President Donald Trump on Monday sought to deflect blame for the chaos and confusion that his executive order clamping down on immigration caused this weekend at airports around the country, wrongly blaming Delta Airlines in the wake of a “systems outage” that caused delays and cancelations. Delta’s snafu didn’t begin until after outrage over Trump’s order to bar people from a handful of predominantly Muslim countries had already prompted several courts to issue stays against the order, and after the administration narrowed the scope of the policy to allow green card holders to enter the country.
“Only 109 people out of 325,000 were detained and held for questioning,” Trump said on Twitter. “Big problems at airports were caused by computer outage, protesters and the tears of Senator [Chuck] Schumer. Secretary [of Homeland Security John] Kelly said that all is going well with very few problems. MAKE AMERICA SAFE AGAIN!”
It’s not clear that protests, which sprang up across the country but were generally held outside airports, caused any delays.
Republicans have voiced growing unrest over the implementation of Trump’s order, which he has insisted is not a “Muslim ban” despite his own support for such a policy during his campaign and his explicit statements favoring Christian refugees over Muslims in recent days. He defended the policy again on Monday morning.