While thousands took the streets for third day in a row to protest against Donald Trump's immigration policies, the US president decided to fire the acting US attorney general after she told justice department lawyers not to defend his executive order banning entry for people from seven Muslim-majority countries.

The White House said on Monday that Sally Yates had “betrayed” the department by refusing to enforce a legal order that was “designed to protect the citizens of the United States”.

As the country’s top law enforcement official, Yates, who was appointed by Barack Obama, had control over the justice department’s immigration litigation office, which has handled the federal complaints filed against Trump’s order since his bombshell policy was announced on Friday, reported El Mundo.

Trump's state department "purge" could end up in a mutiny among US diplomats, reported The Guardian. More than 200 diplomats signed ‘dissent’ memo criticizing Trump's executive order to ban refugees and immigrants from 7 Muslim countries. 

“We are better than this ban,” one leaked version of the memo said, arguing that it would backfire, making the US less safe from terrorism. The executive order, “stands in opposition to the core American and constitutional values that we, as federal employees, took an oath to uphold”, the memo said. 

Press secretary Sean Spicer says dissenters should resign: “I think that they should either get with the programme or they can go. This is about the safety of America,” Spicer said during his daily briefing at the White House. As reported in The Guardian.