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Film on Trump Travel Ban at JFK Screens as Case Gets Supreme Court Nod

 Protesters gathered at JFK Airport on Jan. 28 after dozens of people were held there following President Donald Trump's executive order restricting immigration and refugees from predominantly Muslim countries.
Protesters gathered at JFK Airport on Jan. 28 after dozens of people were held there following President Donald Trump's executive order restricting immigration and refugees from predominantly Muslim countries.
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DNAinfo/Noah Hurowitz

FORT GREENE — Immigration activists will screen a short documentary at Brooklyn Academy of Music on Wednesday about the chaos and surge in public outcry at JFK Airport following President Donald Trump’s travel ban implementation — just as a revised ban gets a partial nod from the Supreme Court.

The film, “48 Hours at JFK: What Comes Next,” shot by filmmaker Micah Schaffer, covers the weekend at JFK from Jan. 27 to Jan. 29, when thousands of protesters descended on one of the airport’s international terminals as Customs and Border Patrol officials detained dozens of travelers.

The film shows the essence of what happened when ordinary people came out and said "this isn't who we are, this is against the values we hold dear," said Murad Awawdeh, political engagement director for the New York Immigration Coalition, which is organizing the screening.

Following the film, staff members of the New York Immigration Coalition will talk about the travel ban with Nisrin Elamin, a Sudanese graduate student detained at JFK, in a panel discussion led by Ahmed Ali Akhbar, the host of Buzzfeed’s “See Something Say Something” podcast.

The event will begin at 7:30 p.m. Wednesday, and tickets are $10 for BAM members and $15 for the general public.

The event comes on the heels of the announcement Monday that the Supreme Court has ruled the government can uphold parts of Trump's revised order including a ban on nationals from the six countries entering the United States who have no familial or institutional ties to the country, as they await a formal set arguments this fall.

The opinion is not a formal ruling on the ban but rather a decision on which parts of it should be upheld between now and when the case comes before the court, according to SCOTUSBlog. 

The case, Trump vs. International Refugee Assistance Project, is based on a challenge led by IRAP, a Manhattan-based refugee rights group that was at the forefront of efforts to free detainees held at JFK.

The ban, which was blocked by a Brooklyn federal judge Jan. 28, was later revised to ban entry of travelers from just six countries — Sudan, Libya, Yemen, Syria, Iran, and Somalia, but even that order, which Trump later dismissed as “watered down,” was later blocked in a series of lower courts decisions.

Trump issued the ban as an executive order, arguing that it was essential to protecting the United States from potential terrorists arriving from the countries in question. But immigration-rights activists and opponents of the president said it was an overreach by Trump that violated the rights of immigrants and refugees.

“48 Hours at JFK: What Now?” at BAM Rose Cinemas, 30 Lafayette Ave. between Ashland Place and St. Felix St. in Fort Greene. $10 for BAM members, $15 for the general public. For more information see BAM’s website.