WASHINGTON – Khizr Khan joined lawmakers on Capitol Hill to denounce President Trump’s executive order restricting travel to the U.S. from select countries in the Middle East.
“I want to be addressing Donald Trump yet one more time, personally, Donald Trump, your two-third wives are immigrants, your children’s mothers are immigrants, don’t you have any concern about immigration to this country? I speak not for myself. I speak for the children and for the families that are stranded at the airports,” Khan, who spoke at the 2016 Democratic National Convention, said last week during a press conference outside of the Capitol Building.
Trump’s first wife Ivana was born in Czechoslovakia and Melania Trump, his current wife, was born in Slovenia.
Khan said a U.S. president should not act based on malice.
“His malice was proven when he was using his prerogative to issue this executive order,” Khan said. “The courts will take note of that malice that he has displayed.”
Khan said the executive order has “endangered” the lives of Americans serving overseas in the armed forces, specifically translators and support staff.
“This president, because of his malice toward Muslims, he has endangered their lives. He has alienated patriotic American Muslims in the United States,” he said. “When you alienate any group, that group becomes the ground for bad to happen. What safety is he talking about?”
Rep. Keith Ellison (D-Minn.) said every immigrant has to stand up for each other against the executive order.
“I don’t know why Donald Trump is shy suddenly about calling this ban a Muslim ban. It is a Muslim ban,” he said. “The intent is clear of what they are doing. It is a ban based on people’s religious belief.”
Ellison argued that if the Trump administration is able to ban Muslims then they could ban others.
“If he can ban Muslims he can ban Seventh-day Adventists. He can ban Catholics. He can ban Jews. And I’m telling you right now, we’ve got to stand for each other,” he said.
Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.) said she “felt like we were at war” when she heard individuals from countries covered under the executive order, which has been suspended by the courts, were being sent back home at her local airport. Jayapal said she helped reattach a bridgeway to stop a plane from taking off with two individuals from Yemen and Sudan that were being deported.
“We have to keep fighting for people to be able to be here,” she said to applause.
Khan vowed “the world will boycott anything and everything Trump” if the executive order stands.
“We are not going there yet. Don’t push us in that direction,” he said. “We demand that all finances of Donald Trump be revealed to the nation.”
Rep. Luis Gutierrez (D-Ill.) told Khan “we are all your sons.”
“You’re a hero in every immigrant home in this country,” he said. “I hope you understand we are all your sons and we follow you as our respective father.”
Rep. Joe Crowley (D-N.Y.) said there was not a Muslim ban put in place after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, so there should not be anything similar in effect now.
“My Republican colleagues know this was wrong,” he said. “At some point we hope they show the fortitude they need to expose him [Trump] for what he is.”
Crowley speculated that White House senior advisor Steve Bannon is behind the executive order.
“Quite frankly, I think this is all about Bannon more than it is about Trump. I don’t think he has the bandwidth to do what he did this week – this hell week we’ve gone through,” he said. “I’m starting to think more and more Jack Kennedy wasn’t the first Irish Catholic president – it’s President Bannon, and I’m not happy about that.”
Join the conversation as a VIP Member