Thousands across Michigan protest immigration and travel ban

The executive order restricting entry from seven Middle Eastern and North African countries, AKA a "Muslim Ban," prompted immediate protests across the country, as CNN reported in Protesters storm airports nationwide.

People gathered at airports around the country to protest President Trump's immigration ban from seven Muslim-majority countries.

Those all happened on Saturday.  Michigan was a little slower to get organized, but Sunday saw protests across the state.  MLive showed the largest in Thousands fill Detroit Metro Airport in protest.

Thousands gathered Sunday afternoon, Jan. 29 at Detroit Metropolitan Airport in one of at least four protests statewide to President Donald Trump's executive order to ban entry into the U.S. of people from seven Muslim-majority countries and the entry of refugees.

WXYZ captured even more images showing the size of the protest at the beginning and near the end of Delta planes taking off after system outage.


It was the largest protest, but far from the only one.  MLive listed five more.

There were at least four protests in the Detroit area Sunday in response to the controversial executive order, one in Hamtramck, which has one of the highest concentrations of Muslim residents in Michigan, including many who came from Yemen, one of the countries Trump named in the ban; another at Dearborn's Henry Ford Centennial Library; the largest took place at Detroit Metro Airport's international terminal; and a sit-in was planned at Wayne State University in Detroit.

Protesters gathered in Ann Arbor and planned a demonstration at Gerald R. Ford International Airport in Grand Rapids Sunday.

Ann Arbor's was relatively small, as seen in MLive's Ann Arbor residents protest immigration ban.

Ann Arbor residents protested on Jan. 29, 2017, outside the Federal Building against President Donald Trump's executive order limiting immigration. Video by Matt Weigand.

WOOD-TV showed a much better attended protest at Grand Rapids in Protesters at Ford Airport: ‘Refugees welcome’.

Hundreds of protesters gathered outside Ford Airport to show their disapproval of President Trump’s ban on travel from several nations.

Unlike the other protests, it looks like this demonstration had more participants than the Women's March in Grand Rapids or other Women's Marches in Michigan; the other Women's Marches had tens of thousands attending instead of a few thousand to protest the immigration ban, but some of the same people showed up for both.  The Detroit Free Press noted the overlap, quoting someone who organized the Women's March on Washington as well as the protest at Detroit Metropolitan Airport.

"This is where the march became a movement," said Phoebe Hopps, one of the Michigan coordinators for the Women's March on Washington, who also organized Sunday's airport protest. "Rooted in the promise of America’s call for huddled masses yearning to breathe free, we believe in immigrant and refugee rights regardless of status or country of origin. We believe migration is a human right and that no human being is illegal. We stand with our Muslim sisters and brothers, and reject the path of xenophobia and extreme vetting.”

Hopps, who lives in Traverse City, scrambled Saturday evening for a permit from the Wayne County Airport Authority to stage the protest.

One of the signs from the Women's March also made an appearance, the poster of Linda Sarsour, one of the chairs of the Women's March on Washington.  It works just as well for these protests as for the Women's March.


Now go back to the videos and look for the poster along with hand-made imitations.  I suspect people will see a lot of this image in the near future.  In the meantime, "Resist.  Peace."