As protests continue to break out across major U.S. airports Saturday night following President Trump’s immigration ban, taxi drivers at New York’s John F. Kennedy International Airport have gone on strike.
The action according USA TODAY was the only way the drivers could add their own response to President Donald Trump’s immigration ban.
In postings to social networks Saturday the New York Taxi Workers Alliance announced that from 6 p.m. to 7 p.m. ET there would be no pickups at JFK as a protest to the immigration ban that some are taking as a ban on Muslims.
“We cannot be silent. We go to work to welcome people to a land that once welcomed us,” wrote the union on Twitter. “We will not be divided.”
“NO PICKUPS @ JFK Airport 6 PM to 7 PM today,” the union wrote in a subsequent tweet that was reposted on twitter over 10,000 times. “Drivers stand in solidarity with thousands protesting inhumane & unconstitutional #MuslimBan.”
It remains to be seen how long the strike will last. The New York Taxi Workers Alliance did not immediately respond when asked by USA TODAY.
In response to the strike, Uber posted on twitter late Saturday that it would suspend surge pricing for rides to and from the popular airport.
Following an earlier decision from the Port Authority, which helps manage New York’s airports, to halt travel on JFK’s AirTrain system, New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo posted on twitter that he ordered the transportation system reopened.
The strike and protests come after President Trump signed an executive order Friday suspending the entry of all refugees to the United States for 120 days, halts the admission of refugees from Syria indefinitely and bars entry for three months to residents from the predomitly Muslim countries of Iraq, Syria, Iran, Sudan, Libya, Somalia and Yemen.
Many on social media have decried the ban as “Muslim Ban” with many tweeting with the hashtag “#MuslimBan.”
Following the ban’s implementation Saturday, customs agents at JFK detained at least a dozen people, including a former Iraqi translator for the U.S. military in Baghdad.
Court has however, granted emergency stay of Trump’s immigration ban.
Source: www.usatoday.com