Trump’s new travel ban is similar to 1st
President Trump’s revised executive order temporarily banning people from six Muslimmajority countries tries to sidestep some of the flaws of its predecessor that the courts rejected and thousands protested — but while some of the changes in the new order are significant, much of the difference was in how the administration rolled out the new travel ban Monday.
The new plan bars citizens from Iran, Syria, Yemen, Sudan, Somalia and Libya who are outside of the U.S. from obtaining new visas for 90 days and suspends refugee admissions from all countries for 120 days. In the meantime, the administration says it will study whether additional vetting measures are needed for would-be immigrants from any nation.
Notably, however, it drops Iraq from a list of nations on the original travel ban that Trump issued Jan. 27 that was quickly put on hold by a federal judge. And it does not bar those who have visas before the order goes into place March 16 — a change that seeks to avoid some of the confusion that unfolded at airports across the country when the first ban was implemented.
Just a day after the first order went into effect, thousands showed up at airports demanding a halt to the ban and entry into the U.S. for those held up in customs, and videos of protesters and family members waiting for their loved ones at the airports provided a dramatic picture of the order’s impact and the resulting tumult.
With enough time between now and next week, there is little chance of those chaotic airport scenes this time.
“Our concern is that this (new ban) moves the targeted people out of sight and out of mind,” said Zahra Billoo, head of the Council on American Islamic Relations’ Bay Area chapter.
The difference was stark in the optics of how Monday’s order was rolled out compared with January’s order.
In political terms, Monday’s announcement was similar to the way Trump took a softer tone in last week’s joint address to Congress, even though he was expressing many of the same policy positions he had for nearly two years. Analysts said the key to Monday’s travelban rollout was a “conscious effort” to make Trump less of the story and portray a less chaotic administration.
So instead of signing the order with a flourish before TV crews as he had done with other orders — brandishing the signed order to the cameras — this time Trump signed it out of TV camera range. Rather than Trump re-introducing the order himself, Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, Attorney General Jeff Sessions and Department of Homeland Security Secretary John Kelly outlined the new policy before cameras— and did not take questions.
Trump took a backseat and kept the rollout tight Monday because “he really wants to get movement on the issue,” said Jeremy Carl, a research fellow at Stanford University’s Hoover Institution who has written about immigration issues. “He doesn’t see it as the greatest thing to be grandstanding on if grandstanding makes it harder to get the best results.”
“This is not particularly different from the last (executive order), which was constitutional,” he said. “But that didn’t stop a lot of unhinged rhetoric coming from liberals.”
But for advocates like Billoo, Monday’s version — which specifically states that the original order was not motivated by “animus” toward any religion — was simply a repackaged version of the first ban. It is up to the advocates, she said, to present a convincing case that it will still hurt people.
“Clearly the White House didn’t trust Donald Trump to talk about his own Muslim ban because they know if he talks about his Muslim ban he will mention that it is a Muslim ban,” said Faiz Shakir, national political director of the American Civil Liberties Union. “They were so afraid of Donald Trump’s mouth that they didn’t let Donald Trump speak.”
Among the many changes from the previous order is a provision allowing people from the listed countries to apply for a waiver if they have significant business or professional obligations in the U.S., are seeking to visit or live with family, or have been previously admitted. Green-card holders are also exempted from the ban.
“The executive order signed today by President Trump will make America safer, and address long-overdue concerns about the security of our immigration system,” Kelly said in his statement at Monday’s news conference, explaining that a review of the current vetting programs was necessary.
Sessions said that more than 300 people who came to the U.S. as refugees are under FBI investigation for potential terrorism-related activities — but did not provide any details. The order also cited the cases of three people who came to the U.S. from Iraq or Somalia and were convicted in 2013 and 2014 of terrorism-related offenses.
“After eight years of an (Obama) administration that dismissed ISIS as the JV team, Americans are prepared to take a tougher stance and err on the side of caution,” said Ron Nehring, a San Diego Republican who was an adviser to Texas Sen. Ted Cruz’s GOP presidential campaign. “Terrorist attacks in America have not discriminated — they have affected all kinds of families.
“The country will be broadly supportive of a deliberate, targeted policy aimed at heightening security.”
However, experts have pointed out that since the 9/11 attacks, there have been no fatal terrorist attacks in the U.S. committed by individuals who came from the banned countries.
Administration officials said they initiated the last travel ban with little notice because they didn’t want terrorists to swarm into the country before the new restrictions went up. On Monday, such concerns appeared to evaporate, as the administration said the new ban wouldn’t go into place for more than a week.
Instead of national security, contended Shadi Hamid, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, the underlying basis of the order was more about the administration’s problems with immigration from the region.
“Based on available evidence, I don’t think there was a plausible argument to be made that this was primarily about national security,” he said. “Rather, it was based on broader anti-immigration concerns ... and a ‘civilizational’ fixation on national identity, an identity that he and others saw as primarily white Christian, and which was coming under threat.”
Trump won the presidency partially on his tough line on immigration and travel, at one point calling for a “total and complete shutdown of Muslims entering the United States.” After winning the White House, one of his top advisers and surrogates — former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani — said Trump “called me up. He said, ‘Put a commission together. Show me the right way to do (a Muslim ban) legally.’ ”
A strong majority of Americans — 59 percent — disapproved of Trump’s first travel ban while 38 percent supported it, according to a February survey by the Pew Research Center. But support — as measured by surveys — is difficult to gauge, varying wildly between 52 and 42 percent depending on how the question is worded, according to a Huffington Post analysis. A March study by Morning Consult polled the issue by wording the question 96 different ways to more than 22,000 registered voters it reached online, and it found a consistent level of around 54 percent supporting the ban.
Despite the softened rhetoric in Monday’s rollout, the ACLU’s Shakir doubts it will dampen protests of the neworder.
“People are ready to fight,” Shakir said. “People are expecting the worst, and preparing for the worst.”
For those currently in the country on visas from the listed countries, the news was nervewracking.
Faranak Fattahi, a 29-yearold Iranian national who came to the U.S. in 2011 and is here on a temporary visa, is a stem cell scientist at UCSF. She has started her own lab at the university and is hiring new members to help her build a research group — but now she is worried about a potential disruption in her ability to obtain a more stable work visa.
“You can’t help but feel somewhat unwelcome,” she said.