Tucson joined other cities across the nation like Minneapolis, New York and Seattle in their condemnation of the highest court in the country supporting Trump’s Islamophobia. When asked what can be done about the ban now that has passed the Supreme Court, Tucson Anti-War Committee organizer Joe Jacobs said, “Create a mass movement and make this country ungovernable!”

#TucsonAZ #ImmigrantRights #PeoplesStruggles #Antiracism #MuslimBan

Minneapolis, MN – On June 26, over 600 protesters rallied at the U.S. Federal Courthouse in Minneapolis and then marched through downtown to protest the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision to uphold President Trump’s Muslim ban. The rally was organized by the Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR) and the MN Anti-War Committee (AWC) as an emergency response to the Court’s 5-4 decision in Trump v. Hawaii.

Since being elected, President Trump has tried to implement his Muslim ban three times. Each time, thousands of Minnesotans have taken to the streets and to the airport to call Trump out on his attempt to put anti-Muslim bigotry into law.

Jaylani Hussein, executive director of CAIR-MN, started off the protest. “I am here today on land stolen from Native Americans. I am standing here today with still the fear, the anger, all the emotions that we have felt this week – in North Minneapolis with Thurman Blevins loss. I am here today with the same horrific feeling that we saw on the border of this nation when children were removed from their parents and put into child prisons. I am here today in solidarity with all of the struggles and know that many of us are reminded of this every single day. So, what I want to tell you today is they have come for the Muslims but they are coming for everybody. The Supreme Court today was wrong, and we have to say that!”

Speaker Tracy Molm, a member of the Anti-War Committee, explained the connection between Trump’s immigration policy and his foreign policy, “It is immoral for the Court to not see this ban for what it is – justification for a racist federal policy that attacks people from countries that the U.S. is bombing or threatening to bomb. We need to demand not only an end to the Muslim ban but to demand an end to U.S. drone strikes and special forces operations in Somalia, to an end to intervention in Syria, to war threats on North Korea and Iran and to threats to topple the government of Venezuela. Trump’s racist Muslim ban is directly related to his policy of expanding U.S. warfare and threats in the Middle East, Africa, Asia and Latin America.”

Mohamud Mohamed, an organizer with the Young Muslims Collective, gave an impassioned speech: “If legality is a measure for morality for you then you’re doing it wrong. If every time we tell you that these things are eating at the heart of our community and are tearing us apart and you say ‘Well the state legislature passed it...I don’t know what to say’ or ‘your state rep or the mayor said it was ok’ or ‘Andrew Luger said it was moral’ ...legality can never be a measure of what is moral because we have seen what that does to our country. We’ve seen policies that have pursued that we have known for a fact are unethical and fly in the face of what it means to be human. And the only thing evil needs is the silence of good people.”

Other speakers at the rally included U.S. Representative Keith Ellison; the civil rights director from CAIR Amir Malik; Gordon Nakagawa from the Twin Cities Japanese American Citizens League; State Representative Ilhan Omar; Samantha Sanchez from the MN Immigrant Rights Action Committee; Rachel English from Jewish Community Action; Sarah Brenes from Advocates from Human Rights, and Leilah Issa from the Palestinian Youth Movement.

Significance of the Court’s ruling

Jaylani Hussein explained the significance of the Court’s decision at a press conference earlier in the day, “This impacts almost the entire Muslim community in Minnesota. The majority of the Muslim community in Minnesota, about 60 to70%, comes from Somalia. There are many who have family members that had already been granted the opportunity to come here who cannot come now. And we are concerned now that this administration will add other Muslim countries to this ban. There are countries that have been leaked that they are interested in adding.” He went on, “After the first bans we got calls from Muslims who are U.S. citizens that are not from countries on the seven-country list, which shows the impact the Muslim ban has had on the entire Muslim community.”

John Keller, executive director at the Immigrant Law Center, concurred, “Just Sunday, President Trump explained his preference that anyone arriving on the southern border should be deprived of access to a court and deprived access to due process. These are elements of a similar policy that represents intolerance and I believe it represents a clear and present threat to our democracy.”

#MinneapolisMN #ImmigrantRights #RacismInTheCriminalJusticeSystem #AntiWarCommittee #CAIR #Antiracism #DonaldTrump #MuslimBan

Christine Hauschildt, a member of the MN Anti-War Committee explains, “While the current version of Trump’s racist Muslim ban includes north Korea and Venezuela as window dressing, it primarily targets majority-Muslim countries. The immigration ban is a thinly veiled attempt to further demonize Muslim immigrants by saying the ban protects the US from ‘terrorists.’ It is not a coincidence that the targeted countries have a majority Muslim population – Iran, Libya, Somalia, Syria, Chad and Yemen – and include countries that have stood firm against US aggression – Syria, Iran, north Korea and Venezuela.”

