Members of Bartholomew County Indivisible are planning to discuss a federal judge’s hold on a new Trump executive order at a meeting tonight.
The group is meeting from 6:30 to 8 p.m. at St. Paul’s Episcopal Church, 2651 California St. It’s a new, larger venue as the group has grown to about 115 people, said Melisa Miller, owner of Knitters Nook and leader of the group.
Bartholomew County Indivisible is a local grassroots group formed to air concerns about the environment, women’s issues such as funding for Planned Parenthood and President Donald Trump’s executive orders banning travel into the United States from predominantly Muslim countries.
On Wednesday, a federal judge in Hawaii issued a stay of Trump’s second executive order which would have temporarily stopped new visas being issued to six countries with large Muslim populations and banned refugees from coming to the United States. The order had been set to take effect today.
U.S. District Judge Derrick K. Watson cited sections of Trump’s campaign speeches and comments by his administration as evidence that the new order was in effect a Muslim ban.
The local Muslim community has not had time to form a reaction to the latest developments, said Hanna Omar, who is among organizers of Bartholomew County Indivisible, and a spokeswoman for the Islamic Society of Columbus Indiana.
“This is spiraling very fast,” Omar said this morning. “We will be discussing what has happened tonight (at the Bartholomew County Indivisible meeting) and how to move forward.”
The Islamic Society of Columbus Indiana is working with several organizations in the Columbus community to begin a dialogue about immigration and the potential ramifications on local families affected by Trump’s executive orders.
A coalition of city, education and faith-based organizations is forming in Columbus to focus on immigration issues, organized through First Presbyterian Church and the Unitarian Universalist Congregation of Columbus, Omar said.
The Islamic Society is also working with Bartholomew County Indivisible in its efforts to encourage federal and state legislators to listen to the people they represent and hear concerns from the grassroots level, Miller said in an earlier interview.
At tonight’s meeting, a group of about 10 people who represent the “immigration team” will talk about the recent federal court action and what action plans might come from that federal judge’s decision, Miller said.
