Tens of thousands of people rallied in U.S. cities and at airports on Sunday to voice outrage over President Donald Trump's executive order restricting entry into the country for travelers from seven Muslim-majority nations.

In New York, Washington and Boston, a second wave of demonstrations followed spontaneous rallies that broke out at U.S. airports on Saturday as U.S. Customs and Border Protection agents began enforcing Trump's directive. The protests spread westward as the day progressed.

The order, which bars admission of Syrian refugees and suspends travel to the United States from Syria, Iraq, Iran and four other countries on national security grounds, has led to the detention or deportation of hundreds of people arriving at U.S. airports.

Uber Responds to Rage over Alleged 'Strikebreaking' During Immigration Protests

One of the largest of Sunday's protests took place at Battery Park in lower Manhattan, within sight of the Statue of Liberty in New York Harbor, long a symbol of welcome to U.S. shores.

Democratic Senator Charles Schumer of New York told the crowd that Trump's order was un-American and ran counter to the country's core values.

"What we are talking about here is life and death for so many people," the Senate Democratic leader said. "I will not rest until these horrible orders are repealed."

The march, estimated to have grown to about 10,000 people, later began heading to the U.S. Customs and Border Protection office in lower Manhattan.

These Countries with Business Links to Trump Aren't Part of His Immigration Ban

In Washington, thousands rallied at Lafayette Square across from the White House, chanting: "No hate, no fear, refugees are welcome here."

It was the second straight weekend that Washington was the scene of protests. Last Saturday, hundreds of thousands of women participated in an anti-Trump rally and march, one of dozens staged across the country.

On Sunday, many of the protesters left the White House area and marched along Pennsylvania Avenue, stopping at the Trump International Hotel where they shouted: "Shame, shame, shame."

A crowd that police estimated at 8,000 people eventually arrived at the steps of the U.S. Capitol, where a line of uniformed officers stood guard.

For more on the protests, watch:

As the crowd passed the Canadian Embassy en route to the Capitol, protesters chanted: "Hey hey, ho ho, I wish our leader was Trudeau." It was a reference to Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau's Saturday Twitter message affirming his country's welcoming policy toward refugees.

Trump defended the executive order in a statement on Sunday, saying the United States would resume issuing visas to all countries once secure policies were put in place over the next 90 days.

"To be clear, this is not a Muslim ban, as the media is falsely reporting," Trump said. "This is not about religion - this is about terror and keeping our country safe."

'NEVER AGAIN MEANS NEVER'

Aria Grabowski, 30, of Washington, was carrying a sign that read: "Never again means never again for everyone."

Above the slogan was a photograph of Jewish refugees who fled Germany in 1939 on a ship that was turned away from Havana, Cuba, and forced to return to Europe. More than 250 people aboard the ship were eventually killed by the Nazis.

About 200 protesters chanted on Sunday afternoon at Washington Dulles International Airport in northern Virginia near the U.S. capital.

About the same number gathered at New York's John F. Kennedy International Airport, where anxious families awaited relatives detained for hours after flights from countries affected by the presidential order.

At Los Angeles International Airport, hundreds of people had gathered to protest Trump's order, as chants of "refugees are welcome here" echoed through the arrivals hall.

Organizers estimated that more than 10,000 people packed Boston's Copley Square to hear Senator Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts, a vocal critic of Trump and a leader of the Democratic Party's liberal wing, and other speakers.

During the protests, dozens of Muslims, some of them kneeling on protest signs, bowed in prayer on rugs laid out on a grassy patch of ground in the square.

In Houston, which was already filling up with visitors for next Sunday's Super Bowl, about 500 people marched through the downtown.

Jennifer Fagen, 47, a sociology professor at Lamar University in Beaumont, Texas, said she hoped she did not lose her job for protesting.

Iraq Threatens Ban on U.S. Citizens, Putting the Fight Against ISIS at Risk

"I'm Jewish, and it's supposed to be 'never again,'" Fagen said, referring to the Holocaust. "Jews should be the first ones to defend Muslims, considering what has happened to us, and it seems it's being repeated under Trump."

At Detroit Metropolitan Airport, police cordoned off sections of terminal as up to 3,000 demonstrators chanted, "No hate, no fear, refugees are welcome here."

Among the demonstrators were Wail Aljirafi and his wife, Samyeh Zindani of Ann Arbor, Michigan, and their three children.

