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Breaking his silence only 10 days after he left office, former President Barack Obama backed nationwide protests against President Donald Trump's executive order on immigration Monday.

In a strongly worded statement issued through a spokesman, Obama said he was "heartened by the level of engagement taking place in communities around the country."

"Citizens exercising their Constitutional right to assemble, organize and have their voices heard by their elected officials is exactly what we expect to see when American values are at stake," he said.

Shortly afterward, Acting Attorney General Sally Yates a holdover from the Obama administration sent a memo to Justice Department lawyers ordering them not to defend the executive order against several legal challenges that were filed over the weekend.

Related: Acting Attorney General Bars Justice Department From Defending Trump Immigration Order

The former president rejected Trump's contention Sunday that his executive orders restricting travel from seven predominantly Muslim countries were "similar to what President Obama did in 2011 when he banned visas for refugees from Iraq for six months."

Obama's statement Monday said: "With regard to comparisons to President Obama's foreign policy decisions, as we've heard before, the President fundamentally disagrees with the notion of discriminating against individuals because of their faith or religion."

Related: Trump Travel Restrictions Spark Immediate Court Challenges

The 2011 order did not ban visas for refugees, who by definition don't travel on visas. It tightened the review process for citizens of Iraq and for refugees from the six other countries, while Trump's is a near-blanket order applying to nearly all residents and citizens of all seven countries.

Former President Barack Obama at a news conference Nov. 16, 2015, at the White House. Mandel Ngan / AFP - Getty Images

The statement Monday referred to Obama's remarks in a news conference in November 2015, when he said the "United States has to step up and do its part" to protect and assist refugees.

"When I hear folks say that, well, maybe we should just admit the Christians but not the Muslims, when I hear political leaders suggesting that there would be a religious test for which a person who's fleeing from a war-torn country is admitted, when some of those folks themselves come from families who benefited from protection when they were fleeing political persecution that's shameful," Obama said at the time.

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"That's not American. That's not who we are," he said then. "We don't have religious tests to our compassion."

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Obama Rejects Trump Immigration Orders, Backs Protests - NBCNews.com

New York Times

Obama's Protections for LGBT Workers Will Remain Under Trump New York Times A flag appeared during the New York City gay pride parade in June. Credit Bryan R. Smith/Agence France-Presse Getty Images. WASHINGTON The White House said on Monday that President Trump would leave in place a 2014 Obama administration ... and more »

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Obama's Protections for LGBT Workers Will Remain Under Trump - New York Times

The seven countries affected by President Donald Trump's new travel ban are among at least 11 countries where a clandestine U.S. special operations task force is hunting ISIS operatives who could hatch terrorist plots or make their way to the United States as they flee the "caliphate" in Syria and Iraq, counterterrorism officials tell ABC News.

The Counter-External Operations Task Force, or Ex-Ops, was devised by the Obama administration last fall, when thenDefense Secretary Ash Carter quietly announced that he had put America's most covert black ops troops in charge of tracking ISIS fighters moving beyond the boundaries of established war zones in Southwest Asia.

Syria, Iraq and five other countries affected by the Trump executive order last Friday are also the responsibility of Ex-Ops forces under the U.S. Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC), as well as at least four more countries not subject to his order regarding harsher immigration restrictions for foreign travelers Saudi Arabia, Turkey, the United Arab Emirates and Egypt officials said.

Trump's White House has compared his executive order with the Obama administration's halting Iraqi refugee admissions almost entirely in 2011 because two al-Qaeda insurgents from Baiji, Iraq, were found to be living in Kentucky and giving support to a weapons smuggling plot in an FBI sting, as ABC News exclusively reported in 2013.

As he did during his presidential campaign, Trump singled out Syria and said granting Syrian refugees entry to the U.S. would be "detrimental to the interests of the United States."

What the Trump White House hasn't disclosed publicly, likely for reasons of operational security, is that "a small number of refugees settled here are under FBI investigation for ties to IED [improvised explosive device] networks overseas," a senior counterterrorism official told ABC News this week.

Trump also has yet to discuss publicly continuing the secret JSOC program focused on the same countries identified in his immigration executive order which began as a program under Obama aimed at preventing ISIS operatives from becoming threats outside the Iraqi and Syrian conflicts.

"The idea is to figure out where they're going, why they're going there, all of their logistics, tie them together and figure out how to empower allies to act on it," a counterterrorism official familiar with the planning for Ex-Ops told ABC News recently.

