Latest news with #CAIR
Yahoo
2 days ago
- Politics
- Yahoo
Minnesota Muslim community concerned about President Trump's travel ban
The Brief President Donald Trump's new travel ban went into effect on Monday. The ban targets mainly African and Middle Eastern countries, amid the president's escalating campaign of immigration enforcement. Some in Minnesota's Muslim community are already raising the alarm about the ban. ST. PAUL, Minn. (FOX 9) - President Donald Trump's new travel ban went into effect on Monday. CAIR Minnesota says it will offer "Know Your Rights" presentations to members of the local Somali Muslim community who have questions about the ban. What we know For Minnesota's Muslim community and its allies, President Trump's new travel ban is a cause for concern. "What we know is that this is not about security. It's a continuation of the anti-Muslim and particularly the anti-African ban," said Jaylani Hussein, Executive Director of the Council on American-Islamic Relations-Minnesota. The backstory The executive order which went into effect on Monday affects citizens from a dozen countries, including Somalia, and adds tighter restrictions on travelers from seven other countries. CAIR says Minnesota has the largest Somali population in the United States, and it has already heard from members of the Somali community worried about the new regulations. "The ban is carefully crafted to hide its true and evident intent, which is to discriminate based on religion, race, and nationality," said Munira Mohamed, policy associate for the local chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union. During the presidential election, exit polling shows more than half of Muslim voters voted for third party candidate Jill Stein, 21& voted for Trump, while 20% voted for Kamala Harris. CAIR says many Muslims don't regret their decisions in the voting booth because of the Biden administration's stance on Gaza."Banning and bombing are not the same thing. We knew that Muslims in America may suffer more because of this administration. We understood that that was a risk we were willing to take to save the lives of children in Gaza and to end the war," said Hussein. What they're saying CAIR is asking community members, elected officials and neighbors to condemn the travel ban and support the No Ban Act, which would keep future presidents from enacting similar restrictions. "This ban cannot stand. It does not protect our neighbors. In fact, it creates a more racist and non-inclusive society," said Hussein.
National Post
3 days ago
- Politics
- National Post
Boat carrying Greta Thunberg to Gaza intercepted by Israeli Navy
Article content Half of the passengers are French. On Monday, Foreign Minister Jean-Noël Barrot confirmed that Paris had warned citizens of the risks involved in joining the protest flotilla and said that the consulate had requested Israel grant consular protection to the detainees. Article content Meanwhile, Madrid summoned the Israeli chargé d'affaires to protest the seizure. One Spanish national was listed as a passenger. Article content The other nationalities represented were one each from Brazil, Germany, the Netherlands and Turkey. Article content The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) called the interception 'a blatant act of international piracy and state terrorism.' Iran also condemned the intervention as 'a form of piracy,' since it happened in international waters. Article content Defense Minister Israel Katz ordered the military to show the activist group a 43-minute video of atrocities committed by Hamas terrorists during the Oct. 7 massacre, which sparked the war in Gaza. Article content 'It's appropriate that Greta the antisemite and her Hamas-supporting friends see exactly who the terror group Hamas is, what atrocious acts they carried out against women, the elderly and children, and who Israel is fighting to defend against,' said Katz. Article content Article content He ordered the video to be screened for the group upon their arrival at the Port of Ashdod, where their boat was towed after Israeli troops boarded the vessel. Article content The British-flagged yacht Madleen, operated by the pro-Palestinian Freedom Flotilla Coalition (FFC), was attempting to deliver a symbolic amount of humanitarian aid to the Gaza population. Article content 'While Greta and others attempted to stage a media provocation whose sole purpose was to gain publicity—and which included less than a single truckload of aid—more than 1,200 aid trucks have entered Gaza from Israel within the past two weeks. In addition, the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation has distributed close to 11 million meals directly to civilians in Gaza,' said the Foreign Ministry. Article content 'There are ways to deliver aid to the Gaza Strip—they do not involve Instagram selfies. The tiny amount of aid that was on the yacht and not consumed by the 'celebrities' will be transferred to Gaza through real humanitarian channels,' the ministry added. Article content Article content In an earlier post, the ministry emphasized that Israel's blockade of Gaza is legal under international law, and that the Gaza maritime zone is an active conflict area, which Hamas terrorists have previously exploited for attacks, including the Oct. 7 massacre. Article content 'Unauthorized attempts to breach the blockade are dangerous, unlawful, and undermine ongoing humanitarian efforts. We call on all actors to act responsibly and to channel humanitarian aid through legitimate, coordinated mechanisms, not through provocation,' the ministry stated. Article content Israel and Egypt have imposed varying degrees of blockade on Gaza since Hamas seized power from rival Palestinian forces in 2007. Israel says the blockade is needed to prevent Hamas from importing arms, while critics say it amounts to collective punishment of Gaza's Palestinian population. Article content
