Two Christian Syrian immigrant families were detained at Philadelphia International Airport on Saturday morning and sent back to Doha, Qatar while five other migrants seeking to enter this country were reportedly being detained at the airport Saturday night because of President Trump's new executive order on refugees and immigrants.

Rep. Bob Brady (D., Philadelphia) arrived at the airport just before 8 p.m., reportedly on his way to attempt to get access to the people being detained.

Sen. Bob Casey (D., Pennsylvania) tweeted just before 8 p.m. that he was on his way to meet with customs officials at the airport: "To discuss refugee situation there and reports of Syrian family being sent back."

Lawyer Jonathan Feinberg said he and close to a dozen other attorneys were waiting in the international arrivals hall Saturday night, along with Mayor Kenney, Councilwoman Helen Gym and about 100 protesters.

"It's our hope to be able to file petitions in order to secure the release of the people who have been detained," said Feinberg, of civil rights law firm Kairys, Rudovsky, Messing and Feinburg. "It's our hope that with Congressman Brady's assistance, we will be able to see the folks being held."

http://www.philly.com/philly/blogs/real-time/2-Syrian-families-detained-at-PHL-returned-to-Qatar.html

"I am heartbroken that today President Trump is closing the door on children, mothers and fathers fleeing violence and war. I am heartbroken that America is turning its back on a proud history of welcoming refugees and immigrants — the people who helped build your country, ready to work hard in exchange for a fair chance at a new life.

I am heartbroken that Syrian refugee children, who have suffered through six years of war by no fault of their own, are singled-out for discrimination.

I am heartbroken for girls like my friend Zaynab, who fled wars in three countries — Somalia, Yemen and Egypt — before she was even 17. Two years ago she received a visa to come to the United States. She learned English, graduated high school and is now in college studying to be a human rights lawyer.

Zaynab was separated from her little sister when she fled unrest in Egypt. Today her hope of being reunited with her precious sister dims.

In this time of uncertainty and unrest around the world, I ask President Trump not to turn his back on the world’s most defenseless children and families."

The United States could prioritize the resettlement of Christian refugees over members of other religious groups, President Trump said on Friday.

“They’ve been horribly treated,” Trump said in an interview with Christian Broadcasting Network anchor David Brody. “Do you know if you were a Christian in Syria it was impossible, at least very tough, to get into the United States?”

“If you were a Muslim you could come in, but if you were a Christian, it was almost impossible and the reason that was so unfair, everybody was persecuted in all fairness, but they were chopping off the heads of everybody but more so the Christians. And I thought it was very, very unfair. So we are going to help them.”

When asked by Brody if he saw helping persecuted Christians abroad as a “priority,” Trump promptly replied, “yes.”

There was a lot to be said about the Women’s Marches of January 21st—New Yorker writers discussed their humor, the radical possibility they represented, and the togetherness of the event.

“I went to the march in Augusta, Maine,” Abigail Gray Swartz, the artist behind next week’s cover, said. She used her artistic skills to make signs and a cape. “I marched for all those who need our support, for equality and diversity. And, even if I couldn’t take them with me, I marched for my three-year-old son and for my six-year-old daughter. I was there for them.”

Before Donald Trump was the president, he was a businessman. He came to office leading a vast business enterprise that includes real estate, casinos, and a lucrative branding operation. “The network is huge,” says designer Kim Albrecht, whose riveting data visualization Trump Connections attempts to untangle it all.

Albrecht used data from BuzzFeed’s TrumpWorld investigation into the president’s 1,500-odd business connections to create two visualizations. The first places Trump at the center of an enormous web. The other, which resembles a family tree, deconstructs that network person by person, business by business. “It’s a complete mess if you look at the entire dataset,” Albrecht says.

An interactive version of the data viz lets you click on a name or business to view an expanded list of connections. For instance, clicking on Donald Trump brings up what seems like an endless list of corporations of which he is president. Albrecht organizes the data into a tree denoting the president’s relationship people in the organization.

Anyone with more than one connection is bolded and hyperlinked, dropping you into a rabbit hole of connections. Clicking on Josh Kushner (Jared’s brother), leads to page listing familiar tech companies he’s involved in. Click on Melania Trump and you’ll see all the way’s she’s connected to her husband’s businesses.