Besides "squirters" leaving the caliphate military slang for enemies who flee a large U.S. counterterrorism operation the new task force under JSOC commander Army Lt. Gen. Austin "Scotty" Miller is tracking terrorism money trails around the Middle East, Asia and Europe, officials said.

"The big takeaway is to understand why they're doing what they're doing, in order to mitigate it in the future," the counterterrorism official added.

The Obama administration established the 11 countries as U.S.-military-led counterterrorism priorities months before Trump won the 2016 election in November, officials said. The prioritization was based on intelligence on where ISIS operatives have been known to relocate and where major clusters of fighters are gathering, such as in Libya where Obama in his last hours as president approved a massive B-2 stealth bomber airstrike on 100 jihadis who the Pentagon said were plotting attacks on Europe.

Trump last week made it harder for refugees and travelers to lawfully enter the U.S. from Syria, Iraq, Iran, Libya, Somalia, Sudan and Yemen.

A senior administration official declined to comment to ABC News about the 11 countries where the special operations task force is focused or about its military priorities in combating ISIS.

In October on a trip to Paris, Carter hinted at the new task force but not its size, scope or authorities, in little-noticed remarks.

"We have put our Joint Special Operations Command in the lead of countering ISIL's external operations. And we have already achieved very significant results both in reducing the flow of foreign fighters and removing ISIL leaders from the battlefield," he said.

Some in counterterrorism operations view the controversy over Trump's move to temporarily halt immigration from seven countries which are either war-torn countries or state sponsors of terrorism such as Iran as ironic, since it focuses on some of the very countries where Obama focused counterterrorism operations for months until he left office.

Though outside the authority of the Ex-Ops task force, last weekend's raid in Yemen by the Navy's SEAL Team Six unit to seize al-Qaeda documents on plots against the West also was an operation planned for months by the Obama administration but launched with Trump's approval once moonlight was minimal and other conditions favorable to American commandos. Several SEALs were critically injured, and one operator, William "Ryan" Owens, was killed in action.

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US Commandos Targeting ISIS in Countries on Obama and Trump Hit List - ABC News

U.S. Rep. Mario Diaz-Balart represents part of Miami-Dade County.

President Donald Trumps executive order banning entry of people from seven countries prompted a wave of protests from immigration activists and Democrats in South Florida.

U.S. Rep. Mario Diaz-Balart, a Cuban-American Republican whose district includes parts of Miami-Dade, defended Trumps ban by comparing it with an action President Barack Obama took on Cuban refugees in his final days in office.

"I am struck by the double standard and hypocrisy of those who are offended by this executive order, but who failed to challenge President Obama when he took similar action against Cuban refugees; especially since President Obamas action was meant to appease the Castro regime and not for national security reasons," Diaz-Balart wrote in a statement to the press Jan. 30.

Obamas rule change was about the "wet foot dry foot policy," which Diaz-Balart criticized at the time as a "concession to the Castro regime."

Was Diaz-Balart accurate when he said Trumps action was similar to Obamas?

In a word, no. Trumps order, which singled out immigrants from seven countries and refugees from everywhere, was far more broad than Obamas administrative rule change to put Cubans on more equal footing with arrivals from other countries.

Trumps order and Obamas rule change

Trumps Jan. 27 order states: "I hereby suspend entry into the United States, as immigrants and nonimmigrants, of such persons for 90 days from the date of this order."

Administration officials said that the order applied to people from Iraq, Syria, Iran, Sudan, Libya, Somalia and Yemen -- countries identified by the Obama administration as terrorist hotbeds.

"In order to protect Americans, the United States must ensure that those admitted to this country do not bear hostile attitudes toward it and its founding principles," Trumps order stated.

Trump also put processing of all refugees -- which would include Cubans -- on hold for three months and suspended the vetting of Syrian refugees indefinitely, "until such time as I have determined that sufficient changes have been made to the U.S. Refugee Admissions Program to ensure that admission of Syrian refugees is consistent with the national interest."

Obamas rule change, which came through a Department of Homeland Security regulation, applied to one group of people: Cubans. Obamas Jan. 12 announcement ended the so-called "wet foot-dry foot" policy that had allowed Cubans without visas who reached U.S. shores (typically Florida) to gain automatic entry to the United States to ask for political asylum.

Under the policy, those caught at sea, however, were sent back to Cuba. The policy was started in 1995 under President Bill Clinton in an effort to end the rafter crisis and had a major impact in shaping immigrant-rich Miami-Dade County. Obama also eliminated the Cuban Medical Professional Parole Program that allowed doctors to apply for parole at a U.S. embassy or consulate.