"We want them to feel that they're always included," Zindani, a Yemeni-American, told Reuters.

In the Detroit suburb of Hamtramck, Michigan, home to a large number of Yemeni immigrant families and the nation's first Muslim-majority city council, at least 600 people rallied outside City Hall.

Rama Alhoussaini, 23, a Syrian immigrant who lives in nearby Dearborn, said she and her family emigrated to Michigan in 1999 when she was 6 years old.

"Now for us to see this kind of hatred and bigotry, it breaks my heart," she said. "It makes me feel like I am not wanted here."</s>Thousands of people poured into the streets Sunday marking a second day of widespread protest against President Trump's executive order banning immigration for seven predominantly Muslim countries.

The executive order, which was partially stayed by a federal judge late Saturday evening, has been criticized by both national security experts and civil rights organizations alike.

From Boston to San Francisco, the protestors—of every color, creed, and age—carried signs and shouted slogans making clear in one voice that Trump's "Muslim ban" is an affront to their ideals and their country.</s>The U.S. technology industry, a major employer of foreign workers, hit back on Saturday at President Donald Trump’s sudden executive order on immigration, with some leaders calling it immoral and un-American. Trump’s order temporarily bars citizens of seven majority-Muslim countries from entering the United States even if they hold valid visas or permanent residence permits, a move that caught many companies off-guard.

Netflix Inc Chief Executive Reed Hastings called it “a sad week” and added: “It is time to link arms together to protect American values of freedom and opportunity.” Apple Inc CEO Tim Cook sent a letter to employees saying Trump’s order was “not a policy we support” and promised to help affected employees. “We have reached out to the White House to explain the negative effect on our coworkers and our company,” Cook added.

Elon Musk, the South African-born founder of Tesla and SpaceX who met recently with Trump, said on Twitter: “The blanket entry ban on citizens from certain primarily Muslim countries is not the best way to address the country’s challenges.”

You May Also Like To Watch This:

Airbnb co-founder and CEO Brian Chesky said: “Not allowing countries or refugees into America is not right and we must stand with those who are affected.”Airbnb will provide free housing to anyone not allowed into the United States, Chesky said.

Aaron Levie, the outspoken founder and CEO of online storage company Box Inc, said: “The executive order on immigration is immoral and antithetical to our values.”

Friday’s order could be a major headache for tech companies, potentially leaving employees stranded overseas and unable to return to the United States. Alphabet Inc’s Google urgently called back employees from overseas and told ones who might be affected by the ban not to leave the United States.

CEO Sundar Pichai said in an email to staff that more than 100 Google employees were affected by the order, according to a Google executive.

One Google employee of Iranian nationality with legal U.S. residency made it back to the United States just hours before the order took effect, the executive said. “We’re concerned about the impact of this order and any proposals that could impose restrictions on Googlers and their families, or that could create barriers to bringing great talent to the U.S.,” Google said in a statement.

Microsoft Corp President and Chief Legal Officer Brad Smith said in a company-wide email posted on LinkedIn that 76 company employees were citizens of the seven countries in question and held U.S. work visas, and thus were directly affected by the order.

He said the company had not determined how many people with green cards, or permanent residence status, might be affected. “As a company, Microsoft believes in a strong and balanced high-skilled immigration system,” Smith said in the post. “We believe in the importance of protecting legitimate and law-abiding refugees whose very lives may be at stake in immigration proceedings.”

Uber Technologies Inc CEO Travis Kalanick, who has faced criticism from some employees for participating in President Trump’s business advisory council, said in a statement that the company would compensate drivers from the seven countries who might not be able to return to the United States for three months or more. He said the company knew of about a dozen affected employees.

“This ban will impact many innocent people – an issue that I will raise this coming Friday when I go to Washington for President Trump’s first business advisory group meeting,” Kalanick said. Facebook Inc CEO Mark Zuckerberg said in a post on Friday that was “concerned” about the order and voiced support for immigrants.</s>President Trump spent his first week in office chaotically unveiling executive orders in an effort to prove he’s making good on his campaign promises. Judging from the stream of unsettling headlines this week, Trump dealt serious blows to Obamacare, the “catch-and-release” policy, and “sanctuary cities” — all while obsessively poring over photos of the crowd at his inauguration.

