Month: January 2017

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Source: HuffPost Black Voices

For the second time in a week, Donald Trump sparked large-scale protests across the country, this time for an executive order that targeted Muslims and refugees.

But unlike the Women’s March that took place the day after his inauguration, however, Saturday’s protests at airports across the country were attended by elected officials eager to help channel the umbrage over the detention of refugees and even some green card holders.

Democratic lawmakers joined hundreds of protestors at John F. Kennedy International Airport in New York, San Francisco International Airport, Chicago’s O’Hare International Airport and Washington Dulles International Airport, among others.

Sen. Elizabeth Warren’s (D-Mass.) presence was particularly notable. Days after facing intense criticism for voting to advance Dr. Ben Carson’s nomination for Housing and Urban Development secretary through the Senate, she made an impassioned speech to the gathering crowd at Logan International Airport in Boston.

“It is illegal, it is unconstitutional, and it will be overturned,” she told the crowd of Trump’s order.

She was joined by Boston Mayor Marty Walsh.

Walsh indicated that he’d be spearheading another protest to “stand with our Muslim brothers and sisters” on Sunday in Boston’s Copley Square.

Rep. Jerry Nadler (D-N.Y.) and Rep. Nydia Velazquez (D-N.Y.) joined protesters at JFK Airport in Queens, New York.

Reps. Adriano Espaillat, Yvette D. Clark and Gregory Meeks were also at JFK.

Clarke said on Twitter that she would hold an event Sunday to offer information on “how to protect yourself” from Trump.

Virginia Gov. Terry McAuliffe (D) was at Washington Dulles International Airport in Virginia.

Sen. Bob Casey (D-Penn.) was in a coat and tails at Philadelphia International Airport, having clearly left an event for the protest. He was joined by Rep. Bob Brady and Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Wolf.

DNC Candidate Tom Perez went to the airport in Houston after a forum for prospective chairs. He and others running for the DNC position had faced criticism for attending a donor confab during the Women’s March. 

Rep. John Lewis (D-Ga.), the famed civil rights leader, was in Atlanta.

Sen. Tammy Duckwork (D-Ill.) and Rep. Jan Schakowsky (D-Ill.) were at O’Hare International Airport in Chicago.

Washington Gov. Jay Inslee (D) spoke at Seattle–Tacoma International Airport in Washington. 

And California Lt. Gov. Gavin Newsom, who is part of the state’s “Resist Trump” movement, joined the San Francisco protest.

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Earlier this week, Katie Keier, a kindergarten teacher in Fairfax County, Virginia, was in a meeting with colleagues about student literacy. But instead of the topic at hand, the conversation turned to politics. 

The small group talked about their dislike of Betsy DeVos, President Donald Trump’s pick for U.S. secretary of education. Keier urged the group to make calls to their representatives to oppose DeVos’ confirmation.

But in the wake of the Women’s March on Washington, D.C., and its sister marches and rallies around the world, the group was feeling like they could do more than just engage from a distance. Althea Goldberg, another teacher in the group, suggested that they plan a protest in Washington and invite people on Facebook, Keier said.

Now, just a few days later, more than 2,000 people on Facebook say they’re going to that demonstration, which is planned for Sunday. More than 12,000 people have said they’re interested. The event description says “We are gathering as teachers, students, parents, and stakeholders in our society to oppose Betsy DeVos as Secretary of Education.”

Keier, who has never planned a political demonstration before, says she’s blown away.

“In my 25 years of teaching and being very aware of the education secretary, I’ve never seen backlash like this,” she said.

Keier is one of the grassroots activists fighting vigorously to keep DeVos, a billionaire philanthropist and conservative donor, from having control over the nation’s schools. DeVos’ detractors have been speaking out since Trump nominated her in November, but their voices seem to have grown louder since DeVos’ confirmation hearing last week. Rallies to oppose DeVos have broken out across the country. 

Credo Action, a progressive social change network associated with a mobile phone company of the same name, says it’s never seen a response to one of its petitions like the one that protests DeVos, which has received more than 1.4 million signatures. The petition calls on Senate Democrats to block DeVos’ confirmation, saying, “We have to do everything we can to keep the U.S. Department of Education out of her unqualified hands.”

The organization has petitions opposing other Trump nominees, but those have not gained traction like the one criticizing DeVos. Josh Nelson, Credo Action’s deputy political director, thinks it’s because the issue of education feels especially personal to many people. 

