Airbnb, the site which allows people to home-share, announced that it will give free housing to refugees and others who are affected by Donald Trump’s immigration ban. The ban makes it impossible for them to enter the United States. On Saturday, Brian Chesky, the CEO and co-founder of Airbnb, released multiple statements Saturday on Facebook and Twitter addressing the matter.
Not allowing countries or refugees into America is not right, and we must stand with those who are affected.
— Brian Chesky (@bchesky) January 29, 2017
Airbnb is providing free housing to refugees and anyone not allowed in the US. Stayed tuned for more, contact me if urgent need for housing
— Brian Chesky (@bchesky) January 29, 2017
On Friday, Trump signed an executive order barring Muslims from seven Middle Eastern countries—Iran, Iraq, Libya, Sudan, Syria and Yemen, from entering the United States. This affected many refugees and immigrants flying into the U.S.; as a result, many were detained like Iraqi immigrant Hameed Khalid Darweesh, an interpreter for the American Army during the Iraq invasion of 2003, who was detained overnight at the JFK airport in New York, but was released on Saturday.
Although he is banning refugees from predominantly Muslim nations, Trump said that he would prioritize Christian refugees, because apparently people of a Christian faith cannot be terrorists, only believers of Islam can. (It seems that Trump has his own personal thesaurus in which ‘terrorist’ is a synonym of ‘Muslim’.)
While Airbnb will be providing refugees and others who are unable enter the U.S. with housing, it was not specified how it will be done—no detail about housing arrangement or host compensation.
I have much newfound respect for Airbnb, a billion dollar company, for taking a stance against Trump’s discriminatory actions and actually helping those affected by it.
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