USA under presidency of a know-nothing, neo-fascist, racist, sexist, mobbed-up narcissist!!

[Peter Lemkin]

JUAN GONZÁLEZ: Thousands of protesters flooded airports across the United States over the weekend after President Donald Trump signed an executive order Friday temporarily banning all refugees from entering the country, and barring access for 90 days to nationals from seven majority-Muslim nations. The draconian measure instantly cut off access to the United States for 218 million people from Iran, Iraq, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria and Yemen. It indefinitely suspended the admission of Syrian refugees.
AMY GOODMAN: Across the world, travelers were left stranded, while scores were detained by customs officials after landing at U.S. airports. As news of the order spread Saturday, thousands gathered at JFK airport in New York City for an impromptu protest. Democracy Now!'s Nermeen Shaikh was there.

PROTESTERS: Let them in! Let them in! Let them in! Let them in! Let them in! Let them in!

NERMEEN SHAIKH: We're outside New York City's John F. Kennedy airport, outside Terminal 4, where thousands of people have gathered to protest the Trump administration's executive order, which has prevented many people from seven Muslim-majority countries from entering the United States, more than 10 of them here detained at Terminal 4. Thousands of people here are chanting "Let them in!" "This is what democracy looks like! and "Refugees welcome here." Let's talk to some of the people here.

MOUMITA AHMED: My name is Moumita Ahmed, and I'm here today because, as a Muslim woman, I find this ban extremely just personal to me, because I have family members who are on visa, and now they'rethey are at risk of not being able to leave or enter the country. And again, as a Muslim, I feel like this is targeting our community in an unfair way. I was here since 12:30, and before, it was like a hundred people that showed up. And then we were live-streaming. I actually tweeted for people to be here, and it had like 2,000 retweets. And then, just I was live-streaming, which I got a lot of shares, like almost a thousand shares. And I think other people that were here did the same thing. And next thing you know, there's like entire huge crowds started showing up. And now there's protests happening all over the country.

PROTESTERS: No hate! No fear! Refugees are welcome here!

SHERRY: My name is Sherry, and I'm here as a Jewish American who is very aware of what we did just a couple generations ago, and I don't want to see us do this again. Muslims are my brothers, and they deserve to be here just as much as I do. And no person is illegal. So I'm here to express that on this super-cold night.

DAVID: My name's David. I live here in New York. I'm from Texas, but my parents are from Vietnam.

NERMEEN SHAIKH: And what brings you here tonight?

DAVID: I am angry. I am so angry at this. If it wasn't for the country letting my parents in here when they were refugees, none of us would be here. New York is made up of immigrants and refugees. And this is infuriating.

NERMEEN SHAIKH: So your parents came here as refugees?

DAVID: They did, from Vietnam. My entire family did. And it's absurd that Muslims are being targeted. It's ridiculous. When my parents first came to this country, they had nothing, and they came here with a hope to escape their country and everything horrible that was going on over in Vietnam, and to build a life. And they built a life from scratch here. They paid their taxes. They had their children. They looked to America as a beacon of hope. And it's unfair that right now we want to ban Muslims. It's terrible.

LIONEL: My name is Lionel, and I'm from Brazil, but I've been here for over 20 years. I went through the green card process. I know how much of a vetting process that actually is already, and even just the visa process. And I know that it takes very little of a suspicious note in your résumé, in your history, as a person, of your family, to even be not allowed in at that point. So, to even add to that something so ridiculous and arbitrary as a Muslim ban, it makes absolutely no sense and is completely xenophobic.

NERMEEN SHAIKH: The people who are being prevented from entering the U.S. even include legal permanent residents, people who have green cards, from those seven countries that have been designated by the Trump administration.

LIONEL: That's correct. I mean, that's what's even more appalling about it. But just from a basic level, we shouldn't turn people away. That's what this country was founded on. And it's not just that; it's just common human decency. You're keeping people from escaping a country that you, yourself, have destroyed.

RUHI KAPURIA: My name is Ruhi Kapuria [phon.], and I'm from Long Island, Valley Stream.

NERMEEN SHAIKH: What are your concerns for Muslims who are here already in the U.S. under a Trump administration, under this administration?

RUHI KAPURIA: Well, I would say, all my Muslim brothers and sisters, there's nothing to fear. Your actions are more important. Keep doing what you're doing, and we are not going to do anything wrong. We are going to be unapologetic Muslims.

PROTESTERS: Whose country? Our country! Whose country? Our country!

SHERRY: I heard that there was one man that was released earlier today, and I hope that with the pressure of a lot of electeds who are here tonightI was standing with a bunch of city council peoplethousands of people here, that the shame and embarrassment of doing this act and everyone seeing you will help it stop. Now, that being said, that's just today. So what happens like a month from now, when people justyou know, they're still stuck in their country, they're not here at the airport? This is the dramatic thing, when they're here at the airport. I'm worried almost more about what happens a few weeks from now, when people who are expecting to come here from refugee camps just can't come. We won't see those people. We're all very aware of the 10 or so inside. I'm worried more almost about what happens with the people we're not going to be as aware of, you know?