“I think the Education Department is something that touches a lot of Americans’ lives,” he said. “People may not realize, for something else like the Treasury Department or Health and Human Services or Department of Labor, how it affects their life.”

DeVos has also received her share of support from high-profile Republicans and Democrats alike. This past week was National School Choice Week, and advocates of educational options held events around the country. At one such event in D.C., DeVos received praise from prominent politicians, students and teachers. 

“We are about to have a secretary of education who not only believes in school choice but has been fighting for school choice,” said House Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) at a rally, per The Washington Post. 

DeVos has spent many years as an educational activist championing charter schools and voucher programs, which use taxpayer dollars to help send kids to private schools. Teachers unions have come out strongly against DeVos, saying she’s intent on destroying traditional public schools. DeVos denies this, saying she is interested in giving poor children the same educational options as their more affluent peers. Her supporters say she is single-mindedly focused on implementing reforms that would help children, even if it shakes up the status quo. 

But DeVos’ detractors have been putting in time and effort to stand in the way of her ascent. The National Education Association ― the nation’s largest teachers union ― says it has seen unprecedented action against DeVos by its members. A campaign from the union to block DeVos has resulted in more than 40,000 people calling their senators and more than 1 million people signing a form that sends e-mails to their representatives, according to The Washington Post.

There is also evidence that some leaders on the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions have received a disproportionate number of calls from constituents opposing DeVos, the Post notes.

On the other side, groups like the Center for Education Reform have been encouraging supporters to also call senators “so lies do not outweigh the truth about education opportunity.” Detailed numbers about CER’s pro-DeVos campaign were not available as of Saturday afternoon.

Keier has strong fears about what DeVos would do if she is put in charge of the Education Department. She worries that DeVos would neglect low-income students and students with special needs, and that her policies of school choice could further segregate students by race. Keier is also concerned that DeVos has not spent enough time in public schools to be qualified for the position. Indeed, DeVos has never formally worked in a school. 

Before this, Keier says she “never felt fearful for the children in front of me in my classroom every day, being impacted by forces that would be out of my control as a teacher.”

The Senate HELP committee is set to vote on DeVos on Tuesday. Democrats on the committee have said they will not vote for her. The group’s chairman, Sen. Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.), is a strong supporter of DeVos, and says she has been treated unfairly by critics.

“Few Americans have done as much to help low-income students have a choice of better schools,” Alexander wrote in a post on Medium this week. “She is on the side of our children. Her critics may resent that, but this says more about them than it does about her.”

 ― ― 

Rebecca Klein covers the challenges faced in school discipline, school segregation and the achievement gap in K-12 education. Tips? Email: Rebecca.Klein@huffingtonpost.com.

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Source: HuffPost Black Voices

A coalition of activists called #NotOneInch are planning a poignant and unique form of protest today: delivering a number of “back-up spines” to Democratic Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer’s apartment in Brooklyn, New York.

The protestors are organizing in response to Schumer’s vote to approve three of President Donald Trump’s cabinet members: Mike Pompeo, James Mattis and Mike Flynn.

The “spines” will include cardboard signs, cut-outs and plastic skeleton spines ― a tongue-in-cheek dig at what they perceive to be cowardly moves by Schumer.

“When will spineless Democrats get it through their heads that we demand ZERO COLLABORATION with the Trump/extreme GOP agenda? ZERO,” Tim Murphy, co-founder of #NotOneInch and active member of Gays Against Guns (GAG), told The Huffington Post. “It is infuriating that Schumer thinks just because he’s sitting pretty in his Senate seat for six more years, he can afford to vote yes on SOME of these terrifying cabinet picks to preserve some dealmaking leverage with Republicans. NO.”

#NotOneInch is an affinity group of larger NYC anti-Trump action group Rise & Resist that calls on Democrats to budge “not one inch” to President Trump and the GOP’s agenda.

#NotOneInch engaged in a similar form of protest outside of Schumer’s Brooklyn home just weeks ago, urging the senator to defy then President-Elect Trump and his policies.

“We want the world to understand that he voted ‘yes’ for a man who supports torture and blames Muslims broadly for terrorism,” Murphy, who recently published the critically-acclaimed novel “Christodora” about the history and legacy of AIDS, continued. “We want the world to know that we need Chuck and other Dems right now to STAND UP for morality and ethics in 100 percent obstruction against this dark power grab we’re facing and STOP worrying about their career chess game, trying to split the difference. Do the job you we are paying you for and grow a spine before it’s too late, dammit!”

