US deports two Palestinians who landed with valid visas for an interfaith mission
Two Palestinian peace activists who were detained upon landing in the US during a trip sponsored by a synagogue were deported from San Francisco on Friday, friends and fellow activists have told Middle East Eye.
Eid Hathaleen and Awdah Hathaleen, cousins from the Masafer Yatta village of Umm al-Khair in the occupied West Bank, possessed valid visas and, after being detained, had their visas revoked upon landing in the US on Wednesday.
Eid, an artist and photographer, and Awdah, an English teacher and contributor to Israeli magazine +972, landed in San Francisco on a flight from Doha, Qatar, on Wednesday.
The trip was sponsored by Kehilla Community Synagogue in Piedmont, California. The cousins were scheduled to speak at churches, synagogues, and other establishments as part of an interfaith humanitarian mission that was supposed to take them from California to Washington, DC, and then Boston.
