WASHINGTON – Tens of thousands of Americans including Muslims have staged nationwide protests across USA over the president Donald Trump administration’s hardline immigration policies.
More than 630 demonstrations were planned calling for reuniting immigrant families who were split by the policies of the American government at the US-Mexican border. BBC reported on July 1.
Major protests took place in Washington DC, New York, New Jersey and many other cities, using the hashtag #familiesbelongtogether.
The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) is co-sponsoring the main rally near the White House in Washington, DC. Additionally, CAIR chapters nationwide are co-hosting or co-sponsoring rallies in their cities.
Marchers held placards calling for no more family separations and for the controversial US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) to be abolished. Also, over 100 protesters gathered near the president’s resort.
The original Trump administration “zero tolerance” policy required authorities to arrest and detain anyone crossing the Mexico-US border illegally.
As a result, some 2,000 children remain separated from their parents, despite Trump bowing to public outrage and curtailing the policy.
Nationalism Is Not Racism
As American citizens, thousands of Muslims, individually and in groups, joined the protests. Abby Ang, an associate instructor at Indiana University (IU) in Bloomington, and a representative of the IU Muslim Student Association, said: “The zero-tolerance policy extends to the recent Supreme Court decision to uphold Trump’s travel ban. It’s racist and xenophobic.”
The American Islamic scholar, sheikh Omar Suleiman spoke at one of the marches with over 70,000 attendees in Los Angeles about “the role of US imperialism in the immigrant and refugee crisis”.
Imam Omar Suleiman at #FamiliesBelongTogether march in Los Angeles
Imam Omar Suleiman speaks on the role of US imperialism in the immigrant and refugee crisis at the #FamiliesBelongTogether march today in Los Angeles with over 70,000 people in attendance. CAIR – Greater Los Angeles Chapter was one of the sponsoring organizations.
Posted by Omar Suleiman on Saturday, 30 June 2018
At one of the marches, Mongi Dhaouadi of CAIR’s Connecticut Council told NBC Connecticut: “We won’t forget that unless he [Trump] comes out and he apologizes and he reverses himself on this policy and so many other policies.”
Reza Monsour, president of the Islamic Center of Greater Hartford said: “If you think of the Supreme Court, it’s supposed to be the organization that is the checks and balances against a president out of control but we can see even the Supreme Court has abdicated its responsibility for being fair and for standing up to this nation and its values.”