NY Times article
In January 2017, President Trump banned all tourists, students, and even greencarid holders from entering the US from seven Muslim countries including Syria, Iran, Libya, Yemen, Somalia, Sudan, Iraq. He ruled the executive order on the basis that these were the countries from which terrorists were entering the US and thus threatened the country’s safety. Protests against the ban immediately began nationwide. Judicial bodies began retaliating. A judge from New York partially blocked his initial order and a judge from Hawaii completely blocked it. In response the widespread resistance, the Trump administration revised the ban to exclude greencarid holders.
After the judge from Hawaii deemed his order unconstitutional on the basis of religious discrimination and temporarily blocked the provision all over the country, Trump reworded the travel ban to circumvent the Hawaii judge’s ruling in early March. The Trump administration removed wording that said Christians from the original seven countries could still enter, and added that on a case by case basis some could get a waiver to the ban. They also removed Iraq from the ban and added North Korea and Venezuela to eradicate the notion that the ban was religiously discriminatory. Again, judges from Maryland and Hawaii blocked his executive order, saying it was still unconstitutional. Using the president’s own discriminatory words against Muslims from his speeches as a presidential candidate, they temporarily blocked the travel ban from the six Muslim countries (although it’s still in effect for North Korea and Venezuela).
Trump again reworded his executive order in September 2017 to ban entry from these countries because they have “inadequate identity management protocols, information sharing practices, and risk factors.” In other words, these countries lack means by which to identify their citizens, conduct background checks and/or do not share this information from the US, therefore making it harder for the US to vet for terrorists. Also, the new ruling enforces travel restrictions unique to the foreign nationals of each country. The latest version was again blocked, this time by a federal judge. The judge found that it, “lacks sufficient findings that the entry of more than 150,000,000 nationals from six specified countries would be detrimental to the interests of the United States.” In order to keep the travel ban in effect, the court must have evidence of the harm the immigrants allegedly cause as a precondition.
In response, President Trump turned to the Supreme Court. Although they recently dropped the case against the second travel ban (Hawaii vs Trump) on October 24th, this ruling was more a housecleaning procedure than a victory for Trump (the 120 day March ruling is expiring anyways). Also, the third version of the travel ban has already been challenged by judges on the basis of discrimination by nationality and is being partially blocked. Challenges against the order will most likely appear before the Supreme Court in the near future.
- Do you think Trump will be able to successfully circumvent (or partially circumvent) judges’ rulings against his travel bans? Will the issue be resolved, or be an ongoing battle throughout his presidency?
- To what extent do you think the travel bans actually prevent terrorism, if at all? (Would it have prevented attacks such as the recent one in NYC?)
- Is selective entry an effective method of thwarting terrorism? What alternative methods could be used?
Is selective entry an effective method of thwarting terrorism? What alternative methods could be used?
ReplyDeleteI believe that selective entry is an effective method of thwarting terrorism but, I disagree with Trumps policy because I think it is too extreme. We should not generalize an entire group of people by saying they can not enter the country. Not only is this unethical but it is also un-American. Our country is a melting pot and was founded on the diversification of cultures and people. By restricting Muslims from entering the country, we are not standing by the wishes of our founding fathers. I do believe however, that there should be some restrictions on the people who enter the country. People who are under suspicion of terrorism should not be allowed. Otherwise, we should not generalize people and consider them terrorists because of their culture and where they come from.
2.) I think travel bans prevent terrorism on a very limited basis if at all. In a rare scenario it’s possible that it would stop an attack, but for the most part, it is simply making it clear to other countries that the US is scared and feels vulnerable which is a message that terrorist attacks are working. Additionally, since terrorists can come from anywhere, not just from countries like Syria, Iraq and Iran, travel bans will not be effective. There are attacks even from people of our own country. There is no way to completely prevent terrorism. Keeping people out and discriminating against members of entire groups to punish them for the crimes of a few isn’t the right answer.
ReplyDelete3. I think that selective entry is to some extent an effective method of thwarting terrorism. However, I think it is wrong to categorize a whole entire race or country as terrorists and ban the whole group from coming into our country. Terrorists can be of any race or religion and from any country around the world. Because of the many recent terrorist attacks, it is understandable that Americans are frightened but we can't let Trump take the anger out on one specific group by banning them because they are not all terrorists. I think selective entry should be used along with other methods like it in order to keep people under suspicion of terrorism out of the country.
ReplyDeleteMadeline Tragoutsis
Delete2. I believe policy such as the travel ban is the very thing that breeds terrorism. As soon as their is foreign policy marking whole countries, entire populations, as "unwanted" and "dangerous" it breeds hatred on both sides. It validates and gives ammunition to extremists both for and against America. The person who believes that every person from the middle east is a jihadi can look to this ban as affirmation that their beliefs are also held by their government, normalizing their bigotry. On the flip side, those who blame American citizens for the state of disrepair the middle east region is in, look at this ban and see clearly that hatred towards their people is still held by the American public. This isn't very likely to impart any feelings that might stem the tide of extremism, such as tolerance. Travel bans only further draw lines between countries and peoples, leading to a break down in productive communication.
ReplyDelete2. I do not think that Trump's travel bans prevent terrorism at all. Trump and the media is quick to label any attack by a person of Middle Eastern descent as terrorism while refusing to address the attacks by people of other races, specifically white people. It is hypocritical for Trump to say that the countries he is banning lack the necessary background checks considering our country's lack of gun control as well as the prevalence of mass shootings committed by Americans. It is unjust and ineffective to essentially punish an entire race based on generalizations.
