A source of contention during the first 100 days of the Trump presidency has been the White House’s executive order temporarily banning travel from seven Muslim-majority nations with substandard ID compliance procedures and high terrorism rates.
The White House’s decision to halt suspension of refugees from the seven nations has struck a nerve among some activists. The nations affected are: Syria, Iran, Iraq, Somalia, Libya, Sudan, and Yemen.
The travel ban order, as clumsily implemented as it might have been, given its initial barring of permanent residents (“green card” holders), is supported by the majority of the American people. Even most Europeans polled broadly support such travel and immigration bans.
The executive order was nonetheless struck down by the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, leading to a furious response from the president.
The White House has prepared a legal response to the Ninth Circuit’s ruling and, in the meantime, has promised modifications to the executive order.
Although the travel ban has been framed by several news media outlets as highly controversial, the temporary barring of travel and immigration from nations is not without precedent.
The Obama administration implemented a similar suspension of processing refugees from the nation of Iraq in 2011. As ABC News reported at the time:
As a result of the Kentucky case, the State Department stopped processing Iraq refugees for six months in 2011, federal officials told ABC News – even for many who had heroically helped U.S. forces as interpreters and intelligence assets
Now, Iraq is precisely the nation taken off the list, according to a forthcoming modification to the policy set by the executive order. As reported by the AP:
President Donald Trump’s new immigration order will remove Iraq from the list of countries whose citizens face a temporary U.S. travel ban, the Associated Press reported on Tuesday, citing unnamed U.S. officials.
Four officials say the decision follows pressure from the Pentagon and State Department, the AP reported. They had urged the White House to reconsider Iraq’s inclusion given its key role in fighting the Islamic State group, it added.
Trump is expected to sign the new order on Wednesday. An earlier order was blocked by federal courts.
Politico, however, disputes this timeline, indicating that there may be a delay to the expected signing of the new executive order:
President Donald Trump won’t sign a revised travel ban on Wednesday as had been anticipated, two senior administration officials confirmed.
One of the officials indicated that the delay was due to the busy news cycle, and that when Trump does sign the revised order, he wanted it to get plenty of attention.
As the initial executive order made clear, the travel ban was a temporary measure implemented by the White House to pressure nations to improve their identification compliance procedures. The disproportionately alarmed response to the measure appears now to have been very premature.
Source:ijr.com