Trump slaps travel ban on Chad, North Korea, Venezuela

Trump slaps travel ban on Chad, North Korea, Venezuela

Critics have accused the president of discriminating against Muslims in violation of US guarantees of religious liberty.

Aljazeera September 25th 2017

President Donald Trump slapped new travel restrictions on citizens from North Korea, Venezuela and Chad, expanding the list of countries covered by his original travel bans that have been derided by critics as targeting Muslims.

Iran, Libya, Syria, Yemen and Somalia were left on the list of affected countries in a new proclamation issued by the president on Sunday. Restrictions on citizens from Sudan were lifted.

"We cannot afford to continue the failed policies of the past, which present an unacceptable danger to our country," Trump said in statement. "My highest obligation is to ensure the safety and security of the American people, and in issuing this new travel order, I am fulfilling that sacred obligation."

Iraqi citizens will not be subject to travel prohibitions but will face enhanced scrutiny or vetting.

The current ban, enacted in March, was set to expire on Sunday evening.

The new restrictions, slated to take effect on October 18, resulted from a review after Trump's original travel bans sparked international outrage and legal challenges.

Unlike the first ban - which sparked chaos at airports across the country - officials said they had been working for months on the new rules, in collaboration with various agencies and in conversation with foreign governments.

The addition of North Korea and Venezuela broadens the restrictions from the original, mostly Muslim-majority list.

Critics have accused the president of discriminating against Muslims in violation of constitutional guarantees of religious liberty and equal protection under the law, breaking existing US immigration law and stoking religious hatred.

Trump had called for a "total and complete shutdown of Muslims entering the United States" during his election campaign.

Speaking on background, government officials said the addition of North Korea and Venezuela demonstrated the measure was set on the basis of security and was not a "Muslim ban", as detractors have argued.    

"Religion, or the religious origin of individuals or nations, was not a factor," a senior government official told reporters.    

"The inclusion of those countries, Venezuela and North Korea, was about the fact that those governments are simply not compliant with our basic security requirements."

Rights group Amnesty International USA condemned the new measures.

"Just because the original ban was especially outrageous does not mean we should stand for yet another version of government-sanctioned discrimination," it said in a statement. "It is senseless and cruel to ban whole nationalities of people who are often fleeing the very same violence that the US government wishes to keep out. This must not be normalised."

The American Civil Liberties Union said in a statement the addition of North Korea and Venezuela "doesn't obfuscate the real fact that the administration's order is still a Muslim ban".

The National Iranian American Council (NIAC) denounced the new proclamation as "nothing but an extension of the same discrimatory policy first rolled out in January".

"The Trump administration has now taken steps to make its Muslim ban targeting Iranians and other nationals permanent," NIAC said in statement.

"Absent additional intervention from the courts, and a long-overdue intervention from the Republican-controlled Congress, the Trump administration will cement a racist and discriminatory campaign promise into official US policy."

The Supreme Court will hear arguments on October 10 on whether the current ban discriminates against Muslims in violation of the US Constitution, as lower courts previously ruled.

Now the nine-justice court could skip deciding the case altogether, legal experts said.

With the travel restrictions expiring, the court has an easy way out because it could simply say the case is no longer a live issue and therefore, in legal parlance, moot.

"If the court can avoid entering into the fray, that may be appealing to them," said Anil Kalhan, an immigration law professor at Drexel University School of Law.

My response:

There are many opposing views on travel bans, walls in Mexico, and Muslims entering America and there is no easy answer. Everyone feels threatened, the Americans feeling unsafe within their own borders because of terrorist attacks, and Muslims who feel targeted simply because of where they’re from. Trump calls his duty of protecting his people sacred, and it is one of the reasons that a government exists. Others picture Trump as slapping labels on whoever he doesn't like and slamming doors in other countries faces who have upset him.

Putting North Korea and Venezuela on the list does not even the scale that most of the countries on the list are Muslim. Is it discrimination?

Protestors’ signs that say “LOVE, Trump hates”.

It would be unwise to ignore the horrific terrorist attacks in America's past, but is simply blocking everybody the solution? Maybe tighter security measures, as worrisome and frustrating as they are, would be a more appropriate answer.

I don't feel that it's very positive on Trump, it is hard to paint his policies in a good light. It highlights how Trump is against Islam. There could be a possible bias there as Qatar is in the Middle East and does have Muslim people. This has been an unpopular policy worldwide and controversial everywhere. There's the hot words of discrimination and violation of religious liberty. The audience is difficult for me to tell due to Aljazeera often speaking from the world's perspective. So I think that is the audience, the world outside of America looking in. This is an issue that affects everybody, from those who wish to go to America to those who have family who want to go or are there already. Everyone is connected. A possible concern could be that America could turn to ban any country with whom it has a disagreement, Trump often goes to extreme rather than mild measures. This is not the America, the sweet land of liberty where anyone can become anything that is the dream of people all over the world. This is the world’s response to Trump’s ban, wondering what happened to Lady Liberty welcoming all and asking if slamming the door in other countries’ faces is the answer.