Trump’s 2017 Muslim ban is back—and even worse this time around
During Donald Trump’s executive order-signing spree Monday, the convicted felon signed one in particular that experts and civil rights groups believe is just a beefed up version of his 2017 Muslim ban.
The executive order, titled “Protecting the United States from Foreign Terrorists and Other National Security and Public Safety Threats,” calls for foreign visitors to be vetted to the “maximum degree possible.”
But bolstering up the vetting process isn’t the concern. Rather, it’s who the vetting process is going to be targeting.
“The Trump administration seems intent on banning travel from certain countries, likely along the lines of his 2017 Muslim travel ban,” Faiza Patel, senior director of liberty and national security at the Brennan Center for Justice, told Daily Kos.
“But it has learned the lesson of its first term,” she added, referring to the executive order Trump signed right after taking office in 2017, which left travelers confused and stranded at border customs.
The 2017 ban targeted five Muslim majority countries as well as North Korea and Venezuela. And while it was challenged almost immediately after it was issued, the Supreme Court later upheld a thrice-revised version of the ban just over a year later.
The American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee (ADC) has sounded the alarm on another aspect of the executive order, claiming that it gives the administration the ability to discriminate on the basis of ideology or religious beliefs.
“The new order goes a step further than its 2017 predecessor by adding language that opens the door to ideological exclusion by allowing the government to deny visas or entry based on perceived political opinions, religious beliefs, or cultural backgrounds,” the ADC said in a statement.
The order also appears to give officials the ability to remove foreign visitors who are in the United States legally on the basis of where they are from or what they worship.
Adding to his anti-immigrant rhetoric, Trump has been under massive scrutiny for his executive order to end birthright citizenship, which is given to children of immigrants born in the United States and is enshrined in the 14th Amendment of the Constitution.
As it stands, it is unclear if this will be deemed constitutional.
Additionally, Trump suspended asylum programs at the U.S.-Mexico border, fulfilling his racist campaign promise.
Trump’s end to the asylum programs—which are typically granted to people seeking safety from dangerous home lives—also shut out immigrants who were already in the process of gaining asylum.
This, too, could face challenges in court.
