Khizr Khan joins immigration lawyers at Dulles Airport

Khizr Khan, the Gold Star father who famously condemned Donald Trump’s proposed Muslim ban during the presidential campaign, paid his respects to a group of volunteers helping immigrants at Washington Dulles International Airport on Thursday.

In an interview with Yahoo News, Mirriam Seddiq, an immigration attorney and Dulles Justice Coalition (DJC) volunteer, said Khan praised the volunteers over and over for embodying American values.

“You are the true heroes, and this is truly America. This is the pinnacle of the legal profession,” she recalled Khan saying.

Khan, a Pakistani-born lawyer who lost his son in the Iraq War, met with DJC volunteers at baggage claim where they set up operations in the Washington metro-area airport. Khan signed pocket copies of the U.S. Constitution with inscriptions reading, “to the best lawyers” and “to the best of my profession.”

For the public, Khan is inextricably associated with the principles embedded in the Constitution thanks to his rousing speech as the Democratic National Convention in July. Standing on stage next to his wife, he brandished his own pocket copy and beseeched Trump to read it.

“Have you even read the United States Constitution?” he challenged Trump, who in turn launched a series of attacks against the Gold Star parents that were widely viewed as politically unwise.

DJC set up operations at the airport outside Washington to help people understand their rights during the current contentious, tumultuous time and help immigrants pass through the airport smoothly should they be unduly detained or held up. There is no shortage of uncertainty: The courts have stymied Trump’s executive order restricting refugees and limiting travel from several Muslim-majority countries; the White House said it would issue a new, more finely crafted order but has yet to do so.

Hassan Ahmad, a Virginia-based attorney who specializes in immigration law, was putting in a shift with DJC Thursday night when Khan visited the group.

“Mr. Khan’s appearance there was welcome,” Ahmad told Yahoo News. “He’s kind of going back to his immigration lawyer roots. He did practice immigration law for quite some time. I think he was really encouraged to see, he mentioned this to me, ‘the best of America’ — people coming together and ensuring that other people had access to lawyers to protect due process.”

Seddiq, the immigration attorney, said Khan drove to the airport from his home in Charlottesville, Va., to see DJC’s operation and show his respects. He wound up staying for over two hours, holding a sign like the other volunteers and talking to travelers passing by.

She first met the Khans after they came to a press conference for her American Muslim Women political action committee in October. Earlier this week, she emailed Khan to ask if he would like to visit DJC at the airport.

“It’s not just his stance against Trump. It’s really what he stands for as an American, upholding our values and who we believe we still are as a people,” she said. “He really does speak truth to power no matter what gets thrown his way. And I think for most of us at the airport right now, struggling with what’s happening, he’s a true inspiration.”

Ahmad said, “He went into the crowds to let people know that there were lawyers available to provide legal assistance for anyone who may be affected by the confusion in the wake of January’s travel ban.”

Shortly after inauguration, Trump signed an executive order suspending the U.S. refugee program for 120 days and banning travel for at least 90 days to the U.S. from seven Muslim-majority countries in the Middle East and Africa: Iraq, Iran, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria and Yemen. During the campaign, Trump vowed to temporarily bar all Muslims from the U.S., and he later moderated the proposal to a vague promise of “extreme vetting.”

But a U.S. district judge stayed the order, leading to the first major legal battle of Trump’s presidency. The Pentagon and State Department reportedly asked Trump to remove Iraq — whose military is allied with the U.S. against the Islamic State terror group — from the list. Beyond that, it’s unclear what the administration’s next move on the matter will be, or when it will act.

Seddiq said a few of the DJC volunteers have been going to the airport since Jan. 28, the day after the executive order, when the International Refugee Assistance Project sent out an email to about 300 people requesting help.

“A lot of us just never left. We expanded it from the original core group. We’re doing trainings now,” she said.

According to Ahmad, DJC volunteers have negotiated for the release and admission into the U.S. of people who had been detained at secondary inspection for lengthy periods of time in isolated incidents.

DJC is not a law firm and does not render legal services itself. Seddiq said DJC is more of a grass-roots movement that gained momentum over the past month than an established organization. She is one of seven people on a transitional board to tighten up DJC and build a structure, she said.

“We’re not going to stop until we are made to or we win,” she said.

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