(Update: President Donald Trump on Monday suggested that Sen. Chuck Schumer was crying "fake tears" at Schumer's news conference on Sunday. "I noticed Chuck Schumer yesterday with fake tears," Trump said at the White House. "I’m going to ask him who is his acting coach.")
(CNSNews.com) - Flanked by newly arrived refugees -- whom he called "newly arrived Americans" -- Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) told a news conference on Sunday that President Donald Trump's executive order temporarily banning immigration from Muslim-majority countries is "bad for America, bad for our national security" and goes against "what America has always been about."
Schumer wept halfway through the news conference, after explaining that "this fight's in my bones."
"I was named after my Uncle Ellis, who was named after Ellis Island," he said. Schumer said he gave his daughter the middle name Emma, after Emma Lazarus, the poet who wrote the famous lines on the pedestal of the Statue of Liberty: "Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to be free," Schumer quoted, before choking up, unable to continue reading the poem.
Schumer continued: "So, this executive order was mean-spirited and un-American. It was implemented in a way that created chaos and confusion across the country, and it will only serve to embolden and inspire those around the globe who will do us harm.
"It must be reversed immediately. Senate Democrats are going to introduce legislation to overturn this and move it as quickly as we can. And I, as your senator from New York, will claw, scrap, and fight with every fiber of my being until these orders are overturned."
President Trump's executive order suspends all immigration from seven majority-Muslim countries for 90 days, giving administration officials time to review and strengthen the vetting process. Those countries are Iraq, Syria, Iran, Sudan, Libya, Somalia and Yemen.
Schumer is demanding that the Trump administration reverse the executive order. He said it shows "incompetence" and he doubts if it is constitutional.