Department Of Defense Employee Can’t Reunite With Wife Because Of Muslim Ban

Every morning for the last two years, Abbas has woken to his alarm at 5:30 a.m. Just seconds after opening his eyes and still in bed, he reflexively turns off the alarm on his phone and, in the same swipe, opens his email to scan for a particular message from the U.S. Embassy.

But the Department of Defense employee has yet to receive that email. Abbas, a 33-year-old Muslim American, has no choice but to break the same old news to his wife, a Syrian native stranded in Turkey, that his own employer has not yet allowed for her to join him in his home country.

“I wake up in the morning and I’m just ready to serve the country and serve the people who protect us, yet they tell me, ’Your wife is not allowed to come here’” Abbas told HuffPost. “It is very ironic that I work in the U.S. government to help protect our national security, yet this very same national security is used as a pretext to keep me away from my wife.”