Broad group of Mainers respond to Trump Immigration Orders

A broad group of Maine community groups, faith leaders and advocacy organizations issued the following statement in response to President Trump’s executive orders that target Muslim immigrants and refugees:

We are community organizers, ministers, rabbis, imams, lawyers, and teachers. We are mothers, fathers, grandparents, sisters, brothers, and friends. We were born in Somalia, Sudan, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Iraq, Mexico, the United States and other countries. We are all in America for different reasons, and we are all here for the same reasons.

We were born here. We came to get an education. We were recruited to work in American industries. We came because our homes and our towns were burned to the ground. We fled threats against our lives and the lives of our families, because we cooperated with the American government or spoke out against corrupt leaders or have the wrong political or religious beliefs.

Some of us may speak differently, dress differently, or pray differently than you do – just as French Canadian and Irish immigrants before us did – but we want the same things.

We are here because we are trying to live the best lives that we can. Because America offers the promise of safety, of freedom, of hope, for ourselves and for our families. This is the American dream.

President Trump’s executive orders are everything the American dream is not. They are meant to drive fear into people’s hearts. They are meant to divide our communities and turn neighbor against neighbor. They value the religious beliefs of some over others. And they ignore the lessons of history, which teach us that when we make policy based on fear, not fact, we always look back in shame.

President Trump’s executive orders have already caused chaos and confusion. They have left families divided by oceans. They have left our Muslim brothers and sisters feeling alienated and unsafe. And they have called into question our president’s commitment to the Constitution.

Today, we join together to call on Maine’s elected leaders to do everything in their power to put a stop to these unconstitutional policies. The very fabric of our nation is at stake.

Signed,

ACLU of Maine

Belinda Ray, City Council, District One, Portland

Catama Productions

Catherine Besteman, anthropologist

Community Financial Literacy

Congregation Bet Ha’am

Dd Swan, Nonprofit Coach and Minority Health Consultant

Ethan K. Strimling, Mayor, City of Portland

Frannie Peabody Center

Immigrant Legal Advocacy Project

Immigrant Resource Center Of Maine

Iraqi Community Association of Maine

Jewish Community Alliance of Southern Maine

Kristen Cloutier, City Council President, City of Lewiston

Mabel Wadsworth Center

Maine Equal Justice Partners

Maine People’s Alliance

Maine Women’s Lobby

Mano en Mano | Hand in Hand

Martin Luther King Jr. Fellows

Morning Glory Arts Therapy

NAACP Portland Branch

New England Arab American Organization

New Mainers Resource Center

New Ventures Maine

Planned Parenthood Maine Action Fund

Planned Parenthood of Northern New England

Rev. Christina Sillari, First Parish Portland Unitarian Universalist

Rev. Jennifer Emrich, First Universalist Church of Yarmouth

Rev. Maria Anderson-Lippert, St. Ansgar Lutheran Church, Portland

Rwandese Community Association in Maine

Sarah Lewis, nonprofit director

Southern Maine Workers’ Center

Welcoming the Stranger