The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) is turning to Silicon Valley after receiving a surge in funds from opponents of US President Donald Trump. The non-profit organisation received $24m (19m) last weekend after a controversial immigration order was issued on Friday. ACLU is teaming up with Y Combinator - which usually works with start-ups - over how to best utilise the donations. The donations made online at the weekend were six times the yearly average the organisation receives. How could Y Combinator help ACLU? The California-based firm ... helps its clients - usually start-ups - with funding as well as mentorship and networking. It typically deals with young companies looking to grow, but has dealt with mature organisations in the past. Y Combinator said it was contributing an undisclosed sum of money and would send some of its staff to the ACLU's New York offices. Y Combinator's founder Sam Altman, an outspoken critic of Mr Trump's, said: "We've been talking to them (ACLU) for some time. We were generally planning to get started more slowly, but things are so urgent now." Mr Trump's executive order bans immigrants from seven majority-Muslim countries from entering the country for 90 days. The US refugee program has also been suspended for 120 days. The ACLU, which has been around for about a century, was among the first to react to the order. It filed a lawsuit which led a federal judge to halt deportations of people detained in US airports.
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