On Oct. 3, 1965, President Lyndon Johnson and several hundred guests, including Vice President Hubert Humphrey and Senator Robert Kennedy, traveled by boat to Liberty Island, where the president signed into law an act that prohibits discrimination in the issuance of visas.
“Our beautiful America was built by a nation of strangers,” Johnson said in remarks at the bill signing. “From a hundred different places or more they have poured forth into an empty land, joining and blending in one mighty and irresistible tide.”
We are reminded of that day in a 24-page brief filed Thursday with the U.S. District Court in Brooklyn by New York and 33 other cities that together oppose an executive order by President Trump that would block entry to the U.S. by people from seven predominantly Muslim countries.
The court, which will hear arguments in the case at the end of this month, was the first to block the administration from enforcing the travel ban. The Ninth Circuit later blocked its enforcement nationwide.
The cities charge that the ban would damage their social fabric, disregard the constitutional requirement of due process, undermine attempts to combat hate crimes, and upend security and counterterrorism.
New York City, they note, is home to an estimated 27,000 people born in the seven countries covered by the travel ban and another 46,000 people whose ancestry traces to those nations. The city also is home to one of the country’s largest Muslim populations, including nearly 1,000 Muslim police officers, they add.