On Wednesday afternoon, members of the UNH community stood in solidarity with refugees and against deportations outside of Thompson Hall. On Friday, Jan. 27, President Trump signed an executive order titled, “Protecting the Nations From Foreign Terrorist Entry Into the United States.” This order barred immigrants from seven majority Muslim countries (Iraq, Syria, Iran, Libya, Somalia, Sudan and Yemen) from entering the U.S. for at least 90 days and outright banned all of refugees from Syria.

For some, this is news they have heard and have been outraged about for almost a week now. This, as The New York Times perfectly puts it, “bigoted, cowardly, self-defeating policy,” caused immediate chaos and confusion at airports, while immigrants from these countries, including Visa holders, were detained. Students attending universities in the states were not allowed back alongside hundreds of thousands of immigrants cleared under American Visas to work in America.

Although, to many of you, this is news that you have been following all week, I have found many friends and classmates who had no idea this unrighteous policy was put in place.   I started to realize that there are many people who don’t follow the news or politics. This struck me as a finding that I needed to share with as many people as possible. If you are someone who follows the news, or someone who wants to start following the news, one of the most important things is to talk about it. Bring it up with friends and classmates. Spread the word about what is happening and affecting our country.

This is an order that invokes racism, lacks compassion, logic and sets fire to the moralities and justices of American values. There is so much out there to read, and as we have all learned from the past election, not all sources are reliable. While keeping issues on the forefront of everyone’s minds, being sure that we are spreading the true facts is equally as important.

Never just read a headline of a story online or look at a photo and believe you have the facts straight. People have become very reliant on getting “the facts” and “everything you need to know” in one story. Overtime, we have stopped seeing reporting and journalism as what is really is: humans gathering as much information as possible. No news article could or should be taken as the full story. Journalists cannot interview all people involved in big issues so they make the choice to interview who they think is most important and do their best to tell the story. People can lie, journalistic ethics often come into play and hopefully writers cite who they believe to be the “most reliable” source.

I can’t stress enough to read, read, read and then read more. Share what you have read with others. Compare what you have read and learned with other people and keep standing up for what you believe in. Gone are the days of just having one local newspaper to get all of your facts from; readers today have a greater responsibility to think critically about the news they consume. Continue to stand up for what you believe in, keep questioning and speaking up against what you don’t believe is right but never forget that where you get your facts from does matter.

-Allison Bellucci

Executive editor

@missalliejean