This is CCR's weekly "Frontlines of Justice" news round-up, keeping you in the loop about what we've been up to and what's coming soon. Check it out every Monday, your one-stop-shop for CCR opinions, news coverage, reports from court appearances, upcoming events, and more!
#NoMuslimBanEver: Taking it to the streets
[/caption]This past Wednesday, over 3,000 people from all over the country convened on Washington, DC, for the national #NoMuslimBanEver mobilization. CCR staff members joined the march from the White House to the Trump International Hotel.
The #NoMuslimBanEver campaign was a grassroots awareness and mobilization campaign that happened during the weeks leading up to Wednesday, October 18, the day that the third iteration of Trump’s Muslim Ban was to take effect. On Tuesday night, a federal judge in Hawaii temporarily blocked the ban. The crowd at the rally was jubilant at this news, though as Linda Sarsour — one of the campaign’s organizer, and the emcee for the event — reminded us, the struggle to overturn the ban is not over. But, she added, “the biggest threat to a white supremacist agenda is solidarity and unity.”
It is vital to send an unequivocal message to this administration that we will not stop resisting racist and inhumane policies. While we celebrate that the courts temporarily blocked the ban, the struggle to overturn it is not over. CCR will continue to resist in the courts and in the streets.
See photos from along the way on our Facebook page.
We must not allow history to repeat itself
One of the CCR staff members who traveled to Washington for the #NoMuslimBanEver rally is legal worker Ibraham Qatabi, who is the son of Yemeni immigrants. For Ibrahim, the administration’s ban is personal: “The story of my family is typical. We are as American as American can get. But the existence of Trump’s Muslim ban implies that my family and community members are deemed undeserving of constitutional protection because of our place of origin and religion.”
On the CCR blog, Ibrahim writes about the ban’s impact he’s witnessed firsthand in his own community, and also draws parallels to the darkest eras of our country’s past: “Let’s not forget that not too long ago, Japanese Americans were put in internment camps for wars they did not create and crimes they did not commit. Now Muslim Americans are the target. We cannot —and will not — allow this history to be repeated on a different group of people.”
Read his blog post here.
Legal director Baher Azmy on Democracy Now!
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[/caption]In the wake of the decisions – from two different federal courts – blocking the implementation of the third iteration of the Muslim ban, CCR legal director Baher Azmy spoke with Amy Goodman on Democracy Now! Baher says the ban “is just utterly implausible as a national security justification, given the way it simply reanimates the prior obvious discriminatory actions the government took…. and speaks to the lack of credibility that this administration has in the realm of constitutional law.”
Watch his interview on the Democracy Now! website.
Celebrate with us on November 8
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[/caption]If you have an activist, a lawyer, and a storyteller, you can change the world. We invite you to join us in NYC on November 8 as CCR Celebrates Changemakers! This exciting and memorable event will include live performances, great food & beverage, and an after-party dance at 9:30 p.m. The highlight of the evening’s activities will be a Q&A/conversation with the 2017 CCR Changemakers: activist Opal Tometi, attorney Robert LoBue of the law firm of Patterson Belknap Webb & Tyler, and artist Mariam Ghani. We hope you will join us.
For more information and to purchase tickets, visit the CCR website.
