The first thing Mohamed Salem Ali did when he arrived at John Glenn Columbus International Airport was play a trick on his grandson, Rashed.
The 61-year-old Somali man walked slowly past the 7-year-old, grinning at him from behind his mask and waiting for the boy to notice it was his grandfather strolling past. When the boy did realize who he was, he went to give his grandfather a big hug.
Ali was joining his family in Columbus after 11 years of separation, due in part to the Trump administration’s “Muslim Ban."
At the airport, Ali greeted his daughter, Afnan Salem, 22; his other two grandchildren, Rashed's sisters, Reem, 6, and Rahaf, 5, whom he had never met before; his daughter, Sabah, 24; and his wife, Fadumo Hussein, 49, with hugs and exclamations of “Papa!”