Former US President Barack Obama has endorsed the protests that have been taking place across the country in response to new restrictions.
He rejected the idea that President Donald Trump had based his immigration executive order on a policy adopted by his own Administration.
Trump has said that his move
to ban the entry of migrants from seven Muslim-majority countries into the US, and to suspend temporarily the admission of refugees, was based in part by a decision in 2011 by then-President Obama to ban the admission of Iraqis to the US after evidence surfaced that two Iraqis seeking resettlement had been linked to terrorist activity in their home country.
Former Obama Administration officials have denied that there was ever a halt to the awarding of visas to Iraqis, though the processing of these applications slowed after they were subject to more intense scrutiny.
Obama, who has remained publicly silent about his successor since leaving office a week-and-a-half ago, pledged before leaving office to only speak about Trump's policy moves "where I think our core values may be at stake".
