Mayor Ed Lee has officially condemned Trump’s proposed Muslim registry.
Following in the footsteps of NYC’s mayor, Lee vowed that San Francisco would never partake of such a registry.
“I am totally, 100 percent opposed to any registry that identifies anyone because of their religion or race,” Lee said during a press conference held at the Islamic Society of San Francisco on Friday night. He went on to compare the idea to Japanese internment camps and the Chinese Exclusion Act.
During the same conference, Lee also announced a “multi-pronged effort for the continued support of immigration legal services.”
Lee had previously dedicated $3.8 million to support the needs of San Francisco’s robust immigrant community, and allocated an additional $1.5 million to expand immigrant legal and social services following the election of Donald Trump.
The mayor has also pledged to donate close to $14 million to immigrant-related causes in the next two years, and will increase that number if needed.
The mayor was joined by Supervisor Malia Cohen who has been outspoken in her disgust with Trump’s registry proposal.
“Our country made a horrendous mistake with the internment of Japanese Americans during World War II and we have no interest in participating in systems that would repeat that history,” she said.
Lee’s statements come just days after Rex Tillerson’s confirmation hearing. When asked what he thought of the Muslim registry idea, Trump’s pick for Secretary of State said, “I would need to have a lot more information over how such an approach would be constructed.”
Tillerson said he does not support Trump’s proposed ban on Muslims entering the country.