Trump’s immigration order removes Iraq from banned Muslim nations, Christians from preferred status
President Trump signed an executive order on Monday replacing his controversial immigration and border executive order signed after taking office. This new order evokes a strong block against travel from six Muslim countries, removing Iraq from the targeted list and is void of religious language present in the first order.
The new order continued to impose a 90-day ban on travelers from Syria, Libya, Iran, Somalia, Yemen and Sudan, with Defense Secretary Mattis calling for Iraq to be removed from the list. These are the countries ravaged the worst by Islamic State, the Sunni Muslim extremist group seeking to spread and deepen the control of their caliphate.
“On the basis of negotiations that have taken place between the government of Iraq and the U.S. Department of State in the last month, Iraq will increase cooperation with the U.S. government on the vetting of its citizens applying for a visa to travel to the United States,” homeland security officials wrote in a fact sheet given to reporters.
Syrian refugees in Hungary
photo/ Mstyslav Chernov – Wikimedia Commons
Trump’s original order was quickly labeled a “Muslim Ban” and ultimately blocked in court with little feedback from the courts.
Critics say that Trump’s vow to impose “extreme vetting” on migrants, especially those fleeing the war in Syria, disregards already stringent screening measures, and the fact that none of the recent terrorist attacks or mass shootings on American soil were perpetrated by people from the nations listed in the ban. Of course, supporters of the restrictions point to the chaos in the European Union created by the influx of Syrian refugees, resulting in tougher border security and deportations.
The Justice Department has identified 300 “refugees” who were being investigated for their links to Islamist terrorist groups or for holding pro-Islamic State positions. Some of those people already have permanent resident status, the official said.
One area in the original executive order which fueled the Muslim ban label was the language for the persecuted Christians – this has been removed.
“[A]ll those who cry out that this is a ‘Muslim Ban’ – especially now that it has been clarified that it is not – should understand clearly that when they do this, they are hurting we Christians specifically and putting us at greater risk. The executive order has clearly affected Christians and Yazidis and others as well as Muslims,” Archbishop Bashar Warda of the Chaldean Archeparchy of Erbil, Iraq, said in a Crux interview.
“Most Americans have no concept of what it was like to live as a Yazidi or Christian or other minority as ISIS invaded. Our people had the option to flee, to convert, or to be killed, and many were killed in the most brutal ways imaginable. But there were none of these protests then of ISIS’s religious test,” the Archbishop said.
photo/donkeyhotey
