Protests at DTW Airport, Across Metro Detroit Over Trump’s Executive Order on Immigrants, Refugees

DETROIT, MI — Protests erupted across Metro Detroit Sunday, two days after President Donald Trump’s executive order banning immigrants and refugees from certain countries from entering the country. The protests echoed numerous others this weekend at the country's international airports.

Hundreds demonstrated at Hamtramck, which is home to a number of American Muslims, and thousands more were at Detroit Metro Airport. Demonstrators marched in Dearborn, where about 40 percent of the city’s nearly 96,000 residents are Arab-American, and also gathered at Gerald R. Ford Airport in Grand Rapids and in Traverse City, according to media reports.

Trump’s order bans the issuance of visas and other immigration benefits to “nationals of particular concern” for 90 days, indefinitely suspends the Syrian refugee program and bans the resettlement of refugees from the affected countries for four months. The countries affected by the vetting measure have Muslim majorities, and include Iraq, Iran, Libya, Somalia, Sudan Syria and Yemen.

The demonstrators also used the protests to decry Trump’s plans to build a wall along the U.S. border with Mexico.

At Detroit Metro Airport, protesters marched in the snow, carrying signs that read “No Ban, No Wall,” “Christians Supporting Muslims,” and “Resist!” while chanting loud enough to drown out jet engines. They congregated at McNamara Terminal, near the area for international arrivals and departures.

The protesters, who some estimates put at around 5,000, spanned generations.

Two brothers, ages 12 and 16, whose father emigrated from Yemen 20 years ago carried homemade signs at the airport. The oldest, Amuarn Ahmed, said Trump’s order is causing “mayhem,” and punishes an entire group for the actions of a few, The Detroit News reported. Added his younger brother, Haroun: “It is against the Constitution. It doesn’t make sense.”

The protest at the airport broke up early Sunday evening, reportedly at the direction of the Department of Homeland Security.

Several Muslims assumed the prostrate position for prayer.

Earlier Sunday at a protest in Hamtramck, the mayor of a Metro Detroit community known for its high population of gay residents, struck a chord of solidarity, The Detroit News reported.

“Gay or straight, black or white, Christian or Muslim, we stand with you,” Ferndale Mayor Dave Coulter, one of about a dozen speakers, said. “Power of the people is always stronger than the people in power.”

Abdual Al Ghazali, a Yemini-American who gained citizenship in 2003, echoed Coulter’s words.

"This country, who built it? Immigrants and refugees. We love this country and we must stand together, doesn't matter (if you are) Muslim, Christian, Jewish, black, white. We must stand together for a better life," Al Ghazali said. "My kids have grown up here; this is all they know."

More on Patch

• Trump Defends Order On Immigrants, Refugees, Says It Is ‘Not a Muslim Ban’
• Immigration Turmoil Full Coverage: Orders, Detainees, Confusion and Protests
• Immigrant Turmoil Prompts Nationwide Protests: ‘A Moral Obligation’
• Senate Democrats Considering Legislation To Overturn Trump Order On Immigrants, Refugees: Schumer
• University of Michigan Boldly Defies Trump’s ‘Vetting Measures’

In Dearborn, Imam Mohammad Elahi, the leader of the Islamic House of Wisdom mosque in Dearborn Heights, said countries that are known for financing terrorism were not on the list, he said, referencing Saudi Arabia, Afghanistan and Pakistan, which have been linked to the 9/11 World Trade Center and Pentagon attacks.

“It is immoral and unbelievable that the president made this decision, targeting one of the fundamental parts of this nation's Constitution — religious liberty,” Elahi said.
Dearborn has the highest concentration of Arab-American residents of any U.S. city. About 40 percent of the city’s nearly 96,000 residents are Arab-American, and the majority of them are practicing Muslims.

Unrelated to the protests, a West Bloomfield couple who had made a routine trip to Canada Friday were prohibited at the border from re-entering the United States. And detained for several hours before they were finally allowed to cross the border at the Port Huron-Sarnia crossing. Immigration attorney Farah Al-khersan is a U.S. citizen, and her husband, a permanent resident legally in the United States.

Al-khersan told the Detroit Free Press the the border agents who detained them were polite, but said the president’s order was not clear. “This is above our pay grade,” she said one of them told her. “It’s all so new.”

Here are more images from the protests from Twitter:

Photo by Hussein M. Dabajeh ‏used with permission