On Sunday afternoon, Wesleyan students joined over 1,000 protesters at Bradley International Airport in The Council on American-Islamic Relations – Connecticut‘s protest against President Trump‘s Executive Order banning Muslim immigrants from 7 countries and halting immigration from Syria.
The President signed the order at 4:42 PM on Saturday, January 28th, to the dismay of millions of people worldwide. Just before 9 PM on Saturday, a federal judge ruled to block parts of the Executive Order preventing some of those detained from being immediately deported. However, the ruling failed to free those detained as a result of the ban, leaving many travellers unable to leave the airport or government custody despite having proper green cards and visas.
CAIR-CT announced that Sunday’s protest would proceed as planned despite the ruling, writing, “The Administration will likely appeal the ruling and there is a chance that it will be overruled. This movement is just starting.”
The Hartford Courant and The Wesleyan Argus both covered the details of the protests and dangerous repercussions of the ban on our local communities. Similar protests happened at airports across the country, often escalating to blocking entire terminals and even airport roads to prevent the illegal detention of travelers and pressure law enforcement and immigration officers to release detainees.
Here’s what the protests at Bradley looked like:
[ngg_images source=”galleries” container_ids=”262″ display_type=”photocrati-nextgen_basic_slideshow” gallery_width=”640″ gallery_height=”480″ cycle_effect=”fade” cycle_interval=”10″ show_thumbnail_link=”0″ thumbnail_link_text=”[Show picture list]” order_by=”sortorder” order_direction=”ASC” returns=”included” maximum_entity_count=”500″]If you’re looking for ways to get involved, Middle Eastern Perspectives, Wesleyan Refugee Project, and Wesleyan Democratic Socialists are some of the many campus groups organizing to support Muslim, immigrant, and refugee populations. You can also donate to the CAIR or the ACLU to provide legal support to detained travelers.