Over the weekend, President Donald Trump issued his seventh executive order in as many days.
His executive order banned refugees from entering the United States for 120 days and citizens of Iran, Iraq, Libya Sudan, Syria, Somalia and Yemen for 90 days.
All seven nations are predominately Muslim, yet not a single person has been killed in the U.S. since 9/11 from an extremist from those seven nations.
On top of that, Egypt, Lebanon, Saudi Arabia and United Arab Emirates – the four nations that the 9/11 terrorists were from – were oddly left off of the list. Those are also countries that Trump either has, or attempted to do business with.
The ban completely bypasses the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965, which banned all discrimination against immigrants on the basis of their national origin.
It is beyond a cliche at this point but the U.S. was founded on immigrants. We have hundreds of years worth of history proving this exact statement. Yet this executive order essentially throws all of that away.
Apart from ignoring the history of the U.S., the executive order also is a major threat to our nation’s safety and will yield consequences.
For the past year the power that ISIS holds has been dramatically reduced, and for the past several months the Iraqi military has been fighting ISIS in Mosul, the second largest city in Iraq and the last major stronghold being held by ISIS in the nation. Every day Iraq gets closer to freeing the city, which could break the spine of ISIS.
ISIS uses propaganda and fear to recruit and while they were extremely successful in the past, luckily that is no longer the case. Yet this ban will simply give ISIS unlimited ammo for thousands of now forgotten about Middle Eastern young adults. Which could reverse all of the hard work which has been done over the past year.
Over the past year we have stepped on the throat of the ISIS, yet this ban could very well have just picked them up, dusted off their shoulders and let them go.
In addition to putting more power in the hands of terrorist groups over seas, the executive order is simply inhumane. It denies entry to this country to continue a safe life. A quality this country was founded on, and prides itself over, stripped away for a reason that seems personal to President Trump.
The executive order seems to yield consequences that will hurt the U.S. and refugees seeking a safe haven, solely to benefit President Trump’s agenda which disregards the fact that no one in the U.S. has been killed by an extremist from those seven countries since 9/11.