Hundreds of people also gathered in New York City to demand that the United States commit to accepting significantly more refugees from Syria and elsewhere. Linda Sarsour, executive director of the Arab American Association of New York, spoke out.

Linda Sarsour: “We shouldn’t be asking whether we welcome these people into our country, we should be demanding for the U.S. government, one of the world’s superpowers. We have enough resources in this country not only to help our own here, the homeless on our streets, but also to welcome in at least 100,000 Syrian refugees. And we need to be able to tell the U.S. government how to use our money. I would rather use my money to shelter a Syrian family than to kill an Iraqi family.”