Protests erupt against ban on refugees

Protests erupted at airports in the area Saturday as Americans reacted in outrage to President Donald Trump's sweeping order that banned people from seven Muslim-majority countries from entering the U.S. and suspended the nation's refugee program – an order than many assailed as un-American and discriminatory.

More than 1,000 people gathered at John F. Kennedy International Airport in New York and more than 120 at Newark Liberty International Airport, clutching signs denouncing the executive order. They were alongside lawyers who rushed to the airports to defend the rights of refugees, immigrants and green-card holders, among others, who were being detained and denied entry.

"This banning of people based on religion is not constitutional, and it's not what we are about," said Yamandou Alexander of Jersey City, who hurried to Newark Airport when he found out about the demonstration. Alexander, a U.S. citizen who was born in France and who is Muslim, said he could not stay away.

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The reverberations began only hours after Trump signed the executive order Friday that suspends the entry of all refugees to the United States for 120 days, halts the admission of refugees from Syria indefinitely and bars entry for three months to residents from the predominantly Muslim countries of Iraq, Syria, Iran, Sudan, Libya, Somalia and Yemen.

The ban includes green card holders, who will need a case-by-case waiver to return to the United States, a senior administration official said in a White House briefing Saturday. Green card holders already in the U.S. will need to meet with a consular officer before leaving the country, according to the official, who declined to be identified under the rules of the briefing.

President Trump has said that the order is not a Muslim ban, but rather restrictions on entry from countries with a history of terrorism meant to keep radical terrorists from entering the U.S.  The order gives preference in admission to Christians, whom Trump said are persecuted in majority Muslim countries.

The protests on Saturday were organized spontaneously and grew throughout the day as news spread about the far-reaching impact of Trump's order. There were reports about legal residents detained at borders, stranded in other countries and in some cases deported. At the same time, refugees who had gone through years-long approvals to come to the U.S. were also being barred. As word spread, protests were organized too in other cities including Chicago, Dallas and San Francisco.

At the airports, attorneys stood by to help those in need. In Newark, Attorney David A. Isaacson, who practices primarily immigration law in New York, said he learned of a Syrian citizen with a green card who arrived from Germany about 4 p.m. was still begin questioned two hours later, as his daughter waited for him to be released. The man was later released.

A Rutgers Ph.d student who went to visit her ill mother in Syria and was on her way back also was having problems getting back into the country, said Attorney Ayanna Lewis-Gruss. She said the student's host family reached out to attorneys at the airport after the woman was stopped on a layover in Paris and was not allowed to fly to Newark.

At JFK Airport, the crowd grew to more than 1,000 people by Saturday evening as word spread of the protest.

"I was in disbelief. I just had to jump in my car and head out here," said Hillary Frileck, of Brooklyn.

"This is what really scares me. This resonates with me. One person (who was detained) works for us. These people have visas. It's important for us to speak up. We have to rise up. We can't just lay on our couches and think things will be okay."

Emily Witt, of Brooklyn, said she viewed that the ban was a "bad moral decision" especially given that it was Holocaust Remembrance Day.

"Like everyone else, I'm just shocked and afraid," she said. "I didn't think I would see this. It's a rebuke to us. Once you start registering people because of their beliefs, it's the first step toward a country that goes against American values, where our right to free speech and freedom of religion and freedom of expression is threatened."

Taxi drivers also joined in a one-hour work stoppage, organized by their union New York Taxi Workers Alliance. The union called on its drivers to protest the ban on Muslim refugees and travelers by refusing to pick up fares between 6 and 7 p.m. Saturday and to join the protest.

The 19,000-member union said it was "firmly opposed to Donald Trump's Muslim ban."

"Professional drivers are over 20 times more likely to be murdered on the job than other workers," the union wrote in statement that was widely shared online. "By sanctioning bigotry with his unconstitutional and inhumane executive order banning Muslim refugees from seven countries, the president is putting professional drivers in more danger than they have been in any time since 9/11 when hate crimes against immigrants skyrocketed."

Sara Cullinane, director of Make The Road New Jersey, which organized the demonstration in the Newark, said they chose the airport because it's one of the hubs for refugee arrivals who are then relocated to different parts of the country. "We are all learning about the order means and how it will be interpreted," she said.

Protesters in Newark cheered around 9 p.m., hearing that a federal court judge in Brooklyn had granted a partial stay that put Trump's executive order on hold. The stay means that those already on the ground cannot be deported, but others outside the country can be banned from boarding.

The judge's order barred U.S. border agents from deporting approved refugees and anyone who arrived in the U.S. with a valid visa from one of the seven countries singled out in the ban. It was unclear how quickly the order might affect people in detention.

The American Civil Liberties Union had filed the lawsuit on behalf of two Iraqi who were detained and threatened with deportation shortly after arriving at JFK airport, hours after Trump's order was signed.

One of the men, Hameed Khalid Darweesh had worked on behalf of the U.S. government in Iraq for 10 years, and has been released from detention. The other man, Haider Sameer Abdulkhaleq Alshawi, had flown to the U.S. to join his wife, who had worked for a U.S. contractor.

More airport protests are planned across the country Sunday.