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SAN FRANCISCO, Jan. 29 (Xinhua) -- From time to time, whenever protesters stamped their feet while chanting in unison, the floor at the arrival level of the international terminal of San Francisco airport was literally shaking.
The protesters, thousands of them, started to gather around 3:00 p.m. (2300 GMT) Saturday at San Francisco International Airport and continued into 2:00 a.m. (1000 GMT) Sunday to demand the release of those held by the U.S. Customs in line with one of the executive orders from President Donald Trump.
In an executive order signed Friday, just a week into his administration, Trump initiated a temporary ban on the entry of citizens from seven Muslim-majority countries, including Iraq, Syria, Iran, Libya, Somalia, Sudan and Yemen. Some immigrants were reportedly held by the U.S. authorities after flying into the airport, known as SFO, as of Saturday.
"We are a country of immigrants," read a hand-written poster. "Immigration built this nation," said another. "Discrimination against religion is un-American," proclaimed still another.
The protest appeared to be spontaneous, as families and friends converged, hugging each other upon arrival, some bringing their pets with them to the site, and writing their individual posters on the floor.
"My grandparents were Holocaust refugees," a girl wrote on her poster.
"Former Jewish refugee against the Muslim refugee ban!" a new arrival wrote.
In random chats with strangers, a protester in his 30s said his grandparents moved from Italy to the United States in the late 1930s, in order to escape the rule by Benito Mussolini, the fascist Italian leader who allied with his German counterpart, Adolf Hitler, during the Second World War.
Another protester, a senior citizen, moved around among the crowd with a poster reading, "1939: we turned away refugees. They died at Auschwitz. Never again."
Some travelers just landed at SFO and joined the protest. A woman in her 40s and with a piece of carry-on luggage thanked a young member of the crowd for speaking out for her, because she was from Indonesia, the Asian country with the single largest Muslim population.
"The crowd, especially young people in the crowd, is the hope of America," said the woman, who identified herself as a Muslim American.
Nearing the end of the protest, 11 hours after it started, a veteran of Iraq War from downtown San Francisco, about 15 miles (24 km) north of SFO, said he would stay and wait for the metro line, known as Bay Area Rapid Transit, or BART, to reopen Sunday after 10:00 a.m. (1800 GMT).
Asked whether what is going on now in the United States, such as the "Muslim ban," was what he fought for in Iraq, the young veteran answered: "No."
While the protest went through without an incident, officers from San Francisco Police Department and legal observers from the National Lawyers Guild were on site.
Similar protests took place Saturday at airports in at least nine U.S. cities, including New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, Seattle, Washington D.C. and Denver.
