The new president’s first week in office has been one to which a whole dictionary of adjectives has been applied on social media and in the less revered world of real news. While the narcissistic tantrum about the crowd size at his inauguration is an anomaly for the office, if not for the man, most of the policy measures signed into law by executive order are exactly the sort of partisanship to be expected of any new administration shaking off the detritus of eight years of another party’s rule. However, the capstone executive order of the week, “Protecting The Nation From Foreign Terrorist Entry Into the United States,” is something else entirely. It is a repudiation of the foundation of the United States of America.
While the United States has always been far less open than progressives would like to believe, just by dint of geography (the European Union took in more than 18 times the number of refugees in 2015, despite having just 1.5 times the population of the United States), that exact geography also ensured that only immigration could build the nation. The original migrants, of course, arrived 12,000 years ago, and perhaps it is the cultural memory of their subsequent treatment by later refugees that makes Americans of European descent so distrustful of the latest wave of newcomers. Nevertheless, no family tree in the United States goes back very far without alighting on an immigrant, and one of the most successful Broadway musicals in recent memory is about one of the country’s immigrant Founding Fathers. Turning our backs on immigration is akin to renouncing our history.
In a wold of increasing threats from forces that would like to undermine our way of life, open borders with free movement of people are not practical, but it is important to balance actions with real threats. According to a 2015 study, more terrorist attacks on American soil in the years since 9/11 have been carried out by home-grown, right-wing fundamentalists than by Muslim jihadists. It is somehow symbolic that Timothy McVeigh was executed for the Oklahoma City bombings exactly three months before 9/11 – out with the old devil, the one who looked like us, in with the new, the truly “other.” Although the KKK and other organizations of the so-called “alt-right” continue to act freely, protected by our venerable Constitution as they incite hateful and violent acts, a Quinnipiac poll released last week indicates that Americans narrowly support (48% to 42%) “suspending immigration from terror prone regions, even if it means turning away refugees.” However, since 59% also believe that illegal immigrants should be allowed to stay in the country with a path to citizenship, it is easy to understand why the new administration didn’t try to expand the ban to other countries.
As has been pointed out, the seven countries subject to the ban were actually designated as “countries of concern” by the Obama administration. Referred to in the executive order not individually but via a reference to the specific section of the Immigration and Nationality Act – don’t try to ctrl+F “Yemen” or “Syria” in the actual text of Trump’s document – the new administration is merely repurposing an existing definition. So while a nefarious plot to protect Trump’s business interests can’t be ruled out, it is more probable that he happens to do business in countries that also have stronger diplomatic ties with the United States and a more stable business climate, and thus are less likely to end up on a “countries of concern” list at Homeland Security.
The authors of the document likely felt that this would give them political cover from any fallout – and that is exactly what the White House press secretary tried when pressed. However, in keeping with the idea that the United States should remain true to its historical roots, Obama INCREASED the refugee ceiling amidst the worst crisis since WWII. The actual number of refugees admitted from the seven “countries of concern” may have been pitifully low – the vetting process remained stringent, as likely befits a time of caution and intrigue – but at least the door wasn’t slammed shut.
That Trump chose to end his first week as President of the United States with such a malicious act dovetails with his campaign and is evidence that he will seek to govern from a place of fear just as he used it to win the election. Although it is heartening that 42% of Americans don’t believe that we should turn our backs on people fleeing exactly the places most dangerous for them, 48% are still too afraid to stand by our history of innocence until guilt is proven. Since the horror of 9/11 burst the bubble of our invincibility, Americans have been fed a steady diet of fear. Hopefully some of them will recognize that, as pointed out in the inaugural post of this blog, fear is not usually rational and should not be the basis for policies that affect millions.
None of the perpetrators of terror attacks in the United States over the last twenty years have been refugees. Some have been immigrants (one of the San Bernardino shooters) or the children of immigrants (the Boston marathon bombers), but the deadliest attack since 9/11, at the Pulse nightclub in Orlando, was undertaken by a US citizen born in New York. None of the recent terror attacks involved suspects from any of the seven countries in the ban. There is no evidence whatsoever that the ban makes Americans any safer, and it is entirely possible, as John McCain and others have noted, that it will be used as a rallying cry for ISIS recruits. What better way to learn hate than to watch it pass from the pen of our president?
Preach it, Sister!
As an addendum, some have tried to equate Obama’s 2011 action on Iraqi visas and Carter’s 1979 sanctions on Iran to Trump’s travel ban. Neither of those actions came anywhere close to a repudiation of American values. Obama never banned Iraqis – his action merely slowed the processing of their visas while new, more stringent rules were applied in the wake of the discovery of two would-be terrorists. And Carter’s action was in direct reaction to Iran’s invasion of the US embassy in Tehran, resulting in 50 American citizen hostages. In both cases, the administration was taking steps to respond to a known threat. In neither case was the action driven by petty politics.