’t want you here.”
 
The executive order, which Trump signed Friday afternoon, banned entry from seven majority-Muslim countries – Iran, Iraq, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria and Yemen – for 90 days and shut down the entire immigration program for 120 days.
 
U.S. District Judge Ann Donnelly of the Eastern District of New York halted parts of the executive order on Saturday after the American Civil Liberties Union, immigrants’ rights groups and refugee relief organizations filed a lawsuit against Trump and the U.S government.
 
A federal judge in Virginia and a district judge in Seattle came to similar decisions later that night.
 
Immigration lawyers and employers have warned many people not to leave the U.S for fear they could be barred from re-entering.
 
Nearly 500,000 people from the seven nations have received green cards in the past decade, meaning hundreds of thousands of people are at risk of being barred from the U.S or separated from their families.
 
Possibly the vaguest of Trump’s orders, in practice this has barred even legal U.S residents, such as green card holders, from re-entry into the country.
 
The order would let the Department of Homeland Security ban more countries at any time.
 
Dual-nationals who are from those seven countries but have an additional passport will also be barred from entering the country for the next 90 days, according to the State Department.
 
This means that citizens of Iran, Iraq, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria and Yemen who have a passport from another country, such as Britain or France, are also subject to the ban.