Democrats should shut down the government until Trump reverses his Muslim ban

Repeat after me, Democrats: "No. No. No."

Bring it to a halt, Dems.
(Image credit: REUTERS/Kevin Lamarque)

President Donald Trump's immigration executive orders — and let's call them what they are: a Muslim ban — represent the first of many constitutional crises that are going to unfold in the Trump era. For Democrats, this has to be a line in the sand: Any and all cooperation with Republicans has got to end, at least until the executive orders are reversed and heads roll for the hell the Trump administration put refugees, immigrants, and their families through this weekend; ideally, all cooperation would cease for the next four years.

President Trump's executive orders on Friday suspended the U.S. Refugee Admissions Program for four months and banned citizens of seven Muslim countries — Iran, Iraq, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria, and Yemen — from entering the U.S. for three months. It also indefinitely shut the door on Syrian refugees entirely. Protests erupted all over the country on Saturday and Sunday; at the Raleigh-Durham International Airport in North Carolina, a protest planned for only 150 people soon exploded into over 1,000 before it was shut down by airport authorities. And on Saturday night, the ACLU won a nationwide temporary injunction against the order from District Court Judge Ann Donnelly in Brooklyn; judges in Massachusetts, Washington, and Virginia also ruled against the order.

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Paul Blest

Paul Blest is a journalist living in Raleigh, North Carolina. He's a former staff writer for INDY Week and has written for New Republic, Jacobin, VICE, and Salon.