Leaders from a couple dozen Hawaii civil rights groups and organizations on Wednesday joined hands to condemn President Donald Trump’s executive order temporarily blocking immigrants and visitors to the United States from seven mostly Muslim countries.
Dozens of group members met on the steps of the U.S. District Court building in
Honolulu to issue a statement rejecting the order and vowing to “stand firm and defend the values that define who we are as a community, state, and country.”
“The executive orders from last week are a direct attack against these shared commitments, seeking to divide us and undermine who we are,” ACLU of Hawai‘i Foundation legal director Mateo Caballero told supporters and the news media.
The Hawaii groups — ranging from the Filipino American Advocacy Network and Japanese American Citizens League to the Muslim Association of Hawaii, as well as local chapters of Amnesty International and the NAACP — joined the chorus of opposition heard across the country following Trump’s immigration order on Friday.
Signed by representatives from 24 Hawaii organizations, the coalition’s two-page joint statement calls
the president’s orders “an
un-American and mean-spirited ban on Muslims, issued under the guise of protecting our country.”
“There is no place in Hawaii and our nation for racist, discriminatory and ill-advised national policies as put forth by the Trump Administration,” the document says.
Standing as partners “with our Muslim brothers and sisters here in Hawaii,” the statement says the strength of America and Hawaii is based on embracing people from all over the world.
“We are a state and a nation of immigrants that should honor our native peoples as well as those who seek refuge here,” it says.
Trump and administration officials have insisted the order is not a ban because it does not include all mostly Muslim countries.
At Wednesday’s news conference, dozens of supporters held banners and waved signs with slogans such as “Humanity Has No Borders,” “We Refuse to Accept a Fascist America” and “Refugees Welcome, Racists Go Home.”
Hakim Ouansafi, president of the Muslim Association of Hawaii, said many people believed Trump’s campaign slogans and rhetoric were just that — an effort to appease the far right and “haters.”
But now the president’s bombast has manifested itself as a victory for extremists, an action that will “go down in history as a very black tear in the eye of the Statue of Liberty,” he said.
“I believe our forefathers who established and fought for this country would be appalled at the hate and discrimination woven into the Trump administration’s most recent anti-immigration executive orders, said Ouansafi’s wife, Michele Ouansafi, who was wearing a hijab.
Alison Kunishige of the Honolulu Chapter of the Japanese American Citizen League said Trump’s ban is eerily reminiscent of the World War II orders to round up Americans of Japanese, Italian and German ancestries, as well as some other exclusionary laws invoked throughout U.S. history.
“We cannot let our fear override our values. We cannot turn our backs on members of our own communities. Now more than ever we must stand together,” Kunishige said.
Cecilia Fordham, vice president of the Interfaith Alliance of Hawaii, called the Trump’s order “the antithesis of our values.”
In an interview, the ACLU’s Caballero said the statement and Wednesday’s gathering materialized quickly following the presidential orders that resulted in detaining refugees, permanent residents with green cards and other residents and visitors at airports over the weekend.
Caballero said he would expect the coalition to continue to grow in anticipation of facing even more battles over the next four years.
“We hope to do other events,” he said. “Obviously these aren’t going to be the only executive actions that affect immigration, that affect people in Hawaii.”
As for the ACLU, Caballero said the organization will continue to oppose Trump in court, as it did over the weekend with lawsuits aimed at freeing those who were detained at airports.
“We hope the community joins us in trying to pass legislation that protects people here in Hawaii — because even though the administration controls both houses in Congress, in (Democrat-dominated) Hawaii we can do things to respond to the actions,” he said.
