Trump travel ban hits immigrant family coming to U.S. amid bloody civil war in Myanmar

A Burmese American woman was eager to bring her siblings over to the U.S. from Myanmar amid a more than 15-year wait for visas.

A Burmese American woman was eager to bring her siblings over to the U.S. from Myanmar amid a more than 15-year wait for visas. She’d been hoping to reunite with them since the 1990s, during military rule in her home country, so her brother’s family could start a life in the U.S. But a day after she bought the plane tickets, President Donald Trump ordered a travel ban that included Myanmar.

The woman, 51, and her husband, who were granted anonymity due to fear of retaliation, had sponsored her brother and sister-in-law to immigrate to the U.S. The siblings were then were hoping to bring their own adult kids, too, so that they wouldn’t have to fulfill mandatory military service in the country’s active civil war.

With the travel ban in effect Monday, they said the policy has a heightened impact on people from war-torn countries like Myanmar who had hopes of finding sanctuary in the U.S.

“It’s really frustrating because we were on the cusp of securing their safety to leave that situation,” said her husband, 57, adding he felt like a “rug got pulled out from under us in an instant.”

White House spokesperson Abigail Jackson said Trump’s policy is in the “best interest of the American people and their safety.”