#MinneapolisMN #AntiwarMovement #RacismInTheCriminalJusticeSystem #Antiracism #MuslimBan

Minneapolis, MN – On April 21, around 100 protesters rallied at the busy intersection of Lake Street and Nicollet Avenue in Minneapolis, holding signs that read, “No Muslim ban ever,” “No U.S. bombing Syria,” and “Stop the war on Muslims at home and abroad.” The rally was organized by the Minnesota Anti-War Committee and the Minnesota chapter of the Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR) to send a message of support to the Muslim community in anticipation for the upcoming Supreme Court hearing on the Muslim ban.

Protesters rallied for an hour and half and then held the busy intersection in an act of defiance. No arrests were made.

At the rally there was a wide variety of speakers including Jaylani Hussein, the executive director of MN CAIR, Misty Rowan of the Anti-War Committee, civil liberties and immigrant advocates, and leaders from the Japanese American and Dakota communities.

Mike Madden, a longtime member of Veterans for Peace, who was arrested in January 2017 for holding a sign that said, “Muslims welcome”, also spoke to the crowd. He is facing a charge of criminal trespass at a critical public service facility and if he is found guilty he could face up to a year in prison and a $3000 fine. His trial was supposed to start on April 23 but he announced at the protest that it has been delayed until June 4. Rally organizers asked the crowd to be ready to support Madden in June and pack the courtroom to show support for him and the right to protest.

On April 23, the MN Anti-War Committee and CAIR will co-host a forum at 7 p.m. at Bethany Lutheran Church in Minneapolis so that community members will be well informed about the significance of the case and how the Muslim ban affects the large Somali community in Minnesota.

#MinneapolisMN #AntiwarMovement #ImmigrantRights #PeoplesStruggles #MinneapolisAntiwarMovement #Syria #MuslimBan

Minneapolis, MN – About 50 people gathered at the Federal Courthouse in downtown Minneapolis, June 29, to protest the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision to reinstate Trump’s Muslim ban.

The Supreme Court’s ruling allows the ban on non-U.S. citizens for 90 days and refugees for 120 days if they come from the Muslim-majority countries of Libya, Syria, Iran, Somalia, Yemen and Sudan, unless they can establish a close relationship to someone living in the U.S.

The call for action was made by the Anti-War Committee, which also organized a protest that brought out 15,000 Minnesotans on Jan. 31, in response to Trump’s Muslim ban executive order.

Meredith Aby-Keirstad of the Anti-War Committee gave the opening speech, saying, “We are here today to say no not only to Trump’s racist Muslim ban but also to send a message to the U.S. Supreme Court. There is a real danger the court will uphold all or part of the ban as a legitimate use of the president’s powers. Only protests can prevent that from happening, or undo it if it does happen. Remember it was protests, not legal argument, that stopped the administration from implementing its discriminatory travel ban this year.”

Maggie Kilgo, representing the Minnesota Immigrant Rights Action Committee (MIRAC), stated, “Today immigrants, refugees and Muslims are under a vicious, mean-spirited attack. We in MIRAC are here to stand up to Trump’s attacks! The No More Deportations campaign has been fighting for years to stop deportations of thousands of our neighbors to Mexico, Central and South America, and we say no to attacks on Muslims, on immigrants and refugees. We are here today to say enough is enough. It is only by standing together and taking collective action that we can stop these attacks.”

Skyler Dorr of Students Democratic Society spoke about the recent counter-protest to an anti-Muslim rally on June 10 at the Minnesota State Capitol. “Our country is more at risk of being taken over by ultra-conservative Christian law than anything else. It's almost as if there is an underlying racist reason of why we think of one code of law one way and another the other way. It's almost as if there are acts being put out by our president that are encouraging people to think this way, that are encouraging people to have racist protests. This ban gives fuel to the fire of racism, Islamophobia and xenophobia.”

Some chants from the crowd denouncing the ban were, “Hey, hey, ho, ho, the Muslim ban has got to go!” and “No Donald Trump, no KKK, no Muslim ban today!”

One common sentiment expressed was that we need to continue organizing to build a campaign for when the Supreme Court meets to hear arguments on the Muslim ban this October.

#MinneapolisMN #AntiwarMovement #ImmigrantRights #AntiWarCommittee #Antiracism #MuslimBan

The Minnesota Anti-War Committee will hold an Emergency Response Protest at 4:30 p.m. at the U.S. Federal Courts Building (300 .S 4th Street, Minneapolis) on Thursday, June 29, which is the day the order is to take effect.

Jennie Eisert of the Anti-War Committee explains the purpose of the protest, “Across the U.S., people protested every time the Trump administration tried their hand at pushing their racist and Islamophobic travel ban through, but multiple federal courts sided with the people. We need to make the Supreme Court strike down Trump’s racist Muslim ban. The court felt the public support for gay marriage and sided with the people. We need them to see the support for the Muslim community here in the U.S.”

