President Donald Trump on Friday did just what he said he’d do — crack down on terrorism in an effort to make America safe. Though he stopped short of an Islamic registry, Trump signed an executive order that temporarily halts all immigration from seven Muslim countries and, until the president sees otherwise, refuses entry of Syrian refugees.
In the days since the order, protests were organized at airports across the country, 16 state attorneys general — including Washington’s Bob Ferguson — have challenged the ban’s constitutionality and vowed to fight it in court, and the U.S. acting attorney general was fired after publicly refusing to defend the order. That so many would go to such lengths to reject the president’s directive is hardly surprising. It’s an extreme response to the threat of global terrorism and reveals an appallingly callous disregard to the millions of refugees fleeing war-torn Syria (the ban applies to them indefinitely). People everywhere are right to reject it. Such policies are the embodiment of fear, not sensible or even strict precautions, and are based on ignorance and religious discrimination.
Though the immigration freeze is a temporary 120-day reprieve to evaluate existing policies, the Syrian refugee ban is indefinite; it won’t be lifted “until such time as I have determined that sufficient changes have been made to the USRAP (U.S. Refugee Admissions Program) to ensure that admission of Syrian refugees is consistent with the national interest,” Trump said in the order. It’s unclear to us just what else can be done.
Refugees seeking to enter the U.S. already go through an extensive 20-step process, according to the New York Times. Experts say it can take up to two years before they actually get into the country.
John Forseth, Lutheran Community Services Northwest’s resettlement and placement program director, said two years is a best case scenario, the result of “fast tracked” applications. The average length of time refugees spend in a refugee camp was once 17 years, though that figure is now under debate. Whatever the case, it’s not fast, not by any reasonable standard.
The Trump administration has defended the order by saying it’s not a Muslim ban, at least not like the religious-specific proposals the president made on the campaign trail. This is difficult to accept. If his past rhetoric weren’t enough to convince us otherwise, the intent of the order is clear. At its heart, it’s aimed at ISIS, an organization comprised solely of Islamic extremists. That other Muslims are fleeing from the very same group apparently makes no difference — to Trump, they’re all suspect.
If it was Israel that was being invaded by ISIS, or Syria was made up largely of Christians, we suspect Trump’s approach to refugees would be much different.
That’s not America. It’s unbridled discrimination delivered in a promise of safety. And neither the protesters, attorneys general nor The Record are the only ones to think so.
As events unfolded in the U.S., here’s a snapshot of the rest of the world’s response: Canada’s prime minister announced that Canada would accept those fleeing persecution, terror and war, saying diversity is its strength; the United Nations issued a statement urging Trump to reconsider, saying the “needs of refugees and migrants worldwide has never been greater and the U.S. resettlement program is one of the most important in the world”; France’s prime minister said Europe needs to unite in “firm” response to Trump’s order, adding that when the president “refuses the arrival of refugees, while Europe has done its duty, we have to respond,” according to The Washington Post; and there’s currently an effort in England calling on the prime minister to cancel Trump’s planned visit with the queen.
Friday was a black day for America.
