In October 2017, Saleh Almuganahi, an American citizen of Yemeni descent, said his wife was interviewed by U.S. consular officials in Djibouti. She even received a document stating "Your visa is approved."

The government just had to print it.

That never happened.

Two months later the Trump administration's travel ban went into effect and she and her two young children have been stuck in Yemen through the course of a violent war.

The family's lawyer, Ahmed Mohamed, Litigation Director at the Council on American-Islamic Relations, said the revocation of her visa violated the law.

"The president himself said, 'This proclamation shall not be used to revoke visas that were previously approved.' And that's exactly what's happening here," said Mohamed.

On Monday, CAIR announced the family's lawsuit. 

"Immediately the following day, the family actually received an email from the US embassy, saying that their visa had been approved." 

In other words, the revocation was revoked. But in an emailed statement, a State Department spokesperson said "No visas have been revoked" since the travel ban was announced. So what's going on?

"What the government is saying in response to these cases, that they're not revocations, is a matter of semantics," said Diala Shamas, a staff attorney at the Center for Constitutional Rights. 

She said she personally knew of hundreds of cases like the Almuganahis. In the past, the State Department has argued that anything short of an actual, printed visa is provisional.

Shamas said many Yemenis who have successfully procured a visa did so only after a lawsuit or media coverage, and that this undercuts the security rationale of the travel ban.

According to Mohamed, his client's lawsuit won't be withdrawn until his wife and kids have safely made it to the U.S., from Yemen.