The #NotOneInce “GET A SPINE, Chuck!” protest outside of Senator Schumer’s home will take place at 12:00 p.m. on Saturday, Jan. 28. Head here for more information.

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Source: HuffPost Black Voices

Debra Wilson has never been one to hold back. The comic’s parodies of a chemically altered Whitney Houston and an overly enthusiastic Oprah Winfrey – played without remorse or reservation during her 14-year run on MADtv ― proved as iconic as they were scathing. The fiery actress doesn’t mince words about the queer community either.

“I don’t give a fuck who you fuck; that’s your business,” said Wilson emphatically.

“That, to me, doesn’t define you as gay [people],” she continued during an interview on Party Foul Radio with Pollo & Pearl. “The complexities of your relationships, and the commitment to your relationships, define you as a human being who happens to be in love with another man.”

In 1995, when Wilson was cast as a series original on sketch comedy MADtv, she had no idea her performances would lead to a cult-like queer following. When she started to spoof legendary vocalist Whitney Houston, however, the actress noticed an increasing number of LGBT fans.

“The ‘diva’ aspect seemed to really speak to people, especially young, gay men,” she told Podomatic’s No. 1 ranked LGBT podcast.

Though the skits were well-received by audiences, the subjects of Wilson’s parodies sometimes did not appreciate the portrayals. Though noting Whitney “liked” her caricature – “She didn’t take herself too seriously,” the actress said, drawing incredulous gasps from both hosts – Oprah was less charitable.

“She did not appreciate it,” Wilson told listeners, noting it did not prevent her from continuing. “It did not matter. As long as your audience agrees there is some semblance of a possibility [in a performance] they concur with, then I can do that.”

(The comedian then launched into an extensive run-down of Oprah’s behaviors contributing to those still-relevant parodies. The result is an epic, must-listen read of the media magnate which gagged both hosts.)

WATCH: Debra Wilson as Whitney Houston on MADtv

Since leaving MADtv in 2009, Wilson has been incredibly busy, largely as a voiceover actress in both animated projects and popular video games. Most recently, she signed on for six episodes of the tello films web series My Sister Is So Gay.

Written by and starring Terry Ray and Wendy Michaels, up-tight, homophobic Amanda (Michaels) crash lands in the home of her gay brother Seth (Ray) after finding her husband has cheated with her best gal-pal. Her misplaced distress about the break-up –- and increasing curiosity about Seth’s lesbian coworker (Wilson) – signal more to Amanda than possibly even she realizes. WKRP in Cincinnati icon Loni Anderson and Nashville actor Tilky Jones costar.

According to Wilson, the role is special for many reasons. Not the least of which, she said, is how producers allowed her to fully embody the character. Five years ago, she shaved off her well-known dreadlocks. Since that time, she has stretched her earlobes and undergone full-body tattooing.

“This is the first role where they’ve wanted me to embody a character using my own body,” she pointed out.

WATCH: The Trailer for My Sister Is So Gay Featuring Debra Wilson

Lending herself to the role physically is simple enough, but embodying the character emotionally is a different challenge. Though it is Wilson’s third time as an onscreen lesbian, the actress is quick to note she never approaches any role by focusing on its sexuality. In an effort to avoid a “stereotypical” performance, she looks first to the heart of the character.

“If you stripped away who you slept with, you’d still be this human being who goes through the trials and tribulations, your joys, your sorrows, your celebrations and chooses how you experience and express your humanity,” she explained.

“So if you’re playing that first, and the character happens to be gay based on the lines, then so be it,” Wilson said. “So I’ve never really played a ‘gay character.’ I’ve always played a person in the midst of a situation – who happens to be gay.”

Taking that into account, Wilson says, allows a performance to convey a full range of human experiences. Whether those experiences are “complex,” “beautiful” or “sexual,” thinking of a character as “human” rather than a “gay person” staves off “cliché.”

“More than anything else, I am talking about the complexities of having human relationships,” Wilson concluded, “The complexities of having love relationships, and that person happens to be of the same sex.”

tello films is an emerging queer media portal featuring original, lesbian-focused content. For more information, or to view the first six episodes of ‘My Sister Is So Gay,’ click here.

LISTEN: The complete ‘Party Foul Radio’ interview with Debra Wilson, including full discussion of portraying lesbians on-screen, her hilarious rant about Oprah Winfrey, race on television & more. Out actor Jason Stuart also joins the podcast to discuss his ground-breaking role as a heterosexual slave owner in The Birth of a Nation.

