Editor’s note: Deborah Weinstein, Executive Director of the Coalition on Human Needs, issued the following statement Tuesday, June 26 in response to the U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling in Hawaii vs. Trump:
“In disregarding repeated statements showing the Trump anti-Muslim bias, the Supreme Court has affirmed an injustice. The decision recalls our worst national acts, not our enduring values.

“Thousands of Muslim families, both in the U.S. and abroad, have been harmed by the ban – and by other measures that have targeted immigrant families, primarily due to ethnicity or religious belief. A basic tenet and strength of our country always has been our respect for freedom of religion and our welcome to people of all faiths, beliefs, races or national background. This welcome mat, however, has been yanked away by the Trump Administration through its own, plain anti-Muslim words and actions. As Justice Sotomayor eloquently put it in her forceful dissent, ‘Taking all the evidence together, a reasonable observer would conclude that the proclamation was driven primarily by anti-Muslim animus.’  She reminds us that the claim of national security can blind us to ‘…a discriminatory policy motivated by animosity toward a disfavored group…’ Our nation was so blinded in our shameful treatment of Japanese Americans during World War II.  We can only be dismayed at what the Court’s majority refused to see.

“The Coalition on Human Needs stands with Muslim families, both here and abroad, just as it stands with immigrant families from south of the U.S. border who also face animus and discrimination. The Trump Administration has demonstrated an unjust agenda of exclusion which harms innocent people and families; this agenda does not reflect the principles for which we stand.”