Image by Andrew Burton/Getty Images

By Talya Zax January 25, 2017

News broke yesterday that President Donald Trump would, today, sign executive orders that require the construction of a Mexican border wall, halt entry to the country for Syrian refugees, and suspend entry for travelers from majority-Muslim countries like Afghanistan, Iraq, and Iran.

Today, the Anne Frank Center For Mutual Respect, the Otto Frank-founded American affiliate of the Anne Frank House in Amsterdam and the Anne Frank Fonds in Basel, made a powerful public statement against those actions.

“As President Trump prepares orders to wall out Mexicans and shut out refugees from America, today marks one of the most hateful days in our nation’s history,” wrote Steven Goldstein, Executive Director of the Anne Frank Center for Mutual Respect, in a statement on Facebook.

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“Donald Trump is retracting the promise of American freedom to an extent we have not seen from a President since Franklin Roosevelt forced Japanese Americans into internment camps during World War II. Today the Statue of Liberty weeps over President Trump’s discrimination.”

The Center also voiced its outrage in a series of tweets, attempting to draw the attention of Trump, whose use of Twitter is notorious.

.@POTUS @realDonaldTrump, when you push #fakenews that immigrants voted illegally, you attack immigrants who’ve always made America great.

— AnneFrankCenter(US) (@AnneFrankCenter) January 24, 2017

THE STATUE OF LIBERTY WEEPS AS PRESIDENT TRUMP TARGETS MEXICANS AND MUSLIMS Statement of Steven Goldstein,… https://t.co/ASTe3Y8AHK

— AnneFrankCenter(US) (@AnneFrankCenter) January 25, 2017

Banning Muslims and Mexicans from America is a disgrace our nation’s promise of freedom, @POTUS @realDonaldTrump

— AnneFrankCenter(US) (@AnneFrankCenter) January 25, 2017

As the Forward’s Josh Nathan-Kazis reported, the Center’s vehement response to Trump’s proposed actions arrived as Jewish advocates criticized Trump for choosing the week of Holocaust Remembrance Day as the appropriate time to begin an anti-refugee push.

“Make no mistake, suspending visas for citizens of Middle Eastern and African countries is not called national security. It’s called prejudice,” Goldstein wrote. “President Trump is now exacerbating the largest global refugee crisis in history.”

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