American Muslims, immigrants and U.S.-born alike, are part of the fabric of this nation and part of what makes America great. As U.S. businesses, investors, and universities have pointed out, American Muslims are our neighbors, friends, and colleagues. They are us. Trump’s ban separates American families and deprives our country of the contributions that these newcomers, and their children and grandchildren, will make as Americans. —Cecilia Wang, ACLU
Pr*sident Donald Trump’s executive order barring entry of all nationals from Iraq, Syria, Iran, Sudan, Libya, Somalia, and Yemen, for 90 days is causing major fall-out today. The ban, said Gillian Christensen, acting Department of Homeland Security spokeswoman, in an email to Reuters, “will bar green card holders.” Emma Brown and David Nakamura report:
Refugees and migrants holding valid visas who were en route to the United States on Friday evening have been detained at U.S. airports and restricted from the country as a result of President Trump’s executive order banning their entry.
Lawyers for two Iraqi men detained at New York’s John F. Kennedy International Airport filed a middle-of-the-night lawsuit in federal court challenging Trump’s executive order as unconstitutional and seeking the release of their clients. They also are seeking class certification so they may represent all refugees and visa-holders who are being held at U.S. ports of entry.
Immigration advocates say at least one refugee family is detained at San Francisco International Airport, but it is not clear how many refugees are currently detained at airports nationwide.
The detained men are Hameed Khalid Darweesh, 53, who worked as a contractor for the U.S. government in Iraq for nearly 10 years, including as an interpreter for the Army. He, his wife, and three children have been following the rules for two years to obtain a special immigrant visa that has been granted to Iraqis who have assisted U.S. military forces. He and his family were blocked from entry at 6 PM ET. The other detainee is Sameer Abdulkhaleq Alshawi, 33. He has a visa permitting him to join his wife and child in Texas. His wife worked for a U.S. government contractor before coming to the United States as a refugee in 2014.
UPDATE:
Glad to see these two representatives fighting back.
The American Civil Liberties Union was one of those involved in the lawsuit for the two. Cecillia Wang, the ACLU’s deputy legal director wrote Saturday morning.
In effect, Trump has barred Muslims from entering the United States, while favoring the entry of Christians.
One of the tenets upon which our country was founded is that religion is our own business and not the government’s. We have freedom of belief. We do not have religious litmus tests for participation in society. Trump’s order is anathema to those founding principles. It violates the First Amendment’s Establishment Clause, which prohibits the government from preferring or disfavoring any religion. Trump’s anti-Muslim policy also violates the Equal Protection Clause, the part of the Fourteenth Amendment that guarantees that everyone is entitled to equal protection under the law.
Trump’s orders are immoral as well as unconstitutional. He is barring the entry of modern-day counterparts of the passengers of the St. Louis — children injured in Syria’s terrible and brutal civil war, who are at imminent risk of being killed. And Trump’s order is a slap in the face to the millions of Americans who uphold our best traditions of welcoming the stranger seeking refuge. [...]
Federal courts ought to block implementation of Trump’s executive order temporarily while they rule it permanently out of bounds because of its unconstitutional nature. But will they?