Sunday/ more protests against the travel ban

A selfie from someone at San Francisco International airport, that spotted Google co-founder Sergey Brin there. Brin (on the left in the picture) was there in a personal capacity and did not make public comments, but did tell a reporter that ‘I am here because I am a refugee’. His parents brought him to the United States from Russia, when he was 6 years old, in the wake of anti-Semitism against his family. Brin is the 10th richest man in the USA.

There were protests at Seattle airport and several others on Saturday night, and in downtown Seattle on Sunday, against the ban* for travelers/ refugees/ green card holders of the seven countries in Pres. Trump’s executive order.  Lots of confusion.

The Dept of Homeland Security finally clarified that the ban does not apply to green card holders.  What was surprising to me is the relatively low number of international travelers impacted on Saturday; from what I read the number for all of the USA seemed to be no more than 200 or so.  But it’s the principle that matters.  And we don’t know how many people were about to start to travel back and had to cancel their plans at the last minute.  (Also : someone on Twitter pointed out that only 0.75% of Germany’s 1933 population were Jews).

*The ban suspends the entry of all refugees to the United States for 120 days, halts the admission of refugees from Syria indefinitely and bars entry for three months to residents from the predominantly Muslim countries of Iraq, Syria, Iran, Sudan, Libya, Somalia and Yemen.

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