The "wet foot-dry foot" policy, along with the Cuban Adjustment Act -- which remains on the books -- permitted those who reached dry land in the United States to get permanent residency and green cards after living in the U.S. for a year and a day.

"With this change, we will continue to welcome Cubans as we welcome immigrants from other nations, consistent with our laws," Obama said. The rule change, announced in the final days of his presidency, followed his announcement in 2014 to normalize relations with Cuba.

Obamas rule change did not cut off immigration from Cuba. A Department of Homeland Security official told the Miami Herald that an immigration lottery allowed at least 20,000 Cubans to emigrate to the United States legally each year would remain in effect. Also a program that allows legal residents in the United States to apply for Cuban relatives to join them was expected to continue.

We interviewed several experts on immigration who said Diaz-Balarts comparison was misleading because of the different scope of the directives. While Obama eliminated special treatment for Cubans, Trumps order singled out specific nationalities of immigrants for additional restrictions.

"President Obama decided that applying the same generally applicable standards for all nationalities should apply to Cuban noncitizens," said University of California Davis School of Law immigration law professor Kevin Johnson. "In contrast, President Trump singled out citizens of seven nations for special treatment more harsh than that generally applicable to all other noncitizens."

University of Miami immigration law professor Kunal Parker also said that Diaz-Balarts comparison is invalid.

"President Trump's order singles out certain countries for special treatment and specifically bans Syrian refugees from entering the United States," he said. "Nationals of the seven targeted countries are henceforth going to be treated differently from immigrants and nonimmigrants from all other countries."

Ted Henken, a Latin American studies professor at Baruch College, said that Trumps order reintroduces preferential treatment since it established a loophole for religious minorities.

Trumps order states that when refugee admissions resume, that the federal government will "prioritize refugee claims made by individuals on the basis of religious-based persecution, provided that the religion of the individual is a minority religion in the individual's country of nationality." (The order doesnt specifically identify religions but the clause about religious minorities has been interpreted to refer to Christians who are minorities in Muslim countries.)

Obamas rule change was about how to process people arriving from one country -- Cuba -- and wasnt related to vetting them for security threats. Trumps order specifically states that it is an order "protecting the nation from foreign terrorist entry into the United States."

Diaz-Balarts spokeswoman Katrina Valdes told PolitiFact Florida in an email that the point of his statement was not to compare Trumps order and Obamas rule change "but to highlight the hypocrisy" of those who disagreed with Trumps order but supported Obamas rule change.

"President Obama, without warning, introduced chaos into the system for Cuban refugees," he said in a statement to PolitiFact Florida. "Where was the outrage as they were waiting at the border, having traveled for miles in horrible conditions, to have the door slammed in their faces? Obama ended the special parole for the Cuban Adjustment Act and eradicated the Cuban Medical Professional Parole Program. He didn't just more strongly vet them, and he didn't put on the brakes for the programs for three months. He ended them."

Our ruling

Diaz-Balart said that Obama "took similar action against Cuban refugees" as Trump did in his executive order.

Experts said that Diaz-Balart is comparing two very different actions. Obamas rule change ended "wet foot-dry foot" -- a policy that provided special treatment to Cubans who arrived on U.S. shores without a visa. Obama didnt entirely halt immigration for Cubans; his rule change meant that they had to apply just like people from other countries.

Trumps order is far more broad and temporarily suspended entry for people from seven specific countries, as well as refugees from everywhere.

We rate this claim False.

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Is Trump's immigration ban comparable to Obama's Cuba rule change? - PolitiFact

In 2010, President Obama directedthe CIA to assassinate an American citizen in Yemen, Anwar al-Awlaki, despite the fact that he had never been charged with (let alone convicted of) any crime, and the agency successfully carried out that order a year laterwith a September, 2011 drone strike. While that assassination created widespread debate the once-again-beloved ACLU sued Obama to restrain himfromthe assassination on the ground of due process and then, when that suit was dismissed,sued Obamaagain after the killingwas carried out another drone-killing carried out shortly thereafterwas perhaps even more significant yet generated relatively little attention.

Two weeks after the killing of Awlaki, a separate CIA drone strike in Yemen killed his 16-year-old American-born son, Abdulrahman, along with the boys17-year-old cousin and several other innocent Yemenis. The U.S. eventually claimed that the boy was not their target but merely collateral damage. Abdulrahmans grief-stricken grandfather, Nasser al-Awlaki, urged the Washington Post to visit a Facebook memorial page for Abdulrahman, which explained: Look at his pictures, his friends, and his hobbies His Facebook page shows a typical kid.

