Thousands protest Trump’s travel ban in Copley Square

Protesters, 20,000 strong, swarmed Copley Square Sunday to rally against President Donald Trump’s executive order banning refugees and immigrants from seven predominantly Muslim countries.

Shoults of “No ban, no wall” and “Heyhey, ho ho, Donald Trump has got to go,” rang out across the square and signs peppered the crowd with messages supporting immigrants,saying “Love thy neighbor,” and “United we stand.”

Otherssportedthe famous words from the poem by Emma Lazarus that is inscribed on pedestal that holds the Statue of Liberty, “Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, The wretched refuse of your teeming shore. Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me.”

Organized by the Council on American-Islamic Relations, the protest brought students, families and officials like Boston Mayor Marty Walsh, Sen. Ed Markey and Sen. Elizabeth Warren.

In a tweet, Walsh said “Can you hear us Washington?! We’re standing strong in Boston to support & protect ALL of our people & we will not back down.”

Trump’sordersuspended entry of all refugees to the United States for 120 days, barred Syrian refugees indefinitely and blocked entry into the United States for 90 days for citizens of seven predominantly Muslim countries: Iran, Iraq, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria and Yemen.

Several people were held at Boston’s Logan International Airport Saturday, prompting a lawsuit by ACLU Massachusetts.

At 2 a.m. on Sunday,Boston federal judges imposed a temporary stay, prohibiting deportation,detention or additional screening based solely on Trump’s executive order. Whether that order will apply nationally is still up for debate.

It has been interpreted by critics as a ban on Muslims, but Trump has refuted allrhetoriclabeling his order a “Muslim ban,” and in a statement issued Sunday,he said his policy was adapted from a similar oderbyformer President Barak Obama that in 2011 banned visasfor refugees from Iraq for six months.

“To be clear, this is not a Muslim ban, as the media is falsely reporting,” Trump said in the statement. “This is not about religion – this is about terror and keeping our country safe. There are over 40 different countries worldwide that are majority Muslim that are not affected by this order.”