Yet upon closer examination, Trump did not instantly undo major elements of the Obama administration with just a few strokes of his pen. Politico reported on Thursday that the documents were drafted primarily by Steve Bannon and Stephen Miller, the Breitbart faction of Trump’s advisers. Since they consulted with virtually no one, some of the orders are vague, legally questionable, or even impossible to carry out. Here’s what Trump’s first executive orders might actually do, when you look past the terrific photo ops.



What Trump ordered: Hours after his inauguration, Trump signed an executive order declaring that his administration will “take all actions consistent with the law” to “ease the burden of Obamacare.” It instructs the heads of all executive departments and agencies to “exercise all authority and discretion available to them to waive, defer, grant exemptions from, or delay” parts of the Affordable Care Act that put financial burdens on individuals, health-care providers, or states.

Can he do that? Yes, but it’s not clear what “that” is. Only Congress can repeal the Affordable Care Act, but the Trump administration can severely weaken the law by changing how it’s carried out. The Incidental Economist blog compiled a long list of administrative changes that could be made to the law immediately, from reducing reinsurance payments to insurers, to removing the requirement that health plans cover all forms of contraceptive.

Trump is reportedly mulling whether to kill the individual mandate, which could send the individual-health-insurance market into the proverbial “death spiral.” The secretary of Health and Human Services can grant hardship exemptions from the mandate using any criteria he or she wants. That means that, without touching the law itself, the Trump administration could effectively kill the individual mandate by granting an exception to everyone.



As FiveThirtyEight notes, Trump HHS secretary pick Tom Price could have done this even before Trump issued his order, “but in case there was any question, the folks at HHS now have their bosses’ itemized list of priorities.” Of course, Price hasn’t even been confirmed yet, so it may be weeks before we know what the Trump administration will actually do to the ACA.

Cut U.S. Aid to Groups That Provide or Promote Abortion Overseas

What Trump ordered: He reinstated and expanded the “Mexico City policy,” also known as the “global gag rule,” which stipulates that foreign nongovernmental organizations that promote or provide abortion cannot receive U.S. federal aid. Previously, the policy only applied to groups that receive U.S. family-planning funding, but Trump’s version applies to organizations that get global health money as well.

Can he do that? Yes. Ronald Reagan implemented the policy in 1985, and it’s subsequently been rescinded by every Democratic president and restored by every Republican president. Mark J. Rozell, dean of the Schar School of Policy and Government at George Mason University, argued in The Hill that this “showcases the troubles with governing by executive order,” but it’s generally accepted that every president will change the Mexico City policy upon taking office.

The Kaiser Family Foundation explains that Congress could step in, but obviously that’s not going to happen with Republicans in control:

What Trump ordered: He signed a brief presidential memorandum declaring that the U.S. is withdrawing from the Trans-Pacific Partnership, and that his administration intends to “deal directly with individual countries on a one-on-one (or bilateral) basis in negotiating future trade deals.”

Can he do that? Yes. The TPP was never ratified by Congress, so Trump’s order was mostly symbolic. The 11 other countries say they want to salvage the deal, but it would have to be revamped significantly and would have much less weight without the U.S.

What Trump ordered: As part of two sweeping executive orders on immigration signed Wednesday, Trump said his administration intends to “secure the southern border of the United States through the immediate construction of a physical wall on the southern border.”

Can he do that? Not without help from Congress. Republican lawmakers believe the president has the authority to construct the wall under the Secure Fence Act of 2006, which called for the construction of at least 700 miles of “physical barrier” along the southern border. The fence was never completed, and the Homeland Security secretary could interpret “physical barrier” to mean a big, beautiful concrete wall.

But the wall could cost as much as $20 billion, and Trump can’t come up with that money on his own. He ordered the Department of Homeland Security to look for available funds within its $41 billion annual budget, but the House and Senate appropriations committees would have to approve an internal reallocation of money, and it still wouldn’t be enough to fund the entire project.

Luckily for Trump, congressional Republicans are willing to put a massive amount of U.S. taxpayer money toward the project. House Speaker Paul Ryan said on Wednesday that Congress intends to fund the wall through a supplemental appropriations bill in the spring.

When pressed on how they’d “make Mexico pay for it,” GOP leaders suggested they’d leave that to Trump. “We intend to address the wall issue ourselves and the president can deal with his relations with other countries on that issue and others,” said Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell.

What Trump ordered: His two executive orders on border security said he is terminating the policy known as “catch and release,” in which people caught crossing the border illegally are freed, pending hearings. In order to hold and process them, Trump called for the construction of new detention facilities, the hiring of 5,000 additional Border Patrol agents, and 10,000 additional U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officers.



