FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. – When Maysam Sodagari, an Iranian man who has been living in the United States for nine years, was detained at Port Everglades on Sunday, Khurrum Wahid was on hand to give him legal advice.
"You're a green card holder, right?" Wahid asked.
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"Yes," Sodagari answered.
"So you should not have been detained," Wahid said to Sodagari shortly after he was released.
Since President Donald Trump signed an executive order on Friday that bans immigration and travel for people from seven majority-Muslim countries, Wahid, a criminal defense attorney, and his colleagues have been at ports of entry across the country, providing legal advice pro bono.
"Moments like this remind us why we got into law," Wahid said.
For the most part, these lawyers are getting calls about travelers affected by the ban, filling out paperwork to identify themselves as the travelers' legal representation and then helping the travelers navigate through the entry process.
When Sodagari was stopped at the airport, Wahid was on his way to Miami International Airport. He made a detour and met Sodagari at Port Everglades.
"I went to the Fort Lauderdale cruise ship terminal and tried to get the Iranian man out," he said. "That was Sunday."
Since Friday, attorneys with the Southern Poverty Law Center, the American Civil Liberties Union and local bar associations have been attempting to organize to help people who are affected by the travel ban.
This isn't the first time that headlines have guided Wahid to help. He has compared the latest travel ban to the special registration program imposed in 2002 by the George W. Bush administration
That system was imposed about a year after the Sept. 11 attacks and required males 16 years of age or older from 25 countries to register. All of the countries, but one, had a majority-Muslim population, the exception being North Korea.
These males were required to be fingerprinted, photographed and interviewed. They were also supposed to take part in annual reporting.
"They were rounding up everyone who wasn’t a green card holder (whom) they could grab and finding a way to kill their visas," Wahid said.
Wahid was one of the attorneys who filed a lawsuit against the registration. The program was suspended in 2003, while the lawsuit was in court and was replaced by the National Security Entry-Exit Registration System, which was a registration of non-U.S. citizens.
It was later terminated by the Obama administration.
"In terms of the reaction in the immigration communities, they were the same. There is fear and uncertainty," Wahid said. "When special registration happened, men were being separated from their families. They would be detained and a lot of people were deported right away."
At that time, attorneys willing to help weren’t easy to find. That’s not the case now, Wahid said.
"Now people are texting and emailing me all day long saying, 'How can I help?' Lawyers who have day jobs, who make a living doing this stuff and want to help," he said. "I think the difference is that in 2001 people were reacting to the fear of the moment. There was a massive attack on America and there wasn’t much empathy to people who were from Muslim-majority counties."
That narrative has now changed.
"There is a better understanding of (Muslim) communities," Wahid said. "There is a lack of trust with this administration that this is part of a Muslim ban."