Just keep swimming protesting. As thousands of protesters gathered across the United States on Sunday, January 29, for the second day in a row in opposition to President Donald Trump‘s Muslim and refugee ban, the businessman held a Finding Dory movie screening at the White House.
Trump, 70, spent Sunday afternoon watching the 2016 Disney-Pixar blockbuster with family and friends at the theater inside 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, marking the first movie screening held during his administration, according to The Hollywood Reporter. The children’s movie is about a family of fish traveling the ocean in hopes of reuniting, starring their lost daughter, Dory, voiced by Ellen DeGeneres. DeGeneres expressed her disapproval of the immigration ban on Twitter.
“For me, America is great because of all the people who came here. Not in spite of them,” the Ellen host, 59, tweeted on Sunday. “P.S. My grandparents were immigrants. The woman making us pizza right now is Muslim. And I’m grateful for all of them. #NoBan.”
Albert Brooks, who voiced Marlin in the film, tweeted on Sunday afternoon about the former Apprentice host, writing, “Odd that Trump is watching Finding Dory today, a movie about reuniting with family when he’s preventing it in real life.”
As the Trump family watched Finding Dory, demonstrations kicked into high gear outside the White House and in cities including New York, Boston and Philadelphia, as protesters assembled to voice their disapproval of the president’s executive order, which indefinitely suspended admissions for Syrian refugees and barred citizens of seven Muslim-majority countries, including Iraq and Iran, from entering the U.S. for at least the next 90 days.
NYC mayor Bill de Blasio announced on Twitter that he’d join a rally at Battery Park “to stand up for our city’s values.” NBC New York reported that a crowd of demonstrators gathered near the ferries that bring tourists to the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island, where more than 12 million people immigrated to the U.S. between 1892 and 1954. “Protest crowds in NYC are so big people can’t even get out of the subway station,” one Twitter user wrote.
New York senators Kirsten Gillibrand and Charles Schumer also headed to Battery Park to protest “these awful actions,” Schumer tweeted.
In Boston, thousands gathered at Copley Square. “Can you hear us Washington?! We’re standing strong in Boston to support & protect ALL of our people & we will not back down. #NoBanNoWall,” Boston mayor Marty Walsh tweeted. Massachusetts senator Elizabeth Warren showed up at the Boston rally too, tweeting, “Proud to stand shoulder-to-shoulder with Mayor @marty_walsh, @SenMarkey, @CAIRMass & 20k+ people in Boston today to say #NoBanNoWall.”
Can you hear us Washington?! We’re standing strong in Boston to support & protect ALL of our people & we will not back down. #NoBanNoWall pic.twitter.com/esmCWf1d4A
— Mayor Marty Walsh (@marty_walsh) January 29, 2017
Proud to stand shoulder-to-shoulder with Mayor @marty_walsh, @SenMarkey, @CAIRMass & 20k+ people in Boston today to say #NoBanNoWall. pic.twitter.com/Uar90gJOa7
— Elizabeth Warren (@SenWarren) January 29, 2017
CNN reported that protests are also scheduled in Atlanta, Los Angeles, Chicago and Seattle on Sunday, a day after thousands descended upon airports across the country as people were detained at NYC’s John F. Kennedy International Airport and Los Angeles International airport, among others. A federal judge in Brooklyn granted an emergency stay late Saturday, temporarily halting the removal of the detainees.
An open letter slamming Trump was recently posted on Avaaz, a global activism website, and has since gathered more than 3 million signatures.
