Advocate: New Trump immigration order ‘shocking’

But president says Americans must be protected

President Donald J. Trump Monday signed a new executive order banning travelers for 90 days from six majority Muslim countries who are seeking new visas to come to the United States.

Iraq, which was part of the original ban issued in January, has been dropped from the list.

As for refugees, the president again suspended that program for 120 days and also cut the number of refugees welcomed to the country to 50,000, less than half the number approved by the last administration.

Chris George, executive director of Integrated Refugee and Immigrant Services in New Haven, called the changes to the refugee program “devastating.”

“No president has set such a low goal for refugee resettlement and for it to happen at a time when the world is facing the largest refugee crisis since World War II is shocking. We are turning our backs on 60,000 people we had promised to come here,” George said of the drop in refugees from 110,000 a year.

Trump’s executive order issued on Jan. 27 was suspended by a federal district court in Washington state on Feb. 3, a decision later affirmed by a threejudge panel from the 9th Circuit of the U.S. Court of Appeals. The president revoked it in favor of the new order.

The January ban resulted in chaos at the nation’s airports and left approved refugees stranded, as well as permanent residents, students and others coming back for employment and study.

The countries now part of the three-month ban effective March 16 include: Sudan, Syria, Iran, Libya, Somalia and Yemen. Originally, persons from Syria had been banned indefinitely, but that has been eliminated.

The administration, in trying to pass legal muster, made other changes from the original ban.

The order does not apply to lawful permanent residents; dual nationals traveling on a passport from a non-designated country; diplomats and individuals already granted asylum or refugee status before the effective date. There is also a waiver process for a case by case basis.

The ban also does not apply to refugees who have already been formally scheduled for transit by the State Department.

Iraq, according to Homeland Security, “will increase cooperation with the U.S. government on the vetting of its citizens applying for a visa to travel to the United States” in exchange for not being part of the executive order.

The new rules do not give preference to “religious minorities,” such as Christians who say they are being persecuted in majority Muslim countries. Critics however said it still amounts to a Muslim ban, since the countries named are majority Muslim,

George said he hoped that the country will show the White House that it has miscalculated and that there is “broad support for helping persecuted people.”

The president, unlike for other executive orders, signed this one in private, according to the New York Times.

“The U.S. Government must ensure that those entering this country will not harm the American people after entering, and that they do not bear malicious intent toward the United States and its people,” Homeland Security said in a statement. “This executive order ensures that we have a functional immigration system that safeguards our national security.”

The White House said the reason for the refugee ban was to develop “extreme vetting” to keep terrorists out of the country. The order said the six countries “warrant additional scrutiny in connection with our immigration policies because the conditions in these countries present heightened threats.”

Trump said he has been advised that more than 300 persons who entered the U.S. as refugees are the subject of FBI counterterrorism investigations. “It is the policy of the United States to protect its citizens from terrorist attacks, including those committed by foreign nationals,” the order said.

Greg Chen, executive director of the American Immigration Lawyers Association, found it odd that the order only gives two examples of refugees convicted of “terrorism-related offenses.” Two were Iraqis convicted in 2013 and a Somali, convicted in 2014, who came here as a child.

Chen said an entry ban won’t stop an individual who becomes radicalized as an adult, while it was illogical to take Iraq off the list given the example.

Part of the order includes developing a uniform baseline for screening and vetting standards.

The current vetting of refugees is a 20-step process, according to the New York TImes, that involves the United Nations, the U.S. State Department, the FBI, Department of Homeland Security and the Department of Defense. It can take up to two years to complete and Syrians go through additional steps.

From the time the original order was announced on Jan. 27 until Monday, George said IRIS resettled 40 people in Connecticut.

He said in the future it will continue to resettle persons from Afghanistan and Iraq who are part of the Special Immigrant Visa program.

This applies to Iraqis and Afghans who had worked with U.S. forces and whose lives and whose families’ lives have been threatened because of that work. He expected between 20 and 40 persons under this category to come to the state this year.

George said since the beginning of the federal fiscal year on Oct. 1, 39,000 persons have been admitted to the country as refugees, which means only 11,000 can come here before Sept. 30. Under the order, none will be admitted for four of those months.

George said IRIS has the resources, given the interest from religious congregations, to help resettle some 500 refugees in 2017, which will not happen now.

He hopes a legal challenge to the drop in the number of refugees filed by the attorney general in Maryland will be successful.

Members of the Connecticut delegation issued statements that the ban is wrongheaded and will only aid ISIS.

U.S. Senator Chris Murphy , D-Conn., a member of the U.S. Senate Appropriations Committee and the U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee, said he will again introduce legislation to reverse Trump’s executive order and block its implementation.

“President Trump is handing ISIS recruitment gold and is putting American lives at risk,” he said. “Our enemies’ dream is to paint a picture of global war between Islam and the West, and today’s travel ban plays right into their hands.”

He said the danger is the recruitment of “lone-wolf terrorists here at home by convincing them that they have no place in our society. ISIS is losing on the battlefield, but President Trump just handed a big victory to our adversaries ...”

U.S. Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., had similar criticisms.

“This new Muslim ban is the same old policy cloaked in a different legal dress. It still raises questions about an unconstitutional religious test, and suffers from many of the same legal defects . ... Above all: it betrays American values,” Blumenthal said.

U.S. Rep. Rosa DeLauro, D-3, said “No matter how the President rewrites it, this redo of his executive order on refugees and immigrants is still religious discrimination and is just as shameful as the first one.

“As the American Civil Liberties Union points out, the new executive order is still unconstitutional. We cannot allow this un-American order to be upheld and American values must always win out over hate and fear,” she said.

U.S. Rep. Joe Courtney, D-Norwich, said the U.S. will feel the backlash from the ban overseas.