NERMEEN SHAIKH: Outside a very cold Terminal 4 at New York City's John F. Kennedy airport, I'm Nermeen Shaikh, with Sam Alcoff and Anna Ozbek, for Democracy Now!

PROTESTERS: [singing] From the redwood forest to the Gulf Stream waters, this land was made for you and me.

JUAN GONZÁLEZ: Protests spread to other airportsin Boston, Washington, D.C., Seattle, Atlanta, San Francisco. President Trump's order also drew immediate legal challenges. On Saturday, the ACLU asked a federal judge to intervene in the case of two Iraqis detained at JFK airport. At Saturday night, U.S. District Judge Ann Donnelly in Brooklyn ordered the men released as part of a nationwide stay on part of Trump's executive order. Her ruling temporarily blocked the deportation of valid visa holders, including those from countries listed in Trump's ban.
AMY GOODMAN: In Boston, Carl Williams, a lawyer from the ACLU, announced the legal victory while standing in front of hundreds of protesters at Logan International Airport.

CARL WILLIAMS: [echoed by the People's Mic] The ACLU nationally filed for a writ of habeas corpus to stop this nationally. A judge in New York just granted that. The legal premise that we've learned tonight is that when we fight, we win!

AMY GOODMAN: Judges in California, Massachusetts, Virginia and Washington quickly followed with similar rulings, and the Department of Homeland Security said Sunday it would comply with the orders. But some lawmakers report Customs and Border Protection officers are defying the courts.

JUAN GONZÁLEZ: Omar Jadwat of the ACLU, your takeyour organization's take on this executive order? What you did immediately?
OMAR JADWAT: Yeah, well, I mean, the take on it, maybe not too much I can add to that analysis except put some legal gloss on it. The take on it is that Donald Trump promised us a Muslim ban when he was running for president. Within a week of taking office, that's what he ordered. That's unconstitutional. It's subject to being struck down by the courts eventually, and we've won the first victory in that process with the stay that was ordered on Saturday. You know, there's more work to be done, obviously, in that process. But the degree to which this administration has been nakedly discriminatory
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: And it's unconstitutional why?
OMAR JADWAT: Because the government can't discriminate against a particular religion. It can't favor one religion over another. You know, and this does both, right? Not only does it ban peopleit's an imperfect Muslim ban, right? Doesn't get every Muslim in the world, but it's a Muslim ban. And, as Donald Trump himself explained, there's a specific provision to favor Christians from among the refugees that would otherwise be banned.
AMY GOODMAN: So let's talk about exactly what happened in the courts. On Saturday, the ACLU asked a federal judge to intervene in the case of two Iraqis detained at JFK airport. On Saturday night, U.S. District Judge Ann Donnelly in Brooklyn ordered the men released as part of a nationwide stay on part of Trump's executive order, her ruling temporarily blocking the deportation of valid visa holders, including those from the countries listed in Trump's ban. Now, if you could talk about who, Omar, these two Iraqis wereone of the Iraqis, a translator, who soldiers around the country started to stand up for, said, "He saved our lives." Talk about Darweesh.
OMAR JADWAT: I mean, soI mean, and this, this is the face of who a Muslim ban hits, right? It's people like Nisrin. It's people like Mr. Darweesh, who worked for the U.S. military for 10 years in Iraq, put his life on the line for our country in a way that most Americans don't, and, because of what he did, you know, was trying to come to the United States and escape the possibility of retribution for what he had done for our country. We have a special immigrant visa process for folks who have helped the military abroad. He got one of these visas, got fully vetted for it, went all the way through the process, gets to the airport, and they saywell, they told him, you know, potentially that they were going to deport him back.
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: Let's go to Hameed Darweesh speaking at JFK after he was released.

HAMEED DARWEESH: This is the soul of America. Now, this is what pushed me to move, leave my country and come here. And I'm very, very thankful to all the people who come to support me. Thank you very much. And always, when we are kids 'til now, we know America is the land of freedom, the land of freedom, the land of the right.

REPORTER: What do you want to say to Donald Trump?

HAMEED DARWEESH: I like him, but I don't know. This is a policy. I don't know. He's a president, and I'm a normal person. But I have a special immigration visa in my passport, me and my family, because I worked with the U.S. government. I supported the U.S. government from the other side of the war. But when I came here, they said no. And they treat me as I break the laws or do something wrong. I'm surprised, really.

