Extract from Daily Mail
- Malala Yousafzai, youngest Nobel peace prize winner, asks President Trump 'not to turn his back on the world's most defenseless children and families'
- Jewish groups outraged at immigration decree on Holocaust Remembrance Day
- 'Sad moment in American history,' says Anti-Defamation League CEO
- Order bans refugee entries for at least four months
Published: 06:41 +11:00, 29 January 2017
Malala Yousafzai, the 19-year-old Nobel Peace Prize laureate, is the latest to join a chorus of critics against President Donald Trump's immigration crackdown, with Jewish groups also raising outcry over the timing of the move.
'I am heartbroken that today President Trump is closing the door on children, mothers and fathers fleeing violence and war,' Yousafzai said in a statement on Friday.
Yousafzai, a British resident, drew global acclaim as a human rights activist when, in Pakistan at age 15, she was shot in the head by Taliban assassins over her advocacy for women's education.
'I am heartbroken that America is turning its back on a proud history of welcoming refugees and immigrants,' the young activist said of Trump's recent immigration order, which bans refugee entries to the U.S. for the next four months.
Malala Yousafzai is shown delivering a speech to the United Nation in April 2016. Yousafzai spoke out against Trump's immigration order on Friday
Trump, pictured with the executive order on Air Force One on Thursday, has put a 90-day pause on visas and immigration from seven countries including Iraq and Syria
Holocaust survivor Michel Margosis (right),light a memorial candle at ceremony in the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum on Friday. Jewish groups are criticizing Trump for announcing a ban on refugee entries on Holocaust Remembrance Day
'In this time of uncertainty and unrest around the world, I ask President Trump not to turn his back on the world’s most defenseless children and families,' the statement said.
A wide range of Jewish groups were also outspoken about the immigration order, which went into effect on Friday, the anniversary of the Allied liberation of the Nazi's Auschwitz concentration camp.
The date is memorialized as International Holocaust Remembrance Day.
'It is a terrible irony that today, the same day on which this order is to be signed, is also International Holocaust Remembrance Day,' the liberal Jewish group J Street said in a statement.
Holocaust survivors stand for prayers during the United Nations Holocaust Memorial Ceremony on Friday. Trump's immigration order, signed the same day, 'evokes horrible memories among American Jews,' one Jewish group said
'The fact that President Trump’s order appears designed to specifically limit the entry of Muslims evokes horrible memories among American Jews of the shameful period leading up to World War Two, when the United States failed to provide a safe haven for the vast majority of Jews in Europe trying to escape Nazi persecution,' the statement said.
Trump's ban puts a 90-day pause on visas and immigration from seven countries including Iraq, Syria, Sudan, Iran, Libya, Yemen and Somalia.
The order also puts a 120-day ban on all refugee entries into the country and declares that refugees from Syria are not welcome until further notice.
'History will look back on this order as a sad moment in American history – the time when the president turned his back on people fleeing for their lives,' Anti-Defamation League CEO Jonathan A. Greenblatt said in a statement.
'Yes, we need strict screening but our current system is sufficient in keeping America safe,' Greenblatt added.
The U.S. has resettled tens of thousands of refugees from warn-torn Syria, something the Trump administration will indefinitely pause out of fears that jihadis will slip in (file photo)
President Donald Trump signed an executive order on Friday afternoon providing for 'extreme vetting' of immigrants and visa holders
The president addressed the topic of the Holocaust in a statement acknowledging Holocaust remembrance day.
'It is impossible to fully fathom the depravity and horror inflicted on innocent people by Nazi terror,' he said Friday.
'In the name of the perished, I pledge to do everything in my power throughout my Presidency, and my life, to ensure that the forces of evil never again defeat the powers of good.'
Trump's immigration order declares that U.S. policy is 'to protect its citizens from foreign nationals who intend to commit terrorist attacks in the United States; and to prevent the admission of foreign nationals who intend to exploit United States immigration laws for malevolent purposes.'
It also gives Homeland Security 60 days to begin providing the president with the names of other countries to add to the list.
The nation will limit the total refugee resettlement numbers to 50,000 per year, according to the order.
WHAT WILL TRUMP'S ANTI-IMMIGRATION ORDER DO?
Ban refugee entries from all countries for 120 days. Refugees can be accepted on case-by-case basis, including if they are a religious minority facing religious persecutionBlock refugee entries from Syria indefinitely.
Cap refugee intake at 50,000 per year.
Ban visa and immigration entries for 90 days from Muslim-majority countries on banned list, including Iraq, Syria, Sudan, Iran, Libya, Yemen and Somalia.
Suspend visa issuance to countries of particular concern.
Visa, green card holders and refugees had already been blocked from entering the United States just hours after Trump signed an executive order introducing his tough new immigration bans.
Seven migrants - six from Iraq and one from Yemen - were stopped from boarding a flight from Cairo on Saturday, while at least two Iraqis were detained after flying in to New York's JFK airport on Friday night.
Two Iraqi refugees, including one who had worked for the U.S. government in Iraq for 10 years, were detained at New York's JFK airport on Friday, The New York Times reports.
The two men were on separate flights when immigration officials stopped them.
One was released on Saturday.
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