Airport protests against Muslim ban spread across the U.S. via social media

Organising on social media under the hashtag #MuslimBan, Americans gathered at airports across the country Saturday to protest President Donald Trump's travel ban on Muslim immigrants.

Trump signed the executive order Friday, which included a 90-day travel ban for citizens of Iraq, Syria, Iran, Sudan, Libya, Somalia or Yemen, as well as a 120-day suspension of the U.S. refugee program. The move threw lives immediately into chaos, cancelling the travel plans of approved refugees and seeing those with valid U.S. visas turned away at transit stops or removed from planes.

Responding to calls from activists on Facebook and Twitter, New York's John F. Kennedy International Airport (JFK) was flooded with hundreds of protestors.

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On Twitter, Adrienne Mahsa Varkiani, an associate editor at ThinkProgress, shared a list of protests being organised on Facebook to take place at city airports from Atlanta to Chicago.

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Groups such as The Resistance San Francisco organised a #MuslimBan Protest at San Francisco International Airport (SFO) on MeetUp. "We will not allow for discrimination against people based solely on their religion or country of origin. This is racist. This is wrong. We will stand and protest!" they wrote.

Protestor Parker Higgin told Mashable he believed that around 1,000 people were gathered "easily" at SFO. He travelled to the airport after looking for protests on Twitter. He also posted a call for others to join him.

"Atmosphere here is pissed off but also pretty excited at the turnout," he wrote in a message. "You never know with these things. We're currently making noise so the detainees know, says the speaker, that 'they have the biggest fucking welcoming party ever.'"

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At Washington Dulles International Airport in Virginia, crowds cheered families as they disembarked. Demonstrators at Logan International Airport in Boston held up signs that said "Muslims Welcome Here."

People also gathered with placards at Chicago's O'Hare International Airport, while at Los Angeles International Airport, crowds sang "The Star-Spangled Banner."

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Protestors also gathered in city centres across the U.S. to make their view of Trump's ban known. In New York, hundreds met in Cadman Plaza where organisers shared free pizza with demonstrators.

"I checked the New York Times and didn't see anything," a female kindergarten teacher who did not want to be named told Mashable reporter, Louise Matsakis. "I saw the videos on Instagram -- I searched the #nobannowall hashtag."

"I was on my way to JFK ... but I was told via Facebook to come here" said Melanie Wilkerson, a counsellor at a nonprofit. "There are people who are innocent and in need of our support. What the president has done is fundamentally wrong."

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Federal, state and city lawmakers headed to many of these airports to try to intervene on behalf of anyone who had been detained unlawfully.

Louise Matsakis contributed reporting.

The Associated Press contributed reporting.