JUAN GONZÁLEZ: That was Hameed Darweesh speaking at JFK after he was released from detention. But I wanted to ask you: The judicial order prevents any deportations, but not the denial of visas, right, to people coming into the country?
OMAR JADWAT: Right. And that's one of the reasons I say that there's much more work to be done in terms of challenging this ban and in terms of striking it down finally. This is, you know, the first step, and it's an important victory, obviously, for the people who had been stuck in airports. But more generally, it's a demonstration of the fact that both the courts, you know, can stand up to the president on these issues and that people around the country can make a huge difference by turning out and by supporting, you know, immigrants who are being threatened by the Trump administration.
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: As we continue our coverage of Donald Trump's executive order, we're joined by Nisrin Elamin, a Ph.D. student in anthropology at Stanford University and a Sudanese citizen.
AMY GOODMAN: She was detained at JFK airport Friday evening, shortly after Donald Trump's executive order banning visitors from seven countries, including Sudan, went into effect.
Welcome to Democracy Now! I'm very sorry for what you went through. Can you describe what happened to you at the airport, Nisrin?
NISRIN ELAMIN: Sure. I boarded a plane in Sudan shortly after finding out about the executive order. I was trying to get back before it came into effect, but I missed the connecting flight. When I got in, I was asked toI was escorted into a separate holding area. I was questioned extensively, in part, among other things, about my views about the political situation in Sudan, about whether or not I knew of radical groups in Sudan, whether I knew people who had radical views. I was asked to share my social media handlesnot my passwords, but my social media handles.
Then I was asked to kind of sit tight and wait as they were trying to figure out what was going on, because the order had literally just been signed, soor they were just getting notice of it, so they reallythe officers didn't really know what they were doing. And they told me, eventually, that I needed to get transferred to Terminal 4, which is a 24-hour holding area. And before doing that, I had to be patted down. And so, I was led into a room. I was patted down. It was a very uncomfortable pat-down. I was touched in my chest and groin area. And then I was handcuffed briefly. That's when I started to cry, because I felt likeat that moment, I felt like, "OK, I'm probably going to get deported." And they didn'tthey realized they hadn't handcuffed the other person who was with me, who was an Iranian green card holder, and so they took off the handcuffs, transferred us to Terminal 4. There were other people at this point that were getting led in in handcuffs who were Iranian and Iraqi citizens with valid visas.
Eventually, I got out, after five hours. And I was toldI asked the officer if I would be able to go back to Sudan, because I haven't finished my dissertation research. And he recommended that I not go back, unless I was willing to be subjected to that whole procedure again. And he said, "You know, I would stay put if I were you," because green card holders were being treated on a case-by-case basis.
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: And did you get any sensebecause there's been a lot of reports in terms of the lack of preparation for this order. Did you get any sense that the customs officials and the others that you dealt with, the immigration officials, were on the same wavelength or knew what they were doing, or was there a lot of confusion?
NISRIN ELAMIN: There was a lot of confusion. It was very chaotic. And they admitted it to me. It was interesting watching. I feel like when I first got into the holding area, which I was quite familiar with, because when I was an F1 and when I was on a student and work visa, I was often questioned in that roomI never expected to be in there as a green card holder. But, you know, there was a lot of confusion. They didn't know what to do with us. And in the beginning, I felt like I was being treated quite well. And as the night progressed, I feel like I watched our kind of progressive criminalization, if you will. And that was as people were trying, scrambling to get direction from higher-ups in Washington.
AMY GOODMAN: They weren't used to holding green card holders, right?
NISRIN ELAMIN: Exactly.
AMY GOODMAN: And so, do you feel you were treated differently as not only an immigrant, but as an African immigrant?
NISRIN ELAMIN: You know, it's an interesting question. I think, on the one hand, I was probably treated much better than other people, partly because of my affiliation with Stanford.
AMY GOODMAN: Had Stanford helped you come back as fast as you could
NISRIN ELAMIN: Yes.
AMY GOODMAN: once they realized what was happening?
NISRIN ELAMIN: Yes. They paid for my ticket. I also, during the interview, told them that I was a Stanford Ph.D. student.
AMY GOODMAN: And you were a Harvard undergrad?
NISRIN ELAMIN: Yes. So I think that, you know, led to me being detained for five hours, as opposed to another Sudanese person who was detained for 30 hours and is in his seventies. So, I think that that's one aspect of it. On the flip side, when I went to Terminal 4, they didn't know my background, and I did feelyou know, I guess the point that I actually want to make is, you know, I think this order is a reflection of a larger trend in this country to criminalize black people, to criminalize immigrants, to criminalize Muslims. And as a black Muslim immigrant, I'm really concerned about that. And I do think that the Somalis and Sudanese, people of African descent who are going to be affected by this, you know, I think they're going to be treated differently, frankly.
AMY GOODMAN: You've made the point that other terrorists, people like Dylann Storm Roof, who murdered a bunch of innocent civilians, terrorizing a whole populationyou've made a comparison to how communities are treated.
NISRIN ELAMIN: Yeah. You know, I thinkI guess I want people to realize thatyou know, to imagine a ban on white Christian males from schools and churches, where these kinds of terrorist acts have happened, like the one Dylann Roof committed. You know, that would be nonsensical. And I think this is very similar.