More than 50 people gathered on the corner of Broadway and Main streets in Santa Maria on Feb. 3 to protest President Donald Trump’s recent executive order temporarily barring incoming foreign citizens from several countries in the Middle East.
The order affects seven countries—Syria, Libya, Iran, Iraq, Sudan, Somalia, and Yemen. Hassan Murshed with the Santa Maria Arab-Muslim Association organized the gathering, which began at 4 p.m. and included a march to City Hall and back.
At least two other groups, including the Central Coast Future Leaders (CCFL) and the Santa Maria LGBTQ community, joined the gathering, which was the city’s second such march in the two weeks since Trump took the oath of office on Jan. 20.
Patricia Solorio with the CCFL said Murshed’s group was “extraordinarily positive.”
Murshed told the Sun that he originally wanted to have the march in Los Angeles, but his father convinced him to stay in Santa Maria. Murshed credited the help of social media and radio for getting the word out to the general public.
Murshed, who is Yemeni, came to Santa Maria from Yemen 12 years ago. Now a computer engineering student at Allan Hancock College, Murshed said he still has family in Yemen whose visas were canceled as a direct result of Trump’s executive order, which was signed on Jan. 27.
“My family is now scared to come to the airport,” Murshed told the Sun.
The order, which has been challenged in federal court, suspends visas from citizens of the seven countries for 90 days and also suspends the refugee program for 120 days. Refugees from Syria are banned indefinitely. The Washington Post estimated that visas from at least 90,000 people were canceled.
A spokesman from the State Department told the Sun that roughly 60,000 people were affected.
The order was immediately met with resistance from families of those affected by the order as well as from people within the federal government. Former acting U.S. Attorney General Sally Yates, who served as deputy U.S. attorney general under former President Barack Obama, initially defied Trump’s order and was subsequently fired.
At least 1,000 employees of the State Department signed a dissent cable opposing Trump’s order, The New York Times reported.
White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer defended the order but said it shouldn’t be called a ban.
“What it is, is to make sure that the people who are coming in are vetted properly from seven countries that were identified by the Obama administration,” Spicer said at a White House press briefing on Jan. 31. “A ban would mean people can’t get in. We’ve clearly seen hundreds of thousands of people come into our country from other countries.”
Murshed, who said he doesn’t necessarily have anything against Trump, added that the ban came across as particularly brash.
“He comes disrespecting people,” Murshed said. “I have been all around the world and I’ve never been to a country like America. In America, I feel the same as everyone else.”
This article appears in Feb 9-16, 2017.