ICYMI: [VIDEO] Rep. Omar Condemns Trump’s Travel Ban

WASHINGTON – Today, Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN) joined a press conference in front of the United States Capitol Building to condemn President Donald Trump’s travel ban and to reintroduce the NO BAN Act.

The Congresswoman emphasized how disastrous Trump’s racist travel ban will be. It will keep families separated and endanger lives.

Rep. Omar also joined her colleagues in reintroducing the NO BAN Act to prevent future presidents from holding the authority to suspend or restrict any group of immigrants from entering the United States by prohibiting religious discrimination from immigration-based decisions.

The full video can be found here.

Full transcript below:

“Make no mistake: This discriminatory policy is shameful and as history looks back at this moment, it will be a stain on our country. 

“Donald Trump’s proclamation is riddled with outright falsehoods, relies on debunked statistics, and is rife with internal contradictions. 

“He claims this is a way to make us safer, let me be absolutely clear: it won’t make us safer, it will separate families and endanger lives. 

“Because of this decision, our country will lose out on incredible contributions that people from these countries would’ve otherwise made to our neighborhoods and our society. 

“Contributions like becoming educators, doctors, and public servants. 

“This decision will not only hurt our country, it will have immediate disastrous implications. 

“For some Americans, it will mean their fiancés, or spouses or children will be banned from reuniting with them here. 

“It will mean family members will have to miss weddings and graduations and funerals. 

“Just as they did in their first term, with their repeated efforts to ban Muslims from coming to the United States, the Trump Administration is using national security justifications to prevent people they deem undesirable from entering the United States. 

“That means Muslims again, and it also means Black people.

“In his first term, Trump famously mused about why we didn’t have more Norwegians immigrants and fewer from what he called “shithole countries.” 

“Now, he’s banning people from 19 Black and brown countries based solely on their nationality and resettling White South Africans. 

“The racism is not exactly subtle.

“All 19 of the nationalities we are now banning have produced Americans that have displayed more patriotism and loyalty and contributed more to this country than Donald Trump and Stephen Miller could ever dream of.

“From the time I arrived in this country as a refugee with my family, I have never lost sight of the extraordinary generosity and hospitality of the United States that allowed us to begin our lives again here, and eventually led me to the United States House of Representatives.

“But I have also always known that the United States did not let us live here purely out of the expansive goodness of its heart. 

“We contribute to the economy, we contribute to the political and social life of this country, we join the military, we defend the freedoms enshrined in our founding documents with the passion that comes from having lived a life where those freedoms were not guaranteed.

“It is, and has always been, mutually beneficial, and we have always taken our part in that seriously. 

“The United States has never been a white nationalist country, and no matter how much Donald Trump and Stephen Miller try, it never will be. 

“This will be remembered, along with so much else they are trying now, as a shameful betrayal of the exact qualities that make America great.”

###