Thousands of academics, including 18 Nobel Laureates, have signed a petition denouncing President Donald Trump’s executive order barring citizens from seven Muslim-majority countries from entering the United States.
The petition says Trump’s order is discriminatory, detrimental to the national interest of the United States and imposes an undue burden on members of the academic community.
"These bans, as proposed, have consequences that reach beyond the scope of national security. The unethical and discriminatory treatment of law-abiding, hard-working, and well-integrated immigrants fundamentally contravenes the founding principles of the United States," the statement reads in part.
Trump's order, dubbed "Protecting the nation from foreign terrorist entry into the United States," bans citizens from Syria, Somalia, Iran, Libya, Sudan, Yemen and Iraq from entering the country for at least 90 days. It also suspends the refugee program for four months, bans Syrian refugees, calls for new immigration screening procedures and directs the secretary of Homeland Security to conduct a 30-day review to determine which countries fail to provide “adequate information” for its citizens to be issued visas to enter the United States.
Trump’s ban echoed quickly through the world, with several immigrants blocked from entering the U.S. at airports Saturday. "We've gotten reports of people being detained all over the country," Becca Heller, the director of the International Refugee Assistance Project, told the New York Times. "They're literally pouring in by the minute."