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Source: HuffPost Black Voices

WASHINGTON ― President Donald Trump signed an executive order Friday that bans Syrians from taking refuge in the United States, halts the U.S. refugee resettlement program for four months and temporarily blocks people from a handful of unnamed countries from entering the U.S. at all.

“I am establishing new vetting measures to keep radical Islamic terrorists out of the United States of America. We don’t want them here,” he said at a swearing-in ceremony at the Pentagon for Secretary of Defense James Mattis. “We don’t want to admit into our country the very threats we are fighting overseas.”

Trump approved the refugee ban amid the biggest refugee crisis in history and on Holocaust Remembrance Day, which honors the millions of people killed during World War II, many of whom tried to flee to the U.S. but were turned away.

It’s not the blanket ban on Muslims that Trump advocated for during his campaign, and it does not single out any country by name other than Syria for its refugees.

But Trump did say earlier in the day that he would prioritize helping Syrian Christians. He also mentioned “radical Islamic terrorists” while signing it. And in the text, it carves out an exception for admitting refugees who are religious minorities even while nearly all others will be barred for 120 days.

Here’s what the order will do, with immediate effect:

• Block refugee admissions from the war-torn country of Syria indefinitely.

• Suspend refugee admissions from all countries for 120 days. During that period, the government can accept refugees on a case-by-case basis, but only in the following scenarios: if they are a religious minority facing religious persecution, if the U.S. must admit the person to meet an international agreement, or if they are already in transit and denying admission would cause undue hardship. After that period, the U.S. will only accept refugees from countries jointly approved by the Department of Homeland Security, the State Department and the Director of National Intelligence.

• Cap total refugee admissions for fiscal year 2017 at 50,000 ― less than half of the 110,000 proposed by the Obama administration.

• Ban for 90 days all “immigrant and nonimmigrant” entry of individuals from countries referred to in section 217(a)(12) of the INA, 8 U.S.C. 1187(a)(12).

• Suspend visa issuance to countries of “particular concern.” After 60 days, DHS, the State Department and DNI are instructed to draft a list of countries that don’t comply with requests for information. Foreign nationals from those countries will be banned from entering the U.S.

• Expedite the completion of a biometric entry-exit tracking system for all visitors to the U.S. and require in-person interviews for all individuals seeking a nonimmigrant visa.

• Suspend the visa interview waiver program indefinitely and review whether existing reciprocity agreements are reciprocal in practice.

The executive order, one of many during Trump’s first week in office, is a radical departure from President Barack Obama’s efforts to admit more refugees and improve relationships with Muslims.

The State Department is working to implement the executive order’s changes immediately, spokesman Mark Toner said in a statement. He said the agency will announce changes affecting travelers as soon as possible.

The new policies are expected to affect tens of thousands of people: refugees preparing to come to the U.S.; foreign nationals, immigrants and would-be visitors from designated countries; and Americans whose families will now be unable to visit.

Trump’s executive action, a draft of which The Huffington Post obtained earlier this week, fulfills his campaign promise to bar Syrian refugees and partially fulfills his vow to temporarily ban Muslims from the U.S. — a promise he later amended to apply only to people from certain Muslim-majority countries.

During his run for president, Trump repeatedly suggested that Syrian refugees and Muslim immigrants are likely terrorists. There is no proven link between refugees and terrorism. Nearly 800,000 refugees have come to the U.S. since Sept. 11, 2001, but fewer than 20 have been arrested on terrorism charges during that time, according to the State Department.

Advocates for civil rights, religious liberty, refugees and immigrants decried Trump’s decision as unjust, unnecessary and even harmful.

“If terrorism and economic development are indeed related, more migration decreases the opportunity for terrorism,” Vincenzo Bove, an associate professor of politics at the University of Warwick in Britain and the lead author of a 2016 University of Chicago study that found no link between refugees and terror, said in The Washington Post last year.

Half of all terrorist attacks carried out in the U.S. since 9/11 were committed by people born in the U.S., according to a 2015 New York Times analysis.

Halting immigration from the designated countries “does nothing but plays in the hands of our enemies, it does not strengthen our security,” Khizr Khan, a Trump critic and the father of a Muslim-American soldier killed in Iraq, said on a call with reporters Friday.

The order may also endanger U.S. national security interests, experts said, by imperiling strategic alliances in the Middle East and possibly even playing into the hands of militant organizations like the so-called Islamic State.

