Travel ban fundamentally wrong, and not good for Orlando tourism
Half a million international travelers fly to Orlando each month. The world vacations in Orlando, and a quarter of a million of us work in “hospitality and leisure.” So anything that affects foreign travel affects all of us.
In January, President Trump issued an executive order banning travel from seven Muslim countries. Almost immediately, the courts issued a “stay” against that order, on constitutional grounds.
In March, Trump’s Department of Homeland Security prohibited anyone from carrying a laptop computer onto flights from eight Muslim countries. That order remains in effect.
Question: Is it legal for the federal government to base its decisions on what country you are from?
Answer: We don’t have a final ruling yet, but I strongly suspect that the answer is “no.” In fact, Businessman Donald Trump would never be able get away with the actions that President Donald Trump has taken, because the law flatly prohibits discrimination on the basis of national origin — as it should.
The gist of Trump’s argument in court is that it’s often difficult to collect full background information on citizens of these Muslim countries (“extreme vetting”), and therefore to judge whether they might represent a threat to the United States.
Unfortunately for Trump, that’s just not the way American law works. If you are genuinely concerned about letting people lacking background information into our country, then you try to bar people lacking background information, not the citizens of certain countries, or the adherents of certain religions, or whatever.
Frankly, there probably is more background information regarding the average visa applicant from Syria than there is regarding the average applicant from Guinea, or New Guinea, or Equatorial Guinea, or Guinea-Bissau. There is a word for singling out the applicants of a particular country for exclusion on a basis that applies equally, or more greatly, to others. That word is “discrimination.”
In other words, the law requires us to concentrate on the thing that supposedly matters (background information), not the thing that reflects your own bias (national origin).
Discrimination on the basis of national origin has been explicitly illegal for more than a half-century, starting with Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. This is from the Department of Justice Manual:
Federal laws prohibit discrimination based on a person's national origin, race, color, religion, disability, sex, and familial status. Laws prohibiting national origin discrimination make it illegal to discriminate because of a person's birthplace, ancestry, culture or language. This means people cannot be denied equal opportunity because they or their family are from another country, because they have a name or accent
associated with a national origin group, because they participate in certain customs associated with a national origin group, or because they are married to or associate with people of a certain national origin.
The Department of Justice says that discrimination on the basis of national origin is prohibited in education, employment, housing, lending, public accommodations, law enforcement and voting, among other things.
Could Donald Trump, luxury hotelier, turn away Syrian guests? No. In fact, according to the Department of Justice, Trump couldn’t even make them wait longer at the checkin counter, charge them extra, or require them to pay in cash.
Could Donald Trump, “job creator,” refuse to hire Syrians? No. In fact, according to the Department of Justice, Trump couldn’t turn down Syrian applicants because they speak with an accent, or even allow anyone else in the workplace to use a racist epithet. In fact, he couldn’t even require proof of work authorization, unless he does that for all job applicants.
So Donald Trump, president, is trying to do something that Donald Trump, businessman, could never get away with. And that is true regardless of whether the motivation is prejudice against Muslims (which would be despicable) or not.
Here at what Disney dubs “the happiest place on Earth,” our doors are open to everyone who wants to have a good time — no matter what you look like, no matter whom you love, no matter where you’re from, and no matter to whom you pray. That’s the way it is, and that’s the way it ought to be.