Washington Post
6 days ago
- Business
- Washington Post
Democrats blast Trump's travel ban, but legal challenges may be tough
President Donald Trump's travel ban on 19 countries came under mounting criticism Thursday from congressional Democrats and at least one Republican, but legal experts predicted the order would be difficult to stop through challenges in court. Advocates for immigrants and some Democratic state attorneys general said they are examining the restrictions — including a full ban on travelers from 12 nations and a partial ban on those from seven others — for potential legal action. Federal courts blocked two versions of a travel ban during Trump's first term before the U.S. Supreme Court upheld a third revision in 2018 after more than a year of legal wrangling. At least one Republican elected official — Rep. Michael Lawler of New York — condemned the ban on Thursday, citing the humanitarian crisis in Haiti as a reason to remove it from the list. Legal analysts said the administration appeared to have applied lessons from that previous experience and crafted the order in a way that makes it less susceptible to being blocked in federal court. The White House said the ban will include exceptions for legal permanent residents, refugees, current visa holders and individuals whose entry serves U.S. national interests. 'Because the Supreme Court did uphold the final, somewhat watered-down version of President Trump's third Muslim ban, a legal challenge would face hurdles,' said Edward Ahmed Mitchell, deputy director of the Council on American-Islamic Relations, which sued over the travel ban in Trump's first term. Mitchell said the new ban is 'not as bad as it could have been' and suggested that advocates might have better success challenging the order on behalf of specific individuals rather than trying to stop it outright. 'I think we're seeing a maturing of the Trump administration's legal arguments,' said César Cuauhtémoc García Hernández, an Ohio State University law professor and the author of several books on immigration enforcement. 'The executive order that the president issued yesterday reads like a carefully drafted and thought-out legal document. That's different than the 2017 version, which read much more like a political statement or a long press release.' A White House official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe internal deliberations, said the administration has been working on developing and refining the new ban since Trump signed an executive order directing national security agencies to assess security and terrorism risks posed by other countries. The restrictions, set to begin Monday, set off a scramble Thursday at U.S. consulate offices in the affected regions. Some officials said they were kept in the dark about the timing of the announcement a day earlier and are awaiting additional guidance from the State Department. U.S. diplomats were instructed not to cancel previously scheduled appointments of individuals applicants, according to an intra-agency cable obtained by The Washington Post. But they were told to deny any requests for expedited appointments or visa processing for those from impacted countries. The presidential proclamation fully restricts the entry of individuals from Afghanistan, Myanmar, Chad, Republic of Congo, Equatorial Guinea, Eritrea, Haiti, Iran, Libya, Somalia, Sudan and Yemen. It also partially restricts the entry of travelers from Burundi, Cuba, Laos, Sierra Leone, Togo, Turkmenistan and Venezuela. Democrats denounced the travel ban as inhumane and unnecessary, with Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-Michigan) calling Trump a 'white-supremacist-in-chief' whose directive amounts to 'a shameful expansion of his hateful Muslim and African ban from his first term.' Lawler became the first GOP House member to voice criticism, calling on the administration to remove Haiti from the list of countries facing a full ban on travelers to the United States. He said Haiti is facing an 'unprecedented humanitarian crisis' due to widespread violence. 'We have a moral duty to help. Haitians cannot do it alone,' said Lawler, whose district includes Hudson Valley, which has a large population of Haitian immigrants. 'This travel ban will only deepen the suffering of Haitians.' Trump and senior administration officials defended the ban, citing national security concerns and saying the restrictions target countries that lack sufficient security vetting for issuing passports or whose citizens have high rates of overstaying their U.S. visas. In a video message announcing the travel ban Wednesday, the president cited the attack in Boulder, Colorado, on Sunday that injured a dozen demonstrators marching in support of Israeli hostages in Gaza. Federal authorities have charged an Egyptian immigrant and are seeking to deport his wife and children. Egypt is not under the travel ban. Some immigrant rights advocates accused Trump of trying to exploit the Boulder attack for political gain by announcing the travel ban just days later. Trump told reporters in the Oval Office on Thursday that the restrictions 'can't come soon enough.' When asked whether the firebombing attack in Boulder influenced the proclamation — and why Egypt was not included — he said: 'Egypt is a country we work with very closely. They have things under control.' Trump said the travel ban list is subject to changes, noting that some countries could be removed if they improve security vetting of travelers and others could be added depending on circumstances. The Trump administration did not provide details about how many prospective travelers could be affected by the order. Stuart Anderson, executive director of the National Foundation for American Policy, said his organization estimates that, based on federal data from fiscal 2023, about 25,000 people annually from the 19 countries would be denied family reunification visas under the president's ban. Anderson said another 100,000 B1 or B2 temporary visas for tourism or business, 10,000 student visas, and 2,400 J1 educational and cultural exchange visas would be denied each year. 