Can he do that? The cost and logistics are daunting. Reuters reports that in the last three months of 2016, 136,670 people were caught crossing the border, and about 48 percent were unaccompanied children or families with children. Existing facilities have about 34,000 beds.

Trump’s order directs his cabinet secretaries to “take all appropriate action and allocate all legally available resources to immediately construct, operate, control, or establish contracts to construct, operate, or control facilities to detain aliens at or near the land border with Mexico.” But he won’t find the money needed for such an enormous undertaking without approval from Congress.

Politico did some rough math, and concluded that Trump’s immigration proposals could increase federal spending by $13 billion a year, not including the wall. The combined budgets for ICE and border protection in 2016 come to $19.4 billion.

John Sandweg, who was acting director of ICE in 2013 and 2014, estimated that Trump’s plan would require four or five times as many detention beds per day, which would cost $10 billion annually. Hiring another 10,000 ICE agents could cost $3.9 billion a year, and adding 5,000 Border Patrol agents could add $900 million annually.

Immigration courts are already severely backlogged, and it’s illegal to keep children in immigration detention indefinitely. Even if Congress gave Trump the money, the time and effort it would take to establish new detention centers, train new officers, and fend off legal challenges would be enormous. “I just view this as a political document more than anything,” Sandweg said of the executive orders.

What Trump ordered: Cities and counties that limit their cooperation with federal immigration officials “are not eligible to receive federal grants, except as deemed necessary for law enforcement purposes.” As Vox notes, nothing has been defunded yet:

Can he do that? It’s unclear, and it would take a massive legal battle to find out. The Trump administration could try to sue the cities for violating federal law, but the federal government can’t force state and local law enforcement to enforce federal law. In 2014, a federal appeals court ruled that local police do not have to hold undocumented immigrants for ICE agents.

The Trump administration could try to coerce sanctuary cities into following the law by withholding certain federal grant money. Some federal money is distributed by Congress, but Republicans may go along with Trump’s effort. Several Republican lawmakers have tried to pass laws that would cut money for sanctuary cities in recent years. Even if Congress doesn’t approve, the Trump administration could withhold the grants administered by federal agencies, potentially cutting off funding for various local programs.

Mayors from several cities — including New York, Chicago, and Los Angeles — have already vowed to stand up to Trump’s crackdown on sanctuary cities, but on Thursday, Miami-Dade County mayor Carlos Gimenez signed an executive order ordering his corrections department to comply with all ICE requests. He said his county can’t afford to lose out on the $355 million it’s set to receive in federal funding next year.

What Trump ordered: He reversed decisions made by the Obama administration by inviting the TransCanada Corporation to “promptly resubmit its application” to build the Keystone XL pipeline, and directing the Army “to review and approve in an expedited manner” the last section of the Dakota Access pipeline. He told reporters he would “renegotiate some of the terms” and ordered his secretary of commerce to develop a plan to ensure that all of the pipelines are built and repaired using U.S.-made steel.

Can he do that?: Trump can help advance the pipeline projects, but even he acknowledged that it wasn’t a sure thing. “We’ll see if we can get that pipeline built,” he said. “A lot of jobs.” Renegotiating the terms of the deals would be a lengthy and legally questionable process — plus he would have to contend with the environmentalists and Native American rights activists protesting the construction of the Dakota Access pipeline.

Trade-policy experts have criticized the order that the pipelines be constructed from U.S.-made material, as it would violate international trade laws that say a government can’t treat foreign and domestic companies differently.

“First of all, this is private investment, so there’s no legal authority for the government to require a private company to use domestic materials,” Dan Ikenson, director of the Cato Institute’s Herbert A. Stiefel Center for Trade Policy Studies, tells CNBC.

“Is it good policy to have the president dictate where U.S. companies buy their inputs? No. I think that’s terrible. I think that’s dictatorial. I think it’s very bad precedence.”</s>Foreign Minister Julie Bishop has confirmed that Australia will support Donald Trump's controversial Muslim visa ban and tough border control policies.

Ms Bishop said Australia would stand by the president's executive order - despite backlash from the United Kingdom, Canada and a number of countries in Europe.

The executive order bans all citizens and refugees from seven predominantly Muslim countries from entering the United States for the next 90 and 120 days respectively.

