4-year-old Syrian girl reunites with family in US after months apart

A family member captured the emotional reunion in a cellphone video.

ByABC News
February 25, 2017, 1:33 PM

— -- A 4-year-old Syrian girl whose reunion with her family in the United States was delayed by President Donald Trump's travel ban had a joyful return to her parents on Friday.

Muna Khadra and her family have lived in the United Staes since 2013. After a family trip to visit relatives in Lebanon in October, Muna was the only one denied entry back into the United States because of an issue with her visa. Her family was forced to leave her behind with her grandmother in Jordan, where she has lived since.

Her father, Abdallh Khadra, was trying to get his daughter back into the United States when the president on Jan. 27 signed an executive order temporarily banning the entry of people from seven Muslim-majority countries, including Syria, where Muna was born. Khadra told ABC News at the time that he was told his daughter is now “ineligible for U.S. entry.”

“This is heartbreaking. We cannot believe this happened," said Khadra, who fled Syria with his family after speaking out against the government there. He was vetted and cleared for U.S. entry in 2011 on a religious work visa, and later applied for political asylum.

Trump's executive order has since been put on hold by a federal judge in Seattle.

Muna's father was finally able to get her on a plane back to the United States after four months of their being apart. The child flew into O'Hare International Airport in Chicago with Khadra's sister, Hagar Haltam.

Her family drove from their home in Raleigh, North Carolina, to greet Muna with balloons, hugs and tears.

“She’s part of me. She’s part of me,” Khadra told ABC owned-and-operated station WLS on Friday. “You feel a part of you is missing, so how do you live?”

Haltam captured the emotional reunion in a cellphone video, which was provided to ABC News.

In the video, Abdallh runs through the terminal with open arms upon seeing Muna for the first time in months. The little girl, dressed in pink and carrying a Hello Kitty backpack, wraps her arms around her father’s neck as he scoops her up into an embrace and breaks down in tears. Muna’s mother then kneels by her husband’s side and begins to cry as she takes the little girl into her arms.

ABC News' Durrell Dawson, Sally Hawkins, Gloria Riviera and Candace Smith contributed to this report.

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