By Doug Porter
The call to protest went out mid-day, not long after the Trump administration rolled out their Muslim Ban 2.0. On Twitter, on Facebook, and on the Indivisible network, encompassing dozens of groups throughout the county.
Those that could do so came to make a statement. Those that couldn’t, amplified the message via social media.
It still reads like a ban It still feels like a ban. And it’s still an affront to human decency. Travel restrictions aside, the United States of American is slamming the door on refugees. After the 120-day suspension ends, a mere 12,500 humans fleeing war, oppression, and famine will be allowed to enter the country for the remainder of the year.
Make no mistake about it. This ban and the attitude that goes with it are about fear of the ‘other;’ people of color and non-Christians. It’s all about ‘Make America White Again.’
From the Union-Tribune coverage:
Between 2011 and 2015, San Diego County took in 8,621 Iraqi refugees, according to data from the California Refugee Programs Bureau. That’s about 71 percent of all refugees the county took in during that time frame.
Wedad Schlotte, an Iraqi woman who came to the United States in 1980 to study at San Diego State University, said she considered the new order to be a Muslim ban, despite the changes from the original executive order.
“This ban, it will instigate further discrimination and a sense of superiority,” said Schlotte, an electronics engineer for the Department of Defense. “It will empower those people who have a bias of racism. It will give it power. It’s feeding it. We see it happening.”
From Politico:
The Trump administration wants to gut the Coast Guard and make deep cuts in airport and rail security to help pay for its crackdown on illegal immigration, according to internal budget documents reviewed by POLITICO — a move that lawmakers and security experts say defies logic if the White House is serious about defending against terrorism and keeping out undocumented foreigners…
…Overall, DHS would get a 6 percent boost to its budget, to $43.8 billion. But to help pay for that, the administration would slice the budget of the Coast Guard and cut 11 percent in spending from the TSA — reductions that critics say would weaken safeguards against threats arriving by sea or air.
OMB also wants to cut 11 percent from the budget of FEMA, which oversees the national response to disasters such as floods and hurricanes.
From an op-ed in the New York Times by Farhana Khera and Johnathan Smith:
President Trump’s executive order barring immigrants from seven Muslim-majority countries experienced nearly universal defeat in the federal courts. On Monday, he issued a revised version of that order, but it still suffers from a fundamental, and fatal, flaw: It constitutes unlawful religious discrimination…
…anti-Muslim bias and bigotry that characterized the original travel ban remain in this revised version. The order is still limited to only Muslim-majority countries: namely, Iran, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria and Yemen. Residents of those countries — and only those countries — will be severely restricted in their ability to travel into the United States for 90 days. Left off are the predominately Christian countries that the State Department lists as “Terrorist Safe Havens” like Colombia, the Philippines and Venezuela…
…The Trump administration argues that the ban protects the country. Yet by excluding Iraq from the order, Mr. Trump has cleared travel from one of the two countries from which Islamic State terrorists operates. Moreover, the Department of Homeland Security concluded last month that “country of citizenship is unlikely to be a reliable indicator of potential terrorist activity.” Former national security officials from Democratic and Republican administrations have made clear that the January order does not make our country safer. Instead, the bigotry that Mr. Trump spews at news conferences and on Twitter have been a boon for terrorists’ recruitment efforts.
From NBC7 San Diego:
San Diegans sounded off Monday night, pounding the pavement at Lindbergh Field after President Donald Trump rolled out his revised restrictions on international travel and refugees.
Protestors held up signs walking in front of Terminal 2 chanting, “No hate! No fear! Immigrants are welcome here.”
The crowd of about 150 people called the revised executive order as “repulsive and unconstitutional as the first.”
“I don’t think we should be making policy on fear,” said Heidi Lapp, who took part in the protest. “We should be making policy on reality and fact. “
Lest we forget where this started, the following remains posted on Donald Trump’s campaign site.
“Are you a protest family?”
We are a “Love Everyone” family
SD Airport Rally#NoBanNoWall@SDIndivisible@RichardNyles@teresa_nylespic.twitter.com/VfABIRlIqB
— VictoriaNyles (@VictoriaNyles) March 7, 2017
Omar Jadwat, of the ACLU’s Immigrants’ Rights Project:
“The Trump administration has conceded that its original Muslim ban was indefensible. Unfortunately, it has replaced it with a scaled-back version that shares the same fatal flaws. The only way to actually fix the Muslim ban is not to have a Muslim ban. Instead, President Trump has recommitted himself to religious discrimination, and he can expect continued disapproval from both the courts and the people.”
We know that #Indivisible is followed by with #liberty & #justice for all
All includes Muslims, immigrants & refugees#NoBanNoWallNoRaidspic.twitter.com/287GzrHd6M
— Indivisible SanDiego (@SDIndivisible) March 7, 2017
Looking for some action? Check out the Weekly Progressive Calendar, published every Friday in this space, featuring Demonstrations, Rallies, Teach-ins, Meet Ups and other opportunities to get your activism on.
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