Trump
vs Religious leaders 26 Jan 2017
Religious
organizations condemn Trump’s expected orders on refugees
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Nihad Awad, executive
director of the Council on American-Islamic Relations. (Photo: Saul
Loeb/AFP/Getty Images)
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Muslim, Christian and Jewish
leaders gathered at the national headquarters of the Council on
American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) in Washington, D.C., Wednesday to condemn
expected orders by President Trump that would stop the resettlement of Syrian
refugees in the United States and impose travel restrictions on visitors from
several other Muslim countries.
CAIR co-founder and
executive director Nihad Awad said that such action, which Trump has yet to
formally announce but which he repeatedly endorsed during his presidential
campaign as a national security measure, “does not make our country safer.”
Rather, Awad said, “it
will hand a propaganda tool to our enemies who promote a false notion of an
American war on Islam.”
Trump signed two
executive orders Wednesday, which included provisions to begin construction of
a wall along the southern border, increase detention facilities to hold more
illegal border crossers, give border agents more power to enforce immigration
laws and cut federal funding to cities that offer sanctuary to certain
undocumented immigrants.
An additional order, which Trump is expected to sign as soon as
Thursday, would impose an indefinite ban on Syrian refugees as well as a
temporary hold on the resettlement of all refugees from other parts of the
world. The order would also ban anyone from Iran, Iraq, Libya, Somalia, Sudan,
Syria or Yemen from traveling to the U.S. for one month.
“We’ve already seen an
unprecedented spike in anti-Muslim bigotry in recent months,” said Awad, adding
that efforts to limit immigration from specifically Muslim countries would
increase Islamophobic sentiment.
Trump’s approach
to immigration, Awad continued, including his “multibillion-dollar
monument to racism on our border with Mexico” as well as the expected travel
ban, “flies in the face of the American inclusion that we all hold dear.”`
President Donald Trump
with one of the executive orders he signed on Wednesday. (Photo: Pablo Martinez
Monsivais/AP)
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Rabbi Joseph Berman,
manager of government affairs for the grassroots advocacy organization Jewish
Voice for Peace, agreed with Awad, pointing to the Holocaust and his own
personal experience as the grandson of refugees as a warning.
Berman said that one
side of his family fled Nazi Germany in the 1930s, while his grandparents on
the other side survived the Auschwitz concentration camp in Poland. Though they
were all lucky enough to receive asylum in the United States, Berman noted,
there were “many who did not make it out and died as a result.”
“Make no mistake that
suspending immigration [and] refugee resettlement will result in more deaths,”
he said. “People will die in refugee camps.”
Orders like the one
Trump is expected to sign Thursday, Berman said, “go against the most basic of
human values” and are “an affront to us, an affront to all human beings, and an
affront to God.”
Rabiyah Ahmed, of the
Muslim Public Affairs Council, which advocates for the civil rights of American
Muslims, reiterated the argument that such restrictions on immigration and
refugee resettlement will create a “false sense of security.”
With “the continuing
scapegoating of minority communities,” Ahmed said, “what Trump is saying is
that, as president, he’s really not committed to upholding the values that we
hold dear.”
Like Berman, Rev.
Steven Martin of the National Council of Churches offered solidarity with the
Muslim community as well as other immigrants who will likely be affected by
Trump’s policies.
“I cannot believe that
state sponsored persecution against a class of Americans is taking place,” he
said. “Even though I’ve been watching it grow, I cannot believe it.”
Martin said that the
National Council of Churches, which represents roughly 45 million Christians
from 38 religious denominations across the U.S., supports sanctuary cities and
condemns “any attempts to define terrorism as a product of any one religion,”
as well as “any attempts to place a religious test upon refugees attempting to
build their new lives in the United States.”
“This is a big, big deal,” he added. “Today is
the day for action.”
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