Eisert continues, “Trump’s Muslim ban is racist and Islamophobic. The six majority-Muslim countries are being targeted because of U.S. foreign policy. These are all countries that the U.S. government is involved in militarily via third party or boots on the ground. These countries are majority Muslim and the Trump administration has painted Muslims as ‘terrorists’ since the presidential campaign. It is inhumane to deny Syrians and other refugees from war entry in the U.S. while the Trump administration escalates the conflict in their country.”

The MN Anti-War Committee has held multiple protests against the Trump Muslim ban, including a protest of 15,000 people in Downtown Minneapolis on Jan. 31.

#MinneapolisMN #AntiwarMovement #InJusticeSystem #Antiracism #DonaldTrump #MuslimBan

75 years earlier, on March 24, 1942, the U.S. government imposed a curfew on Japanese Americans living on the West Coast. The same day, the first roundup of an entire community took place on Bainbridge Island, Washington, across Puget Sound from Seattle. The curfew also led to one of the first acts of resistance, when Japanese American lawyer Min Yasui deliberately broke the curfew to test the legality of Executive Order 9066 on March 28, 1942.

After the November 2016 election, there has been a rise in anti-Muslim and anti-immigrant sentiments. Then on Jan. 27, President Donald Trump issued Executive Order 13769, which sought to ban travel from seven majority-Muslim countries. In response, states filed lawsuits that led to a court injunction against the ban, while grassroots protests of thousands of people happened at airports across the country.

According to a statement from the day of solidarity organizers, “NOC and the SBIA would like to invite you to a grassroots day of solidarity between Japanese Americans and American Muslims on Saturday, March 25. The event will begin in San Jose Japantown at the corner of 5th Street and Jackson Street at 11:00 a.m. and will proceed down 6th street to a rally at 12:00 p.m. at San Jose City Hall on 5th and Santa Clara Streets. The event is free and open to all who wish to oppose the growing anti-Muslim sentiments and government actions today.”

#SanJoseCA #PeoplesStruggles #Racism #Islam #Antiracism #DonaldTrump #MuslimBan

Minneapolis, MN – Despite cold and rain, 60 people rallied in Minneapolis to voice their opposition to Trump’s Muslim Ban, March 16. Starting the rally out were chants of “Hey Trump, let’s be clear: Muslims are welcome here!” and “No Trump, no KKK, no racist USA!” which reverberated off the glass of both the Federal Court Building and the Minneapolis City Hall across the street. The protest was organized by the Minnesota Anti-War Committee.

The protest’s speakers represented the broad coalition necessary to defeat Trump’s Muslim ban and included Imam Hassan Mohamud, Director of the Islamic Dawah Center; Stephanie Taylor, Anti-War Committee; Imam Hassan Jama, Executive Director of Islamic Association of North America; Brad Sigal, Minnesota Immigrant Rights Action Committee’s No More Deportation Campaign, and Jaylani Hussein, Executive Director of the Council on American Islamic Relations – MN. The diverse speakers emphasized confidence and resolution with the latest court victory against Trump’s Muslim Ban.

The critical role played by protests in the streets in defeating Trump’s agenda was a common theme of all the speakers, and was underscored by Stephanie Taylor of the Anti-War Committee, who stated, “This racist ban was halted by popular outpouring of opposition combined with legal challenges from movement lawyers. However, we must challenge ourselves to continue the resistance and we are here with you to continue to fight back.”

Brad Sigal of MIRAC’s No More Deportation Campaign explained the pressing nature of immigrant raids and deportation campaigns in his speech, “There have been over 3 million deportations and families separated in the last eight years and now Trump wants to increase that even more. We say, ‘Enough is enough!’ This is not a faraway issue. This is happening right here, right now, all around us.”

Jaylani Hussein of the Council on American Islamic Relations – MN urged those present to come to the “10,000 who CAIR Call to Action” on March 25 from 4 to 8 p.m. at O’Shaughnessy Auditorium in Saint Paul, an effort to “activate 10,000 Minnesotans in the fight against bigotry and hatred.”

Hundreds of thousands, including tens of thousands in the Twin Cities, protesting in the streets, airports and other locations were critical to pushing for these defeats of Trump’s agenda. It was also clear that despite the current legal setbacks, the Muslim ban and other parts of Trump’s racist agenda will only be defeated by millions in the streets. The necessity of broad, militant coalition of forces was typified by Hassan Jama when he reminded the crowd that we must demand, “No ban, no wall, no wars! Unite!”

#MinneapolisMN #AntiwarMovement #US #PeoplesStruggles #Antiracism #MinnesotaAntiWarCommittee