Story highlights Obama's spokesman released a statement on Trump's travel ban 
 
 "The President fundamentally disagrees" with faith-based discrimination, the statement said 
 
 (CNN) Former President Barack Obama criticized President Donald Trump's executive order curbing immigration in a statement on Monday, backing protesters who have taken to the nation's airports to express their displeasure with Trump's action on Friday.
– It didn't take long for Barack Obama to criticize his successor: The former president issued a statement Monday disagreeing with President Trump's immigration moves and praising those who are protesting them, reports CNN. Spokesman Kevin Lewis said Obama is "heartened by the level of engagement taking place in communities around the country.” (Read the statement in full via tweet.) Before leaving office, Obama pledged to remain silent in regard to Trump's policies, except in cases where he thinks "our core values may be at stake," notes the Washington Post. In Monday's statement, Obama made clear he believes this is now the case, saying that the protests around the country are "exactly what we expect to see when American values are at stake." The former president took issue with Trump asserting that Obama did something similar in 2011 on Iraqi refugees. “With regard to comparisons to President Obama’s foreign policy decisions, as we’ve heard before, the president fundamentally disagrees with the notion of discriminating against individuals because of their faith or religion.” (A post at FactCheck.org digs into the comparison and dismisses it as "faulty.")