Weekly Charity Match #009: ACLU/CAIR

Trump’s executive order to ban Muslims from entering the country is dangerous and wrong on so many levels.  It’s immoral, it threatens Americans abroad, it will be used as another recruitment tool for ISIS, and its overly wide ban prevents even long-time non-citizen residents of the US – holders of green cards, workers’ visas, and others – from returning to the homes where they have lived and worked for years.  In many cases, his order keeps people from their families currently living legally in the US.  Not content to ignore the existing refugee crisis, Trump is actually creating more refugees with this order.

Even given his erroneous justifications, this is still badly implemented policy.  Of the four countries of which the September 11th terrorists were citizens – Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Egypt, and Lebanon – none were included.  Trump has business interests in Saudi Arabia, Egypt, and the UAE, as well as Turkey and Azerbaijan, two other Muslim-majority countries not included in the order.  This is not to suggest that the order should be extended – it should be rescinded – but rather to demonstrate that the only thing restraining Trump’s Islamophobia seems to be his own greed.

And unlike most of Trump’s reprehensible policies, this one became a crisis for thousands of people with a stroke of Trump’s pen.  So that’s why I’m starting this week’s match early, and increasing its scope.  There’s still time to donate to the Disrupt J20 legal fund as well.

This Week: ACLU and CAIR

I’ve raised money for the ACLU here before, and while I was intending to go a little longer before repeating an organization, the Muslim ban is an immediate emergency.  The ACLU has filed a lawsuit against Trump on behalf of two people detained on that order, and is also helping many other people who found themselves stranded as a result of the ban.  Donate to the ACLU here.¹I mentioned ACLU’s peculiarities with respect to tax deductions last time.  The legal work they’re doing here, including the lawsuit, can be supported through donations to the ACLU Foundation as well.

I am also including a second organization this week: the Council on American-Islamic Relations.  They have been on the front lines of the fight against Islamophobia for over two decades, and today they announced a federal lawsuit challenging the constitutionality of the ban.  They are also assisting American residents currently stranded outside the country by the ban.  Donate to CAIR here.

Due to the gravity and immediacy of this problem, I’m increasing my matching limits as well.  We’ll match the first $500 in donations to each organization.  EDIT 1/30: Another anonymous donor has contacted me with matching funds; the first $100 to each organization will be double matched, for a total of $1,200 in available matching funds this week – just forward your donation receipts to matching@pyrlogos.com.  As usual, each donation to either organization²This is an exception to the one-entry-per-week rule; donating to both organizations means two entries in the giveaway. will also count as an entry in the monthly art giveaway.

Call to Action

Call your representatives and senator - here’s a handy tool to find them – and make it clear that you oppose Trump’s anti-Muslim executive order.  Tell them the stories of legal residents of the US leaving the country and suddenly learning they couldn’t come back.  Point out that those residents have effectively been deported without due process.  Raise the moral question of our refusal to admit refugees; remind them that Anne Frank was denied a US visa that would have saved her life, and that in her case, as in thousands of others, the United States’ refusal to admit refugees was literally a death sentence.  Point out that the ban doesn’t affect the countries where Trump owns real estate.  Whatever you need to do to convince your congresspeople that this is an immoral, illegal, and unjustifiable act.

We need to fight this, and we need our Congress fighting it too.