Well over 100 people turned out in Portland Friday to denounce Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump as a liar and a bigot, in response to his anti-refugee comments at a Portland rally on Thursday.
During a speech at Merrill Auditorium in Portland, Trump said immigrants to Maine and elsewhere posed a threat to Americans.
“We admit hundreds of thousands — you admit into Maine and other places in the United States hundreds of thousands of refugees,” he says. “And they are coming from among the most dangerous territories and countries anywhere in the world, right? A practice which has to be stopped.”
He said refugees could be a “Trojan Horse” — a seemingly innocent wave of immigrants who, he hinted, are secretly preparing terrorism attacks. Trump also suggested that refugees are straining public resources and bringing crime to the U.S.
On Friday afternoon, the steps of Portland’s City Hall filled with people eager to counter Trump’s message.
“Accusations that Muslims and Somalis in general are a threat to this community or a burden to our economy are baseless,” says Deqa Dhalac, a South Portland resident and board member of the Somali Community Center of Maine.
Dhalac was one of several speakers who also called out Trump’s top political supporter in Maine, Gov. Paul LePage.
“It’s very unfortunate that the governor of Maine, who is the highest authority in our state, stood by while his guest and political ally made such unfounded accusations against the constituency he is supposed to represent,” she says.
And Abdullahi Ahmed, assistant principal at Portland’s Deering High School, asserted that like generations of immigrants to the U.S., Somalis and other recent refugees came here to embrace democratic ideals.
“We are saying to Donald Trump: Coming from a troubled nation or a troubled place doesn’t mean that we are criminals. We are not. And at this time we are part of the community. We are, as sister Deqa said, we are professionals, we are part of this community,” he says. “In November, we will vote.”
Speakers, including Mayor Ethan Strimling and other city officials, were surrounded by a diverse crowd of Mainers from all over the globe. Iraqi refugee and Portland resident Ali Almshakheel was joined by his wife and children at the event.
“I want them to see. Because this is their future. I want them here to have their say. I want them to see and also to stand against what happened yesterday,” he says.
Requests for comment from LePage did not get an immediate response. But one prominent Republican, Republican state Sen. Roger Katz of Augusta, wrote an OpEd in the Portland Press Herald in which he said Trump was “not fit to be president.”
