By Saturday night, however, U.S. District Judge Ann Donnelly in New York had issued an emergency order that temporarily barred the deportation of people who had been detained after landing at U.S. airports with valid visas. The order also barred the detention of anyone with an approved refugee application. Donnelly said in her order “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” who are subject to the president’s order. Similar court actions have followed in two other jurisdictions, Virginia and Washignton State. Reports from federal authorities indicated at least 170 people had been detained since Trump signed his order at the White House on Friday.
A protester stands facing police officers at an entrance of Terminal 4 at John F. Kennedy International Airport in New York, Jan. 28, 2017, after earlier in the day two Iraqi refugees were detained while trying to enter the country.
Trump responds
Trump brushed off comments that his order could be seen as an anti-Muslim measure, and said the “very strict” crackdown he had ordered was working out “very, very nicely.” The new immigration rules target people from seven nations — all where a large majority of the population is Muslim — judged as possible threats to the United States. “You see it at the airports, you see it all over,” the president told a reporter at the White House.
A crowd gathers during an anti-Donald Trump immigration ban protest outside Terminal 4 at John F. Kennedy International Airport in Queens, New York
At airports in New York, Washington, San Francisco and other cities, however, large crowds of protesters were gathering. Lawyers, many of them from the American Civil Liberties Union, also came to airports to offer counsel to airport detainees or any other U.S.-bound travelers stranded abroad. Fearful family members of those unable to enter the country were thrown into confusion by the new rules and what they said was a lack of information about how they were being enforced. Thousands of people at the New York airport chanted their support for refugees, and for “love, not hate,” and held signs condemning the president’s policy.
Trump Orders Block Immigrants at Airports, Leading to Chaos, Protests
Democrat Hillary Clinton, who lost to Trump in the November election and rarely commented since, tweeted “I stand with the people gathered across the country tonight defending our values and our Constitution. This is not who we are.” As he signed his executive order Friday night, Trump said: “We’re going to have a very, very strict ban and we’re going to have extreme vetting [of would-be immigrants], which we should have had in this country for many years.” By “extreme vetting,” Trump was referring to his plan to carefully and intensively investigate Muslims and other people deemed to be possible threats to the United States before they are allowed to enter the country.
Trump order blocked