'I'm confident that the Australian government and the U.S. government will continue to support each other in ensuring that we can implement our strong immigration and border protection policies,' Ms Bishop said in Los Angeles.

'The Australian government is working very closely with the administration and the US officials and we want to ensure that Australians continue to have access to the United States, as they have in the past, and people from the United States have access to Australia.'

Treasurer Scott Morrison also jumped to Mr Trump's defence, reasoning that the newly-elected president was simply fulfilling an election promise.

'They've had an election and the president has implemented what he said he would do,' he said on 2GB radio on Monday morning.

A spokeswoman for Foreign Minister Julie Bishop says officials are in talks with US counterparts to get clarity on how the temporary ban on those from Iraq, Iran, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria and Yemen may affect dual nationals.

WHO EXACTLY IS BANNED FROM THE U.S? Any non-U.S. citizen from Iraq, Syria, Iran, Sudan, Libya, Somalia or Yemen is now barred from entering the United States. That covers legal permanent residents - green card holders - and visa-holders from those seven countries who were out of the United States after Friday, when President Donald Trump signed an executive order with the temporary ban. They cannot return to the U.S. for 90 days. There's an exemption for immigrants and legal permanent residents whose entry is in the U.S. national interest, but it's unclear how that exemption will be applied. Visa and green card holders already in the U.S. will be allowed to stay.

'The Australian embassy in Washington is engaging with US officials on the potential implications of the suspension for Australian travellers, including dual nationals,' a spokeswoman told AAP in a statement.

All travellers are being warned that rules could change at short notice.

'Travellers should contact the nearest embassy or consulate of the United States for the most current information,' the spokeswoman added.

Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull is also believed to have secured a deal with Donald Trump and the United States to accept asylum seekers from Nauru and Manus Island - despite a vast majority coming from the banned countries.

It's understood Mr Trump agreed to honour the agreement struck under the Obama administration during a 25-minute phone conversation with Mr Turnbull on Sunday.

Mr Morrison told 2GB radio that the government had 'been able to secure the continuance of this arrangement under President Trump'.</s>Reality TV star Kim Kardashian has contributed to the nation-wide debate sparked by President Donald Trump’s sweeping executive order signed on Friday banning Muslim immigration and travel from seven majority Muslim countries. Kardashian responded to the controversial ban by sharing a chart purportedly showing the number of Americans killed by “Islamic jihadist immigrants” compared with other causes of death in the country.

The 36-year-old celebrity surprised nearly 49.8 million Twitter followers on Saturday by posting a chart featuring figures with footnote citations indicating that only an average of two Americans were killed annually in the past ten years by “Islamic jihadist immigrants” compared with a yearly average of more than 11,737 Americans killed by being shot with a gun by fellow American citizens.

According to the chart, an average of five Americans were killed annually by far-right-wing terrorists in the past ten years compared with two by Islamic jihadist terrorists. Lightning killed an average of 31 Americans every year in the same period, while lawnmowers killed 69. The chart went on to claim that an average of 264 Americans died annually by being hit by a bus, while the figure for people falling out of bed was 737. Toddlers with guns killed an average of 21 Americans every year, according to Kim Kardashian’s chart.

The tweet was shared tens of thousands of times within hours after it was posted as protests continued across the country in response to the decision by the Trump administration to suspend the issuing of visas to visitors from seven Muslim-majority countries, including Syria, Sudan, Yemen, Somalia Libya, Iran, and Iraq. The ban included travelers with green cards.

The order also affected refugees from Syria fleeing the war-torn country.

The executive order was implemented immediately, sparking protests at major airports across the country, including John F. Kennedy International Airport in New York City. Hundreds of protesters gathered at the airport chanting, “Let them in!”

However, on Saturday, after the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) filed a petition on behalf of travelers from the seven affected countries detained at airports across the country, a federal court for the Eastern District of New York issued an emergency order temporarily barring the U.S. authorities from deporting the detained travelers on account of the new executive order.

But the emergency order did not compel the authorities to allow them to enter the country.

The latest tweet by Kim Kardashian comes after her husband rapper Kanye West met with Trump ahead of Inauguration Day. He claimed at the time that he met with the then president-elect to discuss issues related to “bullying” and “violence” in Chicago.

“I wanted to meet with Trump today to discuss multicultural issues,” Kanye said, according to Us Weekly. “These issues included bullying, supporting teachers, modernizing curriculum, and violence in Chicago.”

