Where else could Lady Liberty be but in New York Harbor, gateway to a vibrant nation of exiles and refugees? She has held high her beacon of light, hope and new beginnings since 1886.

And now, her light has been extinguished, the ideals engraved on her pedestal defaced into mockingly ironic graffiti. With one cruel and ill-conceived executive order, this nation has entered a disorienting dusk.

How long the torch of liberty remains dark depends on the strength and fierce commitment of liberty-loving Americans everywhere. With every legal, nonviolent means available, this nation must resist a president in thrall to a man who, until invited into the White House, presided over a noxious website that traffics in white supremacy, anti-semitism, bizarre conspiracy theories and fake news. It's apparently Stephen K. Bannon's cowardly nativist notions that the president was implementing when he temporarily banned people from seven predominantly Muslim nations from entering the country and indefinitely suspended the resettlement of refugees from Syria, the world's most pressing humanitarian crisis. Trump's order also threatens legal permanent residents.

We can point the accusatory finger at the president's in-house ideologue - just named a full member of the National Security Council - and yet the buck stops with Trump. His cruel and intemperate campaign language has become, with shocking immediacy, cruel and intemperate action. His order, craven and xenophobic, irrational and counter-productive, is an affront to American values.

It was sickening over the weekend to hear Texas Congressman Roger Williams, as well as numerous Trump sycophants, defending this travesty. Listening to Williams, a mild-mannered former car dealer from Weatherford, we could imagine him in decades past rationalizing our internment of Japanese Americans or calmly explaining why we couldn't take in Jews from Nazi Germany. Might be terrorists, you know.

The words of various apologists for the president's unconstitutional order brought to mind John Kasich's presidential campaign ad from way back in November 2015. The ad paraphrased the haunting words of the late German pastor and concentration-camp survivor Martin Niemoller, who warned that by ignoring threats against others, there would be "nobody left to speak for me."

Not to be alarmist, but that warning is beginning to look prescient, particularly in America's most diverse city, a city that long has welcomed refugees and immigrants, that recognizes and celebrates their contribution to this community.

We must resist. In the courts, in the streets, through phone calls and emails to our elected representatives, we must speak out on behalf of sacred American values. We must stand tall against this move by the president. As tall as that majestic lady who lifts her lamp "beside the golden door."