Testing the Waters

On Friday January 27, a week into his Presidency, Donald Trump made good on his dreaded campaign policy of implementing an executive order banning Muslims from entering the United States. After initial pushback on the campaign trail, Trump and his advisers worked on reformulating the framing of the ban from being perceived as religiously discriminatory as Rudy Giuliani revealed on Fox News. This meant that they would retreat from calling it a Muslim ban and claim that they were only going after travelers from countries that posed a grave threat to the United States. Despite claiming to target those from high risk areas, Trump’s travel ban does not include any countries whose nationals have killed Americans since September 11, 2001. It is also worth noting that none of the countries in which the President and his family have business interests in are included in travel ban, even though people with origins in some of those countries, including Egypt, the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia, have perpetrated terror attacks within the United States. The countries that have been put on the list include Syria, Iran, Libya, Somalia, Iraq, Yemen and Sudan, all of which have not been tied to a terrorist attack inside the United States in more than 2 decades. The executive order applies to all refugees from the aforementioned countries as well as those that are returning to the United States from abroad on student visas, work visas as well as those who have acquired permanent residency in the United States. This has proved to be devastating for many students and professionals who were visiting family and friends abroad as they can no longer return back to their lives in this country despite having done nothing wrong.

A positive sign that has arisen from this haphazard and bigoted transgression is the magnitude of protests around the country, with almost every major city across the country having some sort of demonstration again the travel ban. As a result of the protests, the Department of Homeland Security announced that it will not target those that have permanent residency status, yet it seems like the executive order has given a blank check to immigration officials because Jordanian passport holders and American citizens of Lebanese descent have been targeted, despite both Jordan and Lebanon not being included in the list of countries facing restrictions. Though there have been lawsuits from groups like the American Civil Liberties Union that have resulted in judges ordering stays for some of the affected, there have also been many reports of Border and Customs officials not allowing lawyers to contact those detained. Many State department officials also claim that they were not consulted in regards to this travel ban and many were caught unprepared when they heard about the executive order on television.

The abrupt and chaotic nature of the Trump administration’s actions shows that it has no regard for the procedural norms of state institutions and is simply looking to consolidate and wield the power of the state to carry out its agenda. By rapidly implementing this travel ban, it seems as though the newly enthroned honchos in the White House want to test the waters in regard to public push back and were hoping to catch the public off guard. In the political calculus of Trump’s advisors, the Muslim ban probably presented the lowest risk of public push back because Muslims are still a tiny minority in this country, constituting slightly less than 1% of the total population, and going after non-citizens who have less legal protections compared to citizens made it seem even easier. While this travel ban has been framed by the President and his surrogates as a way to stop terrorist attacks in the country and not a total Muslim ban,  the consensus among experts is that the executive order will do little to stop future terrorist attacks.

For Trump, this is the most convenient way of instituting a Muslim ban because he can claim to the general public that it is not a ban on religion but rather on countries that pose a threat. Likewise, he can protect his business interests in the Muslim world by excluding those countries where he his businesses operate and he can still brag to his base that he kept his campaign promise because they will be satisfied with any arbitrary crackdown on Muslims. In addition to restricting travel from the seven countries on the list, the executive order also calls for a 30 day period in which senior administration officials will compile information to add to the initial order. This means that there is a very real possibility of this ban being extended and being more stringent. The only way to deter the Trump team from usurping power is to send a strong message that the American public will not tolerate their country being turned into a fascist police state that targets the most vulnerable sectors of society. Consequently, we should not only  continue these protests but also start building solidarity between all the different oppressed groups and challenge Trump on a united front. Though there is undoubtedly going to be difficulty and struggle in the near future, there is also a vast potential for the masses to ameliorate their condition by fighting this cartoonish buffoon looking to turn our nightmares into a dystopian reality.