Kanye had expressed support for Trump during his San Pablo tour last November. He claimed that he did not vote in the 2016 general election but that if he had, he would have voted for Trump.

“I told y’all I didn’t vote, right? What I didn’t tell you… if I were to have voted I would have voted on Trump,” he said, while performing at a concert on November 17.

But he made the comment just before he was hospitalized for “temporary psychosis,” cynics pointed out.

Kim was not the only member of the Kardashian family who tweeted in response to the Trump administration’s immigration ban. His sister Khloe Kardashian also tweeted on the issue, saying “All of this in the news today breaks my heart.”</s>That's the situation after President Donald Trump's move to ban more than 130 million people from the United States and to deny entry to all refugees reverberated worldwide Saturday.

It's rippling through US law enforcement agencies, airports and foreign capitals trying to grasp the US's new policy.

Dozens of people are being detained at DFW International Airport. Families are in tears waiting to know if their loved ones will make it through U.S. Customs.

At John F. Kennedy International Airport, two Iraqis who had been granted visas to enter the US were detained and prevented from exiting the airport.

Customs and Border Protection officials cited Trump's new executive order, which bans citizens of Iraq and six other Muslim-majority countries -- a total of at least 134 million people -- from entering the US for the next 90 days. It also suspends the admission of all refugees for 120 days.

One of the men, Hameed Khalid Darweesh, worked with the US government for 10 years after the US invaded Iraq. He was released early Saturday afternoon due to provisions in Trump's order that allow the secretaries of state and homeland security to admit individuals into the US on a case-by-case basis, a source with knowledge of the case told CNN.

The other man, Haider Sameer Abdulkaleq Alshawi, had been granted a visa to join his wife, who had worked for a US contractor in Iraq, and son, both of whom already live in the US as refugees. It was not immediately clear how many other cases like Darweesh and Alshawi's were cropping up at other US airports, which appeared to have been blindsided by the new immigration rule that took effect immediately with Trump's signature Friday afternoon.

Trump on Friday said that his actions would "keep radical Islamic terrorists out of the United States of America."

"We don't want them here," Trump said as he signed the order. "We want to ensure that we are not admitting into our country the very threats our soldiers are fighting overseas. We only want to admit those into our country who will support our country and love deeply our people."

But those actions will not automatically allow green card holders who traveled to the affected countries back into the United States.

Instead, those travelers will have to apply for a waiver to the executive order that instituted the ban.</s>As the furore sorrounding the banning of muslim immigrants by the Donal Trump’s administration, more facts have emerged as to how the former President, Barack Obama in 2011 banned refugees from Iraq for six months.

According to Seth Frantzman, Jerusalem-based commentator on Middle East politics and writer for Jerusalem Post wrote an interesting article on the immigration ban.

See the article below:

I was outraged by the ban on refugees from war-torn countries in the Middle East. I’ve covered refugees fleeing war in Iraq and Syria over the last two years, meeting families on the road in Greece, Serbia and Macedonia, speaking to poor people in Turkey and Jordan and discussing the hopes and fears of people displaced in Iraq. If you want to ban “terrorists,” these are the last people to hit with a refugee ban. Instead the government should be using the best intelligence possible to find people being radicalized, some of whom have lived in the US their whole lives or who come from countries not affected by the ban, such as Saudi Arabia or Pakistan.

So I was outraged, and then I read the executive order. There are many full texts of the order online, such as at CNN, the NYT, the WSJ or Independent. According to most reports Trump was banning “nationals of seven Muslim-majority countries from entering the United States for at least the next 90 days.” This bars people from Iraq, Syria, Iran, Libya, Somalia, Sudan and Yemen. US Senator Elizabeth Warren said “Let’s be clear: A Muslim ban by any other name is still a Muslim ban,” and Senator Chris Murphy claimed “Trump has now handed ISIS a path to rebirth.” Media, such as Vox and the Independent, compared the ban to banning Jews from entry during the Holocaust and bashed Trump for singing the order on Holocaust memorial day. World leaders are “condemning Trump’s Muslim ban,” according to headlines.

