Rights organizations caution The Trump executive The Trump executive order, which was signed Monday amidst a slew of other actions, is based on the same statutory authority that he used to support his travel ban in 2017.
US civil rights organizations are cautioning that President Donald Trump’s executive order, which was signed on Monday, sets the stage for the reintroduction of a travel ban on people from countries with a large Muslim or Arab population.
The new order gave even “wider latitude to use ideological exclusion to deny visa requests and remove individuals” who has already entered the country, according to the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee (ADC), which said on Wednesday that it was based on the same statutory authority that was used to support Trump’s 2017 travel ban.
To assist those impacted, it launched a new, round-the-clock hotline (844-232-9955).
According to the National Iranian-American Council (NIAC), Trump’s directive on “Protecting the United States from Foreign Terrorists and other National Security and Public Safety Threats” may cause US families to be separated from their loved ones and reduce university enrollment in the US.
It created a new website about the problem.
Amidst a flurry of other measures, Trump signed a new order on Monday that gives top State, Justice, intelligence, and homeland security officials 60 days to identify nations whose screening and vetting procedures are “so deficient as to warrant a partial or full suspension on the admission of national from those countries”.
Adding language that prohibits visas or entry into the United States for individuals who “bear hostile attitudes toward its citizens, culture, government, institutions, or founding principles”, it goes beyond Trump’s 2017 ban on travelers from seven countries with a large Muslim population. It also establishes a procedure that could result in the cancellation of visas granted since January 2021.
When asked repeatedly about the order, the White House did not respond.
“A very risky precedent”
The new order might provide the government “a lot of undefined authority” to refuse a variety of visas for workers, students, and participants in education exchanges, according to Josef Burton, a former State Department official and visa officer who spoke on an NIAC-organized conference cal.
Abed Ayoub, the national executive director of ADC, told the Reuters news agency that the organization will make a decision in the next few days over whether to challenge the ruling in court. According to him, it established “a very dangerous precedent” that might potentially be applied to right-wing organizations in the event that a Democratic administration were to take office in the future.
“This order will allow for the removal of individuals in the US based on what they say or what they’ve expressed, and what positions they hold”, he stated. “If they attend a protest that the administration may deem hostile, they’re going to have their visas revoked and they’re going to face removal proceedings”.
Expanding on a policy supported by the Supreme Court in 2018, Trump has stated on multiple occasions that he would impose travel restrictions on those from specific nations or who hold particular beliefs.
Trump declared during the presidential campaign that he would reinstate travel restrictions for citizens of Syria, Yemen, Libya, the Palestinian enclave of Gaza, and “anywhere else that threatens our security”.
Additionally, Trump has stated that he will try to prevent socialists, Marxists, and communists from entering the US.