The U.S. assault on Yemeni civilians not only continued but radically escalated overthe next five years through the end of the Obama presidency, as the U.S. and the UK armed, supported and provide crucial assistance to their close ally Saudi Arabia as it devastated Yemen through a criminally reckless bombing campaign. Yemen now faces mass starvation,seemingly exacerbated, deliberately, by the US/UK-supported air attacks. Because of the wests direct responsibility for these atrocities, they have receivedvanishingly little attention in the responsible countries.

In a hideous symbol of the bipartisan continuity of U.S.barbarism,Nasser al-Awlaki just lost another one of his young grandchildren to U.S. violence. On Sunday, the Navys SEAL Team 6, using armed Reaper drones for cover, carried out a commando raid on what it said was a compound harboring officials of Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula. A statement issued by President Trump lamented the death of an American service member and several others who were wounded, but made no mention of any civilian deaths. U.S. military officials initially denied any civilian deaths, and (therefore)the CNN report on the raid said nothing about any civilians being killed.

But reports from Yemen quickly surfacedthat 30 people were killed,including 10 women and children.Among the dead: the 8-year-old granddaughter ofNasser al-Awlaki, Nawar, who was also the daughter of Anwar Awlaki.

As noted by my colleague Jeremy Scahill who extensively interviewed the grandparents in Yemen for his book and film on Obamas Dirty Wars the girl was was shot in the neck andkilled, bleeding to death over the course of two hours.Why kill children?, the grandfatherasked. This is the new (U.S.) administration its very sad, a big crime.

The New York Times yesterday reportedthat military officials had been planning and debating the raid for months under the Obama administration, but Obama officials decided to leave the choice to Trump. The new President personally authorized the attack last week. They claim that the main target of the raid was computer materials inside the house that could contain clues about future terrorist plots. Thepaper cited a Yemeni official saying that at least eight women and seven children, ages 3 to 13, had been killed in the raid, and that the attack also severely damaged a school, a health facility and a mosque.

As my colleague Matthew Cole reported in great detail just weeks ago, Navy Seal Team 6, for all its public glory, has a long history of revenge ops, unjustified killings, mutilations, and other atrocities. And Trump notoriously vowed during the campaign to target not only terrorists but also their families. All of that demands aggressive, independent inquiries into this operation.

Perhaps most tragic of all is that just as was true in Iraq Al Qaeda had very little presence in Yemen before the Obama administration began bombing and droning it and killing civilians, thus driving people into the arms of the militant group. As the late, young Yemeni writer Ibrahim Mothana told Congress in 2013:

Drone strikes are causing more and more Yemenis to hate America and join radical militants . . .Unfortunately, liberal voices in the United States are largely ignoring, if not condoning, civilian deaths and extrajudicial killings in Yemen.

During George W. Bushs presidency, the rage would have been tremendous. But today there is little outcry, even though what is happening is in many ways an escalation of Mr. Bushs policies. . . .

Defenders of human rights must speak out. Americas counterterrorism policy here is not only making Yemen less safe by strengthening support for A.Q.A.P. [al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula] but it could also ultimately endanger the United States and the entire world.

This is why it is crucial that as urgent and valid protests erupt against Trumps abuses we not permit recent history to be whitewashed, or long-standing U.S. savagery to be deceitfully depicted as new Trumpian aberrations, or the War on Terror framework engendering these new assaults to be forgotten. Some current abuses are unique to Trump, but as I detailed on Saturday some are the decades-oldby-product of a mindset and system of war and executive powers that all need uprooting. Obscuring these facts, or allowing those responsible to posture as opponents of all this, is not just misleading but counter-productive: much of this resides on an odious continuum and did not just appear out of nowhere.

Its genuinely inspiring to see pervasiverage over the banning of visa-holders and refugees from countries like Yemen. But its also infuriating that the U.S. continues to massacre Yemeni civilians, both directly and through its tyrannical Saudi partners. That does not become less infuriating Yemeni civilians are not less dead because these policies and the war theories in which they are rooted began before the inauguration of Donald Trump. Its not just Trump but this mentality and framework that needs vehement opposition.

Top photo: A Yemeni man walks past cars destroyed during fighting with militants in the city of Zinjibar, Yemen, Thursday, June 14, 2012.

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Obama Killed a 16-Year-Old American in Yemen. Trump Just Killed His 8-Year-Old Sister. - The Intercept