Travelers detained at Seattle airport released from custody

SEATTLE — A Port of Seattle spokeswoman says individuals detained at Seattle-Tacoma International Airport as a result of President Trump's executive order have been released by the Department of Homeland Security.

Kathy Roeder says DHS told port officials Sunday morning that the individuals can continue their travels.



“We worked very swiftly in getting legal opportunities for the detainees. Their lawyer was with them most of the day yesterday. And effective today, they are on United States soil,” said Wendy Reiter, director of security at SeaTac International Airport.

“We’ll be reviewing that in the future days to be seeing if we could have done things differently and it’s unfortunate that it did escalate to that,” said Reiter.

Democratic U.S. Rep. Pramila Jayapal of Washington state says in a news release Sunday that two individuals were released.

One of them is on his way to Las Vegas to a convention he was planning to attend. The other is with his family who were already here visiting other relatives.

One of them is a Sudanese citizen who has lived in the UAE for more than twenty years and the other is a Yemeni citizen born in Saudi Arabia.


They were both arriving on visitors visas.

“The release of the two immigrants held by CBP is a small victory in our fight against the president’s inhumane policies," Jayapal said in a statement.

"I’m grateful that the ACLU of Washington and Northwest Immigrants Rights Project took swift legal action to make this release possible.

President Trump should know that this is not over. This is only the beginning of our resistance. We will fight his ill-conceived and unconstitutional executive orders until the very end.”

Sen. Patty Murray said Sunday that she met with the families affected by the president's executive orders.

"People across the country are saying, 'This isn't right,'" Murray said Sunday.



About 3,000 protesters gathered Saturday evening at the Sea-Tac airport to show their opposition to Trump's executive order.

Roeder says the crowd dispersed shortly after midnight but about 30 to 35 were arrested during the demonstration and face various misdemeanor charges.

No flights were delayed due to the protests.

Trump signed an executive order Friday that bans legal U.S. residents and visa-holders from seven Muslim-majority nations from entering the U.S. for 90 days and puts an indefinite hold on a program resettling Syrian refugees.



At a fiery news conference denouncing Trump's order, Inslee said he had met with a woman, a U.S. citizen, whose husband was denied entry at Sea-Tac airport after flying from Vienna. It wasn't clear if Inslee was speaking about the same traveler or if multiple people were detained.

The United States "allowed her husband to get on a plane in Vienna but didn't let him go the six feet across this gate to embrace his wife," Inslee said of the man.