ReplyDelete1) I believe that eventually Trump would be able to circumvent the judges' rulings against the travel ban, but not until after a painstaking process of back and forth where the bill is remarkably watered down. As his presidency furthers, I doubt that the travel ban will stay a crucial issue for the Trump Administration. Already more important domestic events and developments have unfolded and attention to the travel band has somewhat dissipated. I suspect that Trump will end up passing a partial ban that is nothing compared to what he originally installed. However, I guess a decreased involvement with the topic on behalf of the public could possibly benefit Trump. Maybe with the distractions of fiscal policy and other domestic developments, he could be able to resolve the issue without too much public uproar and with few concessions. However, I don't think this will be an ongoing battle. Rather, I believe the issue will eventually be settled and left to sit while the administration shifts focus to more pressing issues. If he were to battle it out though, I imagine a watered down executive order as a result.
ReplyDelete3. Selective entry will help against preventing terrorists from entering the country. By providing thorough checks on those who seeks entry from dangerous countries, the amount of potential problems will inevitably decrease. Until this system can be put in place, the travel ban will have to suffice as the temporary solution. It is better to not risk the safety of the American people, even if it means discriminating against certain countries or people.
ReplyDelete3. Although selective entry is effective at preventing certain people from entering the country, it does not guarantee safety from terrorists. Selective entry has serious implications for people from the countries it restricts and more thought should be put into which countries are excluded. Additionally the fact that countries that do not meet the requirements only have "50 days to comply or face the threat of severe travel restrictions" seems too strict because it does not give adequate time for those countries to meet the requirements. Therefore, selective entry should be regarded very seriously, and the countries that are selected should have serious historical events that prove people from that country are a threat to the US before restrictions are put on them.
ReplyDeleteI don’t believe the travel bans are very successful in preventing terrorism. The travel ban does little, if at all, to prevent terrorism and it simply reveals the US’s insecurity about terrorists entering the country. In fact, it gives both sides more reason to generate hate for each other as the travel bans basically tells the people of the banned countries they are unwanted and labels the entire population as terrorists when in fact, it was only a few bad apples in the barrel. In reality, terrorism happens within America done by Americans; political figures and the media just refuses to acknowledge this and label them as such, especially when the background of the terrorist is white. Not much could have been done to prevent what happened in NYC, but what happened in Las Vegas could have been prevented. It’s impossible to completely prevent terrorism from happening. Terrorism is a problem but a travel ban is not the solution.
ReplyDelete3. There is no way for the US to completely keep terrorists out of the country. No matter what we do, they find their way in. In my opinion, the travel ban just shows the underlying racism and fear that Americans have. It is valid to be scared of terrorists. It is not in anyway reasonable for Americans to be afraid of an entire race and religion.
ReplyDelete2) Trump's travel ban is would actually be very efficient in thwarting terrorism if there were terrorists coming into the US. It is already extremely hard to get into the US in the first place as we have the most extreme vetting processes of any nation. For terrorists there are much easier ways to kill Americans than actually going to America.
ReplyDeletehaha this was me
ReplyDelete3. I think that selective entry is to some extent an effective method of thwarting terrorism. However, I think it is wrong to categorize a whole entire race or country as terrorists and ban the whole group from coming into our country. Terrorists can be of any race or religion and from any country around the world. Because of the many recent terrorist attacks, it is understandable that Americans are frightened but we can't let Trump take the anger out on one specific group by banning them because they are not all terrorists. I think selective entry should be used along with other methods like it in order to keep people under suspicion of terrorism out of the country.
2. I don't think that travel bans will prevent terrorism because if people did want to perform a terrorist attack on the US they would still find a different way into the country than by commercial flights or boats. Many of the recent attacks have actually been by citizens of the U.S. not from outside powers. Terrorist groups can get people from different countries to join there cause through the internet, so by only blocking the certain countries Trump is not blocking terrorism all together.
ReplyDelete3. I think that selective entry does not help the situation much there are many ways around this like layover in other countries. I think that its also generalizing very hard as well. This can lead to many different issues in government . If we want to stop terrorism some other ways of achieving is have more strict check in imports and adding weapons and ammunition restrictions. We could also do more through check on people from those countries and heavily decrease visas and green cards.
ReplyDelete2. I do not think that travel bans would effect terrorism that much, because as we saw with the Vegas shooting, white people will commit acts of terror too, and discriminating against certain Muslim countries, will just cause those countries to hate america more, which leads to even more terrorism. There are so few terrorist attacks by Muslims every year, that banning travel to the US won't make a difference.
ReplyDelete2. I do not feel that the travel ban will have much of an affect on preventing terrorism as the countries banned do not even have that much influence in terrorism against the united states. In addition I feel that many of the perpetrators of terrorist acts at this point are already in the united states. Many attacks on U.S citizens today are not even by people of that area or descent, they are by other americans.
ReplyDelete2. I do not feel that the travel ban will be able to have much of an effect on terrorism. Terrorism can be committed by anyone and that has been seen recently in terrorist attacks. Terrorists can be already inside the country and don't have to always be immigrants. Terrorists can be white too.
ReplyDelete2. I don't think travel bans are helpful in preventing terrorism at at all. Trump's travel ban assumes that terrorists are only from the Middle East. This assumption is very dangerous because a terrorist can be from any part of the world, not just the Middle East. By only focusing on the Middle East, Trump neglects possible terrorists from other nations.
ReplyDelete