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ACLU Shatters Fundraising Records in Response to Immigration Ban

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By Joanna McClanahan of Ramblin’ Mama

This weekend alone, the American Civil Liberties Union received more than $24 million in online donations from 356,306 people, an ACLU spokesman told the Washington Post.

That pales in comparison to the donations the ACLU received in the weeks following Trump’s election this past November: $15 million, which, at the time, was declared an “unprecedented” amount in the non-profit’s history. According to Yahoo! News, the ACLU’s membership has also more than doubled since the November election, jumping from about 400,000 to over 1 million.

“It’s really clear that this is a different type of moment,” said ACLU Executive Director Anthony Romero. “People want to know what they can do. They want to be deployed as protagonists in this fight. It’s not a spectator sport.”

According to USA Today, Trump’s executive order, signed last Friday, suspends the entry of all refugees to the U.S. for 120 days, halts 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. (Note: None of these seven countries have any ties to domestic terrorism, and the countries that have were excluded from the ban, seemingly based on Trump’s personal business interests, according to CATO.)

The ACLU filed a lawsuit against the Trump administration Saturday in the name of two men who were detained at JFK Airport, according to The Hill:

The suit was filed on behalf of Hameed Khalid Darweesh and Haider Sameer Abdulkhaleq, two men from Iraq who were detained and threatened with deportation shortly after arriving at New York’s Kennedy International Airport on Friday, hours after Trump’s executive order was signed.

Darweesh worked as an interpreter, engineer and contractor for the U.S. government in Iraq from about 2003 to 2013, according to the complaint filed in the Eastern District of New York. His life was in danger in Iraq because of his ties to the U.S., the ACLU said.

Alshawi was traveling to Houston, Texas, to join his wife and child, who are both permanent legal residents of the U.S.

According to Mother Jones, Judge Ann M. Donnelly, of the US District Court in Brooklyn, issued an emergency stay in response to the ACLU lawsuit Saturday night, protecting refugees or visa holders who were detained at U.S. airports after the ban from deportation. It also protects those who were in transit when the emergency ruling was filed.

The New York Times says other humanitarian groups have seen a significant boost in donations this weekend. Actor Kal Penn started an online fundraising appeal for the International Rescue Committee, which works in conflict and disaster zones around the world, in response to an online “troll” who told him he didn’t belong in the U.S.:

If you are looking to help, here are links to the ACLU and IRC, as well as some other organizations you can support:

In my opinion, this is not a political issue; it is a humanitarian one.