Baby Originally Barred by Travel Ban Will Get Critical Surgery

A 4-month-old girl barred from entry to the US and the lifesaving surgery she required by President Trump's travel ban received an exemption Friday, the New York Daily News reports. Fatemeh Reshad was born with structural abnormalities in her heart. According to KOIN, US doctors reviewing her medical files agreed she would die soon without surgery, but hospitals at home in Iran didn't have the necessary equipment to perform it. Fatemeh's family received a temporary visa to travel to Oregon for surgery, but it was canceled by Trump's executive order Jan. 27. “My niece is 4-months-old coming here for surgery," says Fatemeh's uncle, a US citizen living in Portland. "You're scared of her?"

The International Refugee Assistance Project and New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo took up Fatemeh's cause. Cuomo called what was being done to her family "repugnant to all we believe as Americans and as members of the human family," the AP reports. It worked. Fatemeh and her family were granted a waiver to enter the country Friday just as a judge was putting a temporary halt on enforcement of the travel ban. Mount Sinai Medical Center in New York even offered to perform Fatemeh's procedure for free, though her family will be having it done as planned in Oregon, where they have family. Fatemeh should be arriving in Portland early next week. (More Trump travel ban stories.)