NY attorney general joins ACLU lawsuit against Trump order

New York State’s Democratic attorney general is joining the American Civil Liberties Union’s (ACLU) lawsuit over President Trump’s executive order barring refugees and citizens of seven Muslim-majority countries from entering the U.S.

Eric Schneiderman on Tuesday called the president’s order “unconstitutional, unlawful, and fundamentally un-American.”

“I will continue to do everything in my power to not just fight this executive order, but to protect the families caught in the chaos sown by President Trump’s hasty and irresponsible implementation – including pressing [the Department of Homeland Security] and [U.S. Customs and Border Patrol] to provide a full list of those still detained and allow them access to legal service providers,” he said in a statement.

{mosads}The ACLU and three other legal groups filed a lawsuit on behalf of two Iraqi refugees who were detained at New York City’s Kennedy International Airport after Trump signed an executive on Friday order halting the country’s refugee program for four months.

Trump’s order sparked protests across the country over the weekend.

The president has defended the measure as a bulwark against terrorists entering the U.S. But critics have accused Trump of trying to implement a de facto Muslim ban. The order specifically restricts citizens from seven predominantly Muslim countries — Syria, Iraq, Iran, Yemen, Libya, Sudan and Somalia — from traveling to the U.S. for 90 days, with refugees from Syria barred indefinitely due to the nation’s ongoing civil war.