President Donald Trump's seismic move to ban more than 218 million people from the United States and to deny entry to all refugees reverberated worldwide Saturday, as chaos and confusion rippled through US airports, American law enforcement agencies and foreign countries trying to grasp Washington's new policy.
Trump's executive order bars citizens of seven Muslim-majority countries from entering the United States for the next 90 days and suspends the admission of all refugees for 120 days.
The American Civil Liberties Union filed an appeal on behalf of two individuals held in limbo at JFK International Airport, and a federal Judge issued a stay against some portions of the ban. As Mother Jones explains (2), the stay is temporary but it has stopped people from being deported for the time being.
Although the executive order only targets certain countries (Iran, Iraq, Libya, Somalia, Sudan and Yemen), the executive order included a religious test which specifically favored Christians (3), and as the Washington Post revealed, Rudolph Giuliani said, "So when [Trump] first announced it, he said, 'Muslim ban.' He called me up. He said, 'Put a commission together. Show me the right way to do it legally.'"(4)
National Security experts thought the move was harmful to the U.S. Via Mother Jones:(5)
"Not only is it immoral and stupid, it's also counterproductive," says Patrick Skinner, a former CIA counterterrorism case officer who now works at the Soufan Group, a security consulting firm. "We've got military, intelligence, and diplomatic personnel on the ground right now in Syria, Libya, and Iraq who are working side by side with the people, embedded in combat, and training and advising. At no time in the US's history have we depended more on local—and I mean local—partnerships for counterterrorism. We need people in Al Bab, Syria; we depend on people in a certain part of eastern Mosul, Iraq; in Cert, Libya. At the exact moment we need them most, we're telling these people, 'Get screwed.'"
Kirk W. Johnson, who spent a year on the reconstruction in Fallujah in Iraq with the US Agency for International Development (USAID), echoes Skinner's fears: "This will have immediate national security implications, in that we are not going to be able to recruit people to help us right now, and people are not going to step forward to help us in any future wars if this is our stance."
The move also led to a series of protests in cities and at airports across the country.(6) This is the second weekend of protests against Trump, and as a reminder, he has only been president for nine days. Despite these unprecedented level of mass protests against the President, GOP leaders are still supporting him.(7) As documented in The Atlantic:
Despite the criticism from Democrats and some Republicans, however, Trump retained support from the quarter that mattered most: GOP congressional leadership. House Speaker Paul Ryan, who had repeatedly criticized Trump’s proposed Muslim ban during the campaign, issued a statement Friday evening saying the president was “right to make sure we are doing everything possible to know exactly who is entering our country.”
“Our number one responsibility is to protect the homeland,” Ryan said. “We are a compassionate nation, and I support the refugee resettlement program, but it’s time to reevaluate and strengthen the visa-vetting process. This is why we passed bipartisan legislation in the wake of the Paris attacks to pause the intake of refugees.” Other Republicans noted that Trump’s order goes well beyond the legislation that passed the House but was never signed into law by former President Barack Obama. “The president’s executive order issued yesterday went beyond the increased vetting actions that Congress has supported on a bipartisan basis and inexplicably applied to green-card holders, people who are legally within our country who have followed the rules,” Representative Barbara Comstock of Virginia said.
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell offered more qualified support Sunday morning in an appearance on ABC’s This Week. He backed a tightening of the vetting process for refugees, but he warned the administration to “be careful” not to create an overly broad restriction that would exclude or deter Muslims who have helped the United States in the war against terrorism. “If they’re looking to tighten the vetting process, I mean, who would be against that?” McConnell said. “But I am opposed to a religious test. The courts are going to determine whether this is too broad.”
Under follow-up questioning from Martha Raddatz, however, the Kentucky Republican ultimately stood with the administration. “Look, the president has a lot of latitude to try to secure the country,” McConnell said. “And I’m not going to make a blanket criticism of this effort.”
Viewing these events through my eyes and reflecting on the totality of everything that has happened since Trump took office, in the context of his campaign and his entire life, I have very little doubt that this administration is going to crash and burn in a horrible way. Trump is acting in ways that were clear and obvious from the day he made his announcement that he was going to run for president, and the GOP has enabled and endorsed him this entire time. When he finally leaves office, this country will be worse off than when he started; it will be important for us to make the GOP officials who supported Trump accountable for their failures.
(1) CNN: Trump's Immigration Ban Sends Shockwaves by Jeremy Diamond and Steve Almasy
(2) Mother Jones: A Federal Judge Just Issued a Stay Against Donald Trump's "Muslim Ban" by Ben Dreyfuss
(3) New York Times: Christian Leaders Denounce Trump’s Plan to Favor Christian Refugees by Laurie Goodstein
(4) Washington Post: Trump Asked for a ‘Muslim ban,’ Giuliani says — And Ordered a Commission to do it ‘Legally’ by Amy B Wang
(5) Mother Jones: "Immoral," "Stupid," and "Counterproductive": National Security Experts Slam Trump's "Muslim Ban" by Bryan Schatz
(6) The Atlantic: Protests Against Trump's Executive Order Spread Nationwide by Nora Kelly
(6) The Atlantic: Protests Against Trump's Executive Order Spread Nationwide by Nora Kelly
(7) The Atlantic: How the Political World Is Reacting to Trump's Immigration Order by Russell Berman
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