The order may be “a gift to ISIS,” former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright said Thursday. “I have no doubt that they will use this order as propaganda” to support their anti-Western rhetoric.

A total of 65 million people are displaced worldwide, about 21 million of whom are refugees, according to U.N. data, a number that hasn’t been seen since World War II.

The Syrian conflict alone has created more than 4.8 million refugees, most of whom are still stuck in neighboring countries like Jordan, Lebanon and Turkey. An additional 6.6 million people are internally displaced.

The U.S. has long been the global leader in refugee resettlement, although more than 99 percent of refugees are never placed in other countries, according to UNHCR. Obama, heeding calls from many to take greater responsibility in light of the worsening crisis, raised resettlement quotas from 70,000 people in the 2015 fiscal year to 85,000 in 2016. He also pledged to award at least 10,000 of the 2016 slots for Syrians. Obama proposed admitting 110,000 refugees in the 2017 fiscal year; Trump’s order cuts that by more than half.

Trump’s refugee order isn’t entirely unprecedented. The U.S. suspended refugee resettlement for two months following the September 11 terrorist attacks. But since then the government increased its screening measures substantially.

Today, all refugees go through an extensive vetting process that typically lasts between 18 to 24 months, with additional screening for those from Syria and Iraq.

But many Republicans say that the screening is insufficient. After a terrorist attack in Paris in 2015, more than half of U.S. governors ― including Vice President Mike Pence, then governor of Indiana ― tried to block Syrian refugees from resettling in their states. Courts blocked states’ efforts to ban Syrian refugees because the power to set that immigration policy goes to the federal government.

Earlier in the day, Trump issued a statement on Holocaust Remembrance Day that spoke about “the victims, survivors, heroes of the Holocaust” without once naming who most of them were: Jews persecuted and discriminated against based on their religion.

“In the name of the perished, I pledge to do everything in my power throughout my Presidency, and my life, to ensure that the forces of evil never again defeat the powers of good,” Trump said. “Together, we will make love and tolerance prevalent throughout the world.”

How will Trump’s first 100 days impact you? Sign up for our weekly newsletter and get breaking updates on Trump’s presidency by messaging us here.

CORRECTION: An earlier version of this article included a bullet point about establishing safe zones in Syria as one of the clauses in the executive order. It was a point included in the draft obtained by HuffPost but was removed in the final version.

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Source: HuffPost Black Voices

A federal judge has again prevented Texas from enacting a controversial abortion regulation that would require all clinics to bury or cremate embryonic tissue from abortions or miscarriages. 

In December, U.S. District Judge Sam Sparks issued a restraining order against the rule, which temporarily halted it from going into effect.

Many expected an opinion Friday. Instead, Sparks ordered that the preliminary injunction remain in place until further notice, according to the Austin American-Statesman. 

The Center for Reproductive Rights, which brought the lawsuit on behalf of a coalition of Texas abortion providers, hailed the decision as a victory.

“Today’s ruling acknowledges that these regulations do nothing to protect public health while imposing new burdens and uncertainty on healthcare providers and the diverse communities they serve,” Nancy Northup, president and CEO of the Center for Reproductive Rights, said in a statement.

Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton vowed to appeal the injunction. “Texas has chosen to dignify the life of the unborn by requiring the humane disposition of fetal remains,” Paxton said in a press release. “These rules would simply prevent health care facilities from disposing of the remains of the unborn in sewers or landfills. Today’s ruling, however, reaffirms that the abortion lobby has grown so extreme that it will reject any and every regulation no matter how sensible.”

The regulation ― sometimes referred as a “fetal burial” rule ― would require health care providers to incinerate or bury tissue resulting from an abortion, a miscarriage that takes place in a medical facility or surgery for an ectopic pregnancy, regardless of a woman’s wishes. (Miscarriages at home would be exempt.)

Texas health officials have claimed the rule helps to “protect the dignity of the unborn” and enhances public health.

But health care providers and reproductive rights advocates argue that it serves no medical purpose. Texas abortion providers already comply with the state’s standards for disposing of fetal tissue.

“This isn’t about women’s health,” Elizabeth Nash, senior state issues manager at the Guttmacher Institute, a reproductive health research and policy group told The Huffington Post last year. “This is about trying to change attitudes toward the fetus and products of conception in order to try and revisit abortion rights.

Funeral directors in Texas have also voiced concerns, saying the state had significantly underestimated the costs of complying with the rule.

Other states, including Indiana and Louisiana, have attempted to pass similar tissue burial rules, though they too have been blocked by federal courts.

