'We Have To Sue Them': Arab-American Community Leaders Stand Up Against Trump's Immigration Order
PHILADELPHIA (CBS) -- Arab-American leaders in the Philadelphia region are holding emergency meetings on President Donald Trump's executive order limiting immigration from Iraq and half-dozen other Muslim-majority nations.
As travelers with green cards, work and student documents are stopped upon entry to the United States, community leaders are meeting and pro-bono lawyers are being lined up as the impact of the executive order continues to unravel.
"We have to sue them, we have to stand up as citizens. People who value other people and value other religions," said Marwan Kreidie, executive director of the Philadelphia Arab-American development corporation.
READ: Iran To Ban US Citizens In Response To Trump's Order
"We don't know what will happen," Kreidie said. "I mean just imagine we are telling people not to go out of the country because they may not be allowed back in the country that they live in that they have families in. I believe it's mind boggling. I believe it's illegal, its immoral, it's nothing that one would expect.
Kreidie says the irony of the president's order is that it was signed on Holocaust Remembrance Day.
"And we've got to remember that Jewish refugees from Germany were denied the ability to come to the United States prior to World War II and a lot of them went back and they were killed, and this could happen to people," he said. "These people who are fleeing for their lives are being sent back to areas of danger and we should be ashamed of ourselves as a country."
Community meetings are being planned for the coming days.
