A city councillor’s motion to designate London as a “sanctuary city” for those impacted by U.S. President Donald Trump’s executive order blocking travel from seven Muslim majority countries has received unanimous support.
Ward 13 Councillor Tanya Park presented her motion at Monday’s Strategic Priorities and Policy Committee meeting, saying she wanted to send a clear message the U.S. ban is discriminatory and inhumane.
An executive order signed Friday by Trump impacts people from Iran, Iraq, Sudan, Somalia, Syria, Yemen and Libya. Under the order, they would be barred entry to the U.S. for three months.
During a news conference on Sunday, Immigration Minister Ahmed Hussen said the federal government has received further clarification from Washington over the impact of the ban. He said the White House has provided assurances Canadian permanent residents can enter the U.S. provided they have a valid residence card and a passport from one of the seven countries.
“We’ve been assured by the White House that Canadian permanent residents with a valid Canadian permanent resident card and passport from those seven countries can still enter as before,” he said.
Hussen noted during Sunday’s news conference that Canada will not raise the number of refugees it plans to accept in response to the ban, despite widespread speculation that tweets sent out by Prime Minister Justin Trudeau suggested Canada would be accepting more people.
There have been calls from the Canadian Council for Refugees and the Canadian Civil Liberties Association, or CCLA, for Ottawa to withdraw from a Safe Third Country agreement with the United States, under which Canada returns asylum seekers crossing the border.
The move would be seen as diplomatically insulting, and Hussen said the pact would remain intact for the time being. The U.S. Consulate in Toronto has announced it will suspend services on Monday because of a planned demonstration.
Meanwhile, the acting head of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement has been fired.
The Trump Administration didn’t offer any explanation for the move against Daniel Ragsdale Monday night, hours after President Trump had fired acting Attorney General Sally Yates for publicly questioning and declining to defend his executive order on immigration and refugees.
White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer was blunt Monday when asked about a large group of American diplomats who are voicing dissent with Trump’s temporary travel ban on citizens from seven Muslim-majority countries.
Spicer said those critics “should either get with the program or they can go.”
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