President Trump’s decrees have sparked an increase in public protest locally
The lights on the blue Walnut Street Bridge shone against the deepening purple sky Feb. 1 as 1,000 Chattanoogans gathered in Coolidge Park below.
Electric tea lights, dinner and congregation candles illuminated faces white, olive and black. Some were draped in hijabs and clergy stoles.
For the organizers, the purpose of the vigil was threefold: to show solidarity with immigrants and refugees, to hear their stories of coming to America and to outline a way for newcomers to the cause to become greater involved.
Many attendees had only recently become concerned about refugee resettlement. Trump’s recent executive orders, which predicted further policy changes, spurred them to become more politically involved.
The week before, President Donald Trump signed a series of executive orders setting new policies for immigration and refugee resettlement. On Friday, Jan. 27, his order blocking visitors and immigrants from seven predominately Muslim countries, until his cabinet could suggest changes to the nation’s visa program, threw the travel of thousands into chaos. Lawful permanent residents were detained.
Sara Scott, a “concerned citizen” who never before planned a political demonstration, watched horrified as the news unfold over Twitter. Trump’s orders, she said, “are unconstitutional and inhumane.”
“I joined the coalition that produced the Women’s March, which has since morphed into planning ongoing actions,” Scott said.
Scott learned that Tennessee Immigrant & Refugee Rights Coalition was planning to hold vigils across the state. Organization for a Chattanooga vigil began. Bridge Refugee Services, Chattanooga’s local refugee resettlement agency, became a partner.
According to Joseph Kwon, policy coordinator at TIRRC, the vigils smashed the organizations’ expectations. TIRRC predicted a few hundred at its vigil in Nashville. Instead, 3,500 people showed. Across the state, the We Stand Together vigils brought out 10,000.
Trump’s policies come at a time when the UN Refugee Agency reported one out of 113 people fled their homes in 2015—numbers not seen by the agency since the end of World War II.
Near the edge of the crowd, Andy White, red hair and beard, held a sign: “All colors but orange.”
He believes the more people speak, the more that can be done. “Tea party was effective,” White said.
His girlfriend, Vera Aldridge, made the sign. She is a grad student at University of Tennessee at Chattanooga studying Education.
Protesting and meeting likeminded people is a way to stay mentally healthy, Aldridge said, instead of consuming the news, “sitting at home, sick in the head.”
Nearby, Arshd Alshahaheed stands in a dark blue hoodie and white sneakers. This is his first time protesting.
In a sense, he agrees with Trump: strict security is important. But the countries Trump excluded are wrong. Trump’s order targeted Iraq, an ally of the United States fighting the Islamic State, instead of the Wahhabi in Saudi Arabia or jihadists in Pakistan.
The former Iraqi police sergeant translated for the U.S. Army for six years.
In Iraq, gangs extorting money kidnapped him twice. “The last one, I fought with them. I escaped and I got almost shot.” It was in southern Basra. He fled to the first U.S. Humvee he saw.
He came to the U.S. for a “better future,” he said, gesturing to one of his daughters.
The two-year process to come here on a special immigrant visa issued by the U.S. Department of Defense was “long, but understandable.”
The family arrived in Boston August 2, 2012 and relocated to Chattanooga after friends recommended it. In six months, he will be a U.S. citizen.
While refugee resettlement has a federal issue in the past, Trump’s executive order changes national policy so that “State and local jurisdictions be granted a role in the process” in resettling refugees.
But what that will look like, Kwon said, “We don’t really know.”