BIRMINGHAM, Ala. — Don’t talk about airport protests in Trump Country. In the states that propelled Donald Trump to the White House, the president’s fans couldn’t be much happier with his executive order temporarily blocking refugees and immigrants from seven mostly Muslim countries.
Trump promised to put America first during the campaign, his supporters say, and he’s doing it. That includes securing the nation’s borders and doing everything possible to prevent terrorists from entering.
In their view, Democrats and soft-hearted do-gooders just need to calm down. Trump is being Trump.
“It shows me that he means what he says,” Judith Wilkenroh, 72, a retired social-services worker from Frederick, Md., said Monday. “He’s just unafraid. He’s just going ahead like a locomotive, and I like him more and more every time he does something.”
Two of Barbara Wood’s three sons served in the military after Sept. 11, and she’s all for Trump and his immigration order.
The president “is fulfilling his campaign promises to the best of his ability. I applaud him for that,” she said.
Thousands of people have demonstrated at U.S. airports since Trump issued an order Friday blocking people from seven countries in the Middle East and Africa from entering the U.S. and suspending refugee immigration for four months. The protests included a gathering of several hundred people in Birmingham, Ala., the largest airport in a Southern state that Trump carried.
Some Republican lawmakers have questioned the order, with Sens. John McCain of Arizona and Lindsey Graham of South Carolina saying they fear it will become “a self-inflicted wound in the fight against terrorism.”
Yet none of that criticism matters much in Trump Country, those states and counties where Trump claimed the votes to win the Electoral College despite losing the popular vote to Democrat Hillary Clinton.
“He’s going to do what he says and says what he does,” said Barbara Van Syckel, 66, of Sterling Heights, Mich. “That’s a little frightening for some people.”
In Trump County, supporters said, they are happy with the immigration order and the ideas behind it, from improving national security to watching out for Americans first. Some Trump backers said they might do things a little differently than the president, but their overall reaction is positive.
“We’re not the world’s Social Security office. We’re not here to take care of people,” said Jim Buterbaugh, the head of custodial work and maintenance at a public school in the White Hall, Mont. “I understand that people need help, but there are other ways besides bringing them here.”
Buterbaugh, who has fought the re-settlement of Syrians in Montana, was frustrated that Trump’s moratorium did not include countries such as Saudi Arabia, where most of the Sept. 11 hijackers were from. The executive order did not include the creation of safe zones for refugees, which he favors.
