Hundreds Gather at JFK to Protest Trump's Muslim Ban

Rasa - Hundreds of people gathered spontaneously at the John F Kennedy International Airport in New York and other airports around the country to protest US President Donald Trump's ban on Muslim refugees and immigrants.

News ID: 426937

Date: 29 January 2017 - 23:14

RNA - Protests began at Terminal 4 of the New York airport after immigration authorities there detained as many as 11 refugees who were likely already in transit when Trump ordered a four-month hold on allowing refugees into the country, India Times reported.

Even as the protests were underway, a Federal judge put on hold Trump's order to send people with valid visas out of the US.

As per latest reports, the number of protesters at JFK's Terminal 4, the arrivals gate, is growing by the minute. It is also being reported that not just at JFK, protesters are also gathered at Dulles airport in Washington DC.

In San Francisco, Sergey Brin, Google co-founder and president of Alphabet, also joined protesters at the International Airport there, Verge reported. Brin told Verge he was attending "in a personal capacity" and would not be giving comment. However, Forbes's Ryan Mac heard Brin elaborate. "I'm here because I'm a refugee," he reportedly said.

Meanwhile other US media said a federal judge granted an emergency stay 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 cannot be removed from the US, a decision that halts President Donald Trump's executive order barring citizens from those countries from entering the US for the next 90 days.

"The petitioners have a strong likelihood of success in establishing that the removal of the petitioner and other similarly situated violates their due process and equal protection guaranteed by the United States Constitution," US District Judge Ann Donnelly wrote in her decision.

"There is imminent danger that, absent the stay of removal, there will be substantial and irreparable injury to refugees, visa-holders, and other individuals from nations subject to the January 27, 2017, Executive Order," the ruling said.

The United States denied entry to 109 travelers heading to the country at the time the ruling was signed, a Department of Homeland Security official said. The agency would not say how many of the 109 were sent already home and how many were detained.

Congresswoman Nydia Velazquez and Congressman Jerrold Nadler in a joint statement said they saw in real human terms the damage and the absurdity of Trump's policies.

"The president's executive order is mean-spirited, ill-conceived and ill-advised," they said, the Observer reported.

"The showdown at JFK marks the first direct confrontation of Trump's infant administration, and the first attempt at obstructing the new commander-in-chief's implementation of his most controversial campaign promises via fiat." the Observer report said.

New York governor Andrew Cuomo said he was pledging executive resources to aiding the detainees, the Observer reported. He alluded to the inscription on the Statue of Liberty.

847/940