I had to see for myself, so I read the executive order. The order does seek “to protect the American people from terrorist attacks by foreign nationals admitted to the United States.” It says that it seeks “Suspension of Issuance of Visas and Other Immigration Benefits to Nationals of Countries of Particular Concern.” It also says “I hereby proclaim that the immigrant and nonimmigrant entry into the United States of aliens from countries referred to in section 217(a)(12) of the INA, 8 U.S.C. 1187(a)(12), would be detrimental to the interests of the United States, and I hereby suspend entry into the United States, as immigrants and nonimmigrants, of such persons for 90 days from the date of this order.” And it targets Syrians specifically. “I hereby proclaim that the entry of nationals of Syria as refugees is detrimental to the interests of the United States and thus suspend any such entry until such time as I have determined that sufficient changes have been made to the USRAP to ensure that admission of Syrian refugees is consistent with the national interest.”

But, wait a sec. According to the reports “The order bars all people hailing from Iraq, Syria, Iran, Libya, Somalia, Sudan and Yemen.” Critics had attacked Trump for selecting these seven countries and not selecting other states “linked to his sprawling business empire.” Bloomberg and Forbes bought into this.

But, wait a sec. I read the order and Iraq, Iran, Libya, Somalia, Sudan and Yemen are not mentioned in it.

Go back and read it again. Do a “ctrl-f” to find “Iraq”. Where is “Iraq” in the order. It’s not there. Only Syria is there. So where are the seven nations? Where is the “Muslim ban”? It turns out this was a form of fake news, or alternative facts. Trump didn’t select seven “Muslim-majority” countries. US President Barack Obama’s administration selected these seven Muslim-majority countries.

The Department of Homeland Security targeted these seven countries over the last years as countries of concern. In February 2016 “The Department of Homeland Security today announced that it is continuing its implementation of the Visa Waiver Program Improvement and Terrorist Travel Prevention Act of 2015 with the addition of Libya, Somalia, and Yemen as three countries of concern, limiting Visa Waiver Program travel for certain individuals who have traveled to these countries.” It noted “the three additional countries designated today join Iran, Iraq, Sudan and Syria as countries subject to restrictions for Visa Waiver Program travel for certain individuals.” It was the US policy under Obama to restrict and target people “who have been present in Iraq, Syria, Iran, Sudan, at any time on or after March 1, 2011 (with limited government/military exceptions).” This was text of the US Customs and Border Protection in 2015 relating to “the Visa Waiver Program and Terrorist Travel Protection Act of 2015“. The link even includes the seven nation list in it: “Iraq, Syria, Iran, SUdan, Somalia or Yemen.” And the media knew this back in May 2016 when some civil rights groups complained about it. “These restrictions have provoked an outcry from the Iranian-American community, as well as Arab-American and civil-liberties groups, who say the restrictions on dual nationals and certain travelers are discriminatory and could be imposed against American dual nationals.”

It was signed into law on December 18, 2015, as part of the Omnibus Appropriations Act of FY2016.

The Congress and Homeland Security selected these countries in 2016 and before (Screenshot of visa waiver categories, US Customs and Border Protection)

What? So there was a Terrorist Travel Prevention Act of 2015 two years before Trump? There was a kind of “Muslim ban” before the Muslim ban? But almost no one critiqued it in 2015 because it was Obama’s administration overseeing it.

So for more than a year it has been US policy to discriminate against, target and even begin to ban people from the seven countries that Trump is accused of banning immigrants and visitors from. CNN even hinted at this by noting “those countries were named in a 2016 law concerning immigration visas as ‘countries of concern.’” But why didn’t CNN note that the seven countries were not named and that in fact they are only on the list because of Obama’s policy?

The “ban” didn’t exclude countries linked to business interests, it targeted countries of “concern” drawn up last year by Obama’s administration and Congress

 Because mainstream media has been purposely lying, either due to ignorance or because of unwillingness to read the document and ask questions and because they are too ready to accept “facts” without investigating. They want to blame Trump for a “Muslim ban” because they were ready with that script since last year. And indeed Trump has enacted a harsh executive order cracking down on visitors from these countries (particularly Syrians), but his crackdown only includes those seven countries because of Obama’s policy. Trump’s decision to go beyond the policy and increase the Obama policy harms refugees, but it only increases an existing discriminatory policy, it doesn’t invent it. Reading media reports you would never know that. Most disingenuous, truly bordering on fake news, are the reports that claimed the seven countries were connected to Trump business interests, as if Obama’s DHS picked them because of Trump?

So why didn’t anyone of the thousands of reporters covering this read the same document and ask the same question and do the same investigation of where the seven “countries of concern” came from? A simply Google search would have revealed the history. A bit of searching around US code would have explained it.