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Source: HuffPost Black Voices

The woman who accused 14-year-old Emmet Till of flirting with her in 1955 revealed for the first time that those claims were fabricated. 

Vanity Fair reports that Timothy Tyson, the author of a new book titled The Blood of Emmett Till, spoke with Carolyn Bryant Donham, who was 21-years-old when she accused Till of making verbal and physical advances towards her. Donham’s claims against Till enraged two white men, J.W. Milam and his half-brother Roy Bryant, who abducted and murdered Till three nights later, leaving his body bludgeoned, bruised and left at the bottom of the Tallahatchie River in Mississippi.

Both Milam and Bryant were ultimately acquitted by an all-white, all-male jury. They later admitted to their crime in a story for Look magazine, for which they were compensated $3,000. Donham, who is now 82, testified at the trial. Her testimony further criminalized Till, whose humanity meant little to the jury of white men charged with seeking justice for a young black man accused of whistling at a white woman. 

However, as Donham revealed to Tyson in his new book: “That part’s not true.” 

“Nothing that boy did could ever justify what happened to him,” she said.

Donham, who told Tyson that she couldn’t recall what happened during the remainder of the evening, took the stand during the trial and claimed she was “scared to death” in the moments that Till approached her. According to Vanity Fair: 

She had asserted that Till had grabbed her and verbally threatened her. She said that while she was unable to utter the “unprintable” word he had used (as one of the defense lawyers put it), “he said [he had]’”—done something – “with white women before.’” Then she added, “I was just scared to death.” A version of her damning allegation was also made by the defendant’s lawyers to reporters. (The jury did not hear Carolyn’s words because the judge had dismissed them from the courtroom while she spoke, ruling that her testimony was not relevant to the actual murder. But the court spectators heard her, and her testimony was put on the record because the defense wanted her words as evidence in a possible appeal in the event that the defendants were convicted.)

Tyson is the first author to interview Donham, who actually approached Tyson initially because she was writing her memoirs ― which reportedly will not be released until 2036. According to Vanity Fair, Donham’s daughter enjoyed Tyson’s earlier book titled Blood Does Sign My Name, which focuses on another tragic murder provoked by race.

Vanity Fair reports that Donham didn’t “officially repent” for her actions by attempting to join racial justice groups for example but she did admit to feeling “tender sorrow” for Till’s mother, Mamie Till-Mobley, who died in 2003 and had committed her life to relentlessly fighting for civil rights. 

“When Carolyn herself [later] lost one of her sons, she thought about the grief that Mamie must have felt and grieved all the more,” Tyson reportedly wrote in his book. 

Tyson’s book, which is to be published next week, is sure to reveal more about Donham’s actions but she, along with those who came to her defense, have already written a dark part of history that cost an innocent young black boy his life. We must never forget. 

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Source: HuffPost Black Voices

— This feed and its contents are the property of The Huffington Post, and use is subject to our terms. It may be used for personal consumption, but may not be distributed on a website.

Source: HuffPost Black Voices

WASHINGTON ― President Donald Trump signed an executive order Friday that he said would keep foreign terrorists from entering the United States.

“I am establishing new vetting measures to keep radical Islamic terrorists out of the United States of America. We don’t want them here,” he said at a swearing-in ceremony at the Pentagon for Secretary of Defense James Mattis. “We don’t want to admit into our country the very threats we are fighting overseas.”

It’s still not clear what’s in the order, which the president signed on live television. But an earlier leaked draft suggested the action would block refugee admissions from the war-torn country of Syria indefinitely; suspend refugee admissions from all countries for 120 days; and ban people from Iran, Iraq, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria and Yemen from entering the U.S. for 30 days.

“We will never forget the lessons of 9/11, nor the heroes who lost their lives at the Pentagon,” the president said Friday. “They were the best of us. We will honor them not only with our words but with our actions. I am privileged to be here with you, and I promise that our administration will always have your back.”

If the document follows the leaked text, it would not be the blanket ban on Muslims that Trump advocated for during his campaign. But it targets solely Muslim-majority countries, and Trump said earlier in the day that he would prioritize helping Syrian Christians. Trump also mentioned “radical Islamic terrorists” while signing it.

This story has been updated to reflect that the document is an executive order.

How will Trump’s first 100 days impact you? Sign up for our weekly newsletter and get breaking updates on Trump’s presidency by messaging us here.

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Source: HuffPost Black Voices