'The way it is crafted, the folks who really will be blocked are going to be family-sponsored and employment-sponsored immigrants,' he said. Many of the legal challenges brought against Trump's first attempt at a travel ban in 2017 hinged on discriminatory public comments the president made about Muslims and arguments that the ban, in effect, was specifically targeting them for their religious beliefs. By the time the Supreme Court approved a third, substantially revised travel ban in 2018, North Korea and Venezuela had been added to the list, and the administration had made specific claims that allowing visitors from each of the included nations were detrimental to U.S. interests. Aziz Huq, a constitutional law scholar at the University of Chicago, said Trump's order on Wednesday showed clear signs that his administration had learned from past mistakes. 'It's plainly written in light of the [Supreme Court's] previous ruling,' Huq said. 'The decision from 2018 makes the exercise of this power more difficult to challenge than it was previously.' Stephen Yale-Loehr, a retired Cornell University immigration law scholar, noted that the new ban includes specific rationales for each nation on the list and contains other measures that would probably shield the order from legal claims of arbitrariness, irrationality or discrimination. 'They've clearly learned from their first go-rounds,' Yale-Loehr said. Still, he predicted, legal challenges would arise. For example, he said, advocacy groups might seek to pursue discrimination claims if the administration's stated rationale for including a country in the ban also apply to nations not included on the list. Emily Davies and Anna-Liss Roy contributed to this report.
Yahoo
6 days ago
- Politics
- Yahoo
President Trump rolls out new travel ban
WASHINGTON (NEXSTAR) – President Donald Trump is rolling out a new travel ban effective Monday. Citizens from 12 countries will be barred from entering the U.S. President Trump says the ban is a matter of national security. The ban targets countries like Sudan and Somalia where the president says too often travelers overstay their visas. Immigration advocates are slamming the move. 'It can't come soon enough, frankly,' said Trump. The new ban includes Myanmar, Chad, the Republic of Congo, Eritrea, Haiti, Iran, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Yemen and Afghanistan, several are war-torn countries. There is a carve out for Afghan nationals who worked alongside the U.S. government during the war on terror. The president says the ban is needed to protect Americans from terror attacks. CAIR, the largest Muslim advocacy group in the U.S., calls the expanded ban unnecessary and illogical. 'If you look at most of these countries, we have not had terrorist attacks or other extreme violent incidents committed by citizens of those countries,' said CAIR National Deputy Director Edward Ahmed Mitchell. He says this version is less harsh than the travel ban in the president's first term. 'There's a risk of dividing families, endangering medical patients who need treatment here in America,' said Mitchell. Democrats are vowing to fight back. 'It's just deplorable, I think it's unconstitutional and I'm sure there will be lawsuits filed as quickly as they can,' said Rep. Sylvia Garcia (D-Texas.). Cuba and Venezuela are among a small batch of countries facing new travel restrictions. The White House says countries can be moved on or off the ban list upon review. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
Yahoo
24-05-2025
- Yahoo
Austin mosques targeted in vandalism, prompting calls for heightened security
Three Austin mosques were reportedly vandalized late Wednesday night in what the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) called a series of targeted hate incidents. The spray-painted graffiti, including Stars of David, appeared at Nueces Mosque, Islamic Ahlul Bayt Association (IABA), and the Austin Diyanet Center. Security footage from Nueces Mosque shows a masked white male tagging multiple areas, including the entrance, the Imam's office, and a nearby fence. Similar graffiti was later found at IABA's gate and billboards and at the Diyanet Center's entrance. CAIR-Austin noted these acts fit a 'disturbing pattern' of incidents against Muslim houses of worship in the city. Nueces Mosque has reported four hate-related incidents since October. 'These three incidents, which reportedly took place on the same night, were apparently targeted attacks meant to instill fear and division,' said CAIR-Austin Operations Manager Shaimaa Zayan. 'We call upon APD to urgently heighten security and surveillance around all Islamic Centers in Austin.' In response, the Austin Police Department said it is actively investigating the incidents and has increased patrols at all mosque locations. 'APD remains unwavering in its commitment to fostering a secure and inclusive Austin community,' said Public Information Manager Lisa Cortinas. Nueces Mosque board member Rawand Abdelghani said the mosque has long served the Muslim student population at the University of Texas at Austin and regularly hosts interfaith events. 'We are deeply concerned about these recent incidents given the rise in Islamophobia, anti-immigrant sentiment, and opposition to students' free speech,' he said. CAIR has urged mosque leaders to follow its 'Best Practices for Mosque and Community Safety' guide and encouraged anyone with information to contact authorities. (This story was updated to add a video.) This article originally appeared on Austin American-Statesman: Austin mosques vandalized, police investigating, increasing patrols