Were reports misleading on Trump “Muslim ban”?

 The public should be suspicious of Trump’s policies and the media should speak truth to power and demand answers from the administration. But the media should also be truthful with the public and instead of claiming Trump singled out seven countries, it should note that the US Congress and Obama’s Department of Homeland Security had singled out these countries. It should have told us about theTerrorist Travel Prevention Act of 2015 rather than pretend this list was invented in 2017. Trump’s executive order said “countries of concern,” it didn’t make a list. That list was already made, last year and years before.</s>Fighting back. Celebrities like Mark Zuckerberg, Sophia Bush, George Takei and Kal Penn denounced Donald Trump’s Muslim ban in posts to social media, calling it everything from “shameful” to “evil” to “heartless.”



The new president signed an executive order on Friday, January 27, that temporarily stop refugees and citizens from several Muslim-majority countries from entering the U.S., as well as an indefinite ban on refugees fleeing war-torn Syria. Trump also instated a new religious test for refugees from Muslim nations, which will presumably give an advantage to Christians and other minority religions over Muslims.



“We don’t want them here,” the former Apprentice host, 70, said during a press conference, noting that his executive order was part of an extreme vetting plan to keep “radical Islamic terrorists” out of the country. “We want to ensure that we are not admitting into our country the very threats our soldiers are fighting overseas. We only want to admit those into our country who will support our country, and love deeply our people.”



Facebook founder and CEO Zuckerberg, 32, used his large social media platform to share his thoughts on the ban, noting that “we are a nation of immigrants.”

“My great grandparents came from Germany, Austria and Poland,” he began his lengthy post on Friday. “[My wife] Priscilla’s parents were refugees from China and Vietnam. The United States is a nation of immigrants, and we should be proud of that. … We need to keep this country safe, but we should do that by focusing on people who actually pose a threat. Expanding the focus of law enforcement beyond people who are real threats would make all Americans less safe by diverting resources, while millions of undocumented folks who don’t pose a threat will live in fear of deportation.”

Penn, 39, meanwhile, started a fundraising page for Syrian refugees, tweeting about the initiative on Saturday, January 28. Within 11 minutes, the Harold and Kumar star, who worked in the White House under President Barack Obama, let his followers know that he had already reached half of his $10,000 goal. “It's only been 11 minutes & we're halfway to the donor goal, I'm gonna set a new goal, this is awesome. #RefugeesWelcome #Resist 🇺🇸.” 



And 79-year-old Star Trek alum and activist Takei made one very important point in a post to Twitter. “I hope we’re all paying attention,” he tweeted on Thursday, January 26, before the executive orders were signed.

The veteran actor shared a link to a Bloomberg article that pointed to all the countries in the Middle East not affected by the ban — which also happen to be nations that Trump has done business with in the past: Turkey, Egypt and Saudi Arabia, among others.



See what other celebs are saying about Trump’s historic ban.

Sign up now for the Us Weekly newsletter to get breaking celebrity news, hot pics and more delivered straight to your inbox!</s>(CNN) — A federal judge granted an emergency stay Saturday night for citizens of seven Muslim-majority countries who have already arrived in the US and those who are in transit, and who hold valid visas, ruling they can legally enter the US.

The decision halts part of President Donald Trump’s executive order, which barred citizens from those countries from entering the US for the next 90 days.

Trump signed two executive actions Friday at the Department of Defense, including one that suspends indefinitely admissions for Syrian refugees and limits the flow of other refugees into the United States by instituting what the President has called “extreme vetting” of immigrants.

Titled “Protection Of The Nation From Foreign Terrorist Entry Into The United States,” the executive order would start to make good on Trump’s promise to tighten borders and halt certain refugees from entering the United States.

The text of the order — in a break from drafts that had been circulating earlier this week — drops a longtime Trump campaign pledge to establish safe zones in Syria to give Syrian nationals displaced by the ongoing civil war in the country a place to relocate.

The order bars all persons from certain terror-prone countries from entering the United States for 30 days and suspends the US Refugee Admissions Program for 120 days until it is reinstated “only for nationals of countries for whom” members of Trump’s Cabinet deem can be properly vetted.
Iran says it will take reciprocal action after U.S. President Donald Trump signed the executive order which limits immigration from seven Muslim-majority countries, including Iran.