Trump travel ban disrupting business trips for immigrants in Minnesota

Art dealer Martin Akinseye travels to Africa at least four times each year to meet with artisans and buy art at fairs and festivals. He has a trip planned to Ghana and Liberia in September.

Like several other immigrant business owners at Midtown Global Market, a bustling international marketplace on Lake Street, Akinseye depends on these trips for his Simba Craftware store that sells goods from 30 different countries.

But now, he and other company heads worry President Donald Trump’s new and pending travel bans on 55 countries will crush their ability to get the supplies needed to run their companies.

“I will have to ask and figure this out,” said Akinseye, who has three companies in all that depend on international travel.

Akinseye, a green card holder and native of Nigeria, is technically exempted from the restrictions under Trump’s executive orders.

But attorneys warn that U.S. border officers have stopped many legal immigrants at U.S. airports, searched their cellphones and laptops and interrogated them upon their return to the United States after travel abroad.

Officers have detained some long-time U.S. residents.

The Trump administration says the travel bans are to bolster U.S. security and public safety.

But immigrant business owners increasingly worry that escalating border practices paired with the new travel bans will further complicate needed trips.

The combination is leaving them and their workers confused and concerned.

“There is still heightened risk of international travel for green card holders whether or not they are from a country that is subject to the current travel ban [on 19 nations] or from one of the additional 36 countries” newly being considered for bans by the Trump administration, said Fredrikson and Byron immigration attorney June Cheng.

Green card holders are exempt from the restrictions on travel from companies in Trump’s original order, which include 19 nations, including Somalia and Afghanistan. So are immediate relatives of U.S. citizens.

Still, the order is concerning, Somali Minnesotans say.

Minnesota is home to an estimated 80,000 people of Somali descent, with roughly 37,000 of them born there.

The State Department has said it will impose travel bans on an additional 36 countries, unless they create and prove more robust vetting procedures for their traveling citizens before August.

The additional nations include Ghana, South Sudan, Nigeria and Liberia.

The last two countries have raised eyebrows here in Minnesota, where 16,600 Nigerians and more than 25,0000 Liberians are residents.

Some of them are refugees or have temporary protective status, but are not U.S. citizens and don’t hold green cards. Those workers are worried and avoiding travel back home, business owners said.

Attorneys note that while green card holders are technically exempt from Trump’s new and pending travel ban, there is still a risk that if they leave the U.S. they may have a harder time returning.

Some green card holders still “may be denied entry if they have been absent from the U.S. for an extended period of time. Or if there are certain criminal issues or other concerns related to national security. Green card holders are also subject to electronic device search upon entry,” Cheng said.

Because scores of legal immigrants have already experienced being detained and questioned, immigrant advocates in Minnesota recommend their clients refrain from traveling to any countries on Trump’s list.

“Green card holders are understandably anxious,” said Alec Shaw, civil rights director and attorney for the Council on American-Islamic Relations of Minnesota (CAIR-MN). “Although green card holders are currently exempted from the travel ban, we are still advising green card holders to consider refraining from international travel.”

Akinseye owns three businesses, all of which could be hurt by the travel ban, he said. Besides Simba Craftware, he also runs a college of technology in Liberia and a cellphone repair store in Midtown Global Market that imports components from China.

His businesses employ 29 people. “All we want to do is show people beautiful art and craftsmanship,” he said shaking his head at the fuss of travel bans. He recognizes he is not alone.

Amina Deble, a Somali-born U.S. citizen who owns four Oasis Market and Deli locations around the Twin Cities, has 22 employees and hears from them and job applicants that the travel ban is causing unease and fear in their personal lives.

“Let’s say something happened to your family and you go to back to Somalia, or you go to Djibouti, does this mean you cannot come back?” Deble said.

But the biggest group to be hurt by the new lists are probably immigrant business owners, some of whom are scrambling to figure out how to run companies that depend on overseas visits, suppliers and contacts.

False internet posts about what the ban means further worry immigrants who are already alarmed by an increase in Immigration and Customs Enforcement raids and the detention of students with valid visas, Deble said.

The situation has made it harder to find employees, she said.

“People get fear,” Deble said. She knows of job applicants who are newly “just deciding to sit home and not even look for a job.”

The travel ban and the questions around it leave Ikraan Abdulle, chief executive of Global Health Alliance in Bloomington, in a quandary.

Each year Abdulle, a family nurse practitioner, and 12 American doctors and nurses go to Somalia to train 135 Somali hospital and clinic workers and deliver $300,000 worth of medical supplies.

Upon hearing that Trump imposed a travel ban on Somalia, she postponed this fall’s medical training trip.

The whole program “is on hold,” said Abdulle, a Somalia-born U.S. citizen. She said she needs to talk to an immigration attorney to figure out her options.

“It’s worrisome. This is a life-saving [mission],” she said. “We’re definitely disappointed. Definitely saddened. You know a lot of people are hurting and need these services and these supplies.”