The New Travel Ban Is Still a Muslim Ban
On Monday, President Donald Trump signed a revised executive order on immigration, designed to correct the deficiencies of the last one that several courts have put on hold. Although it removes some of the red flags planted in his last order, which courts found would likely run afoul of the U.S. Constitution’s Establishment Clause, the new order is still basically a Muslim ban. It’s no more rationally based on national security than was the previous order.
The new order attempts to resolve some of the legal disputes over the last one by removing the previous explicit exemption for religious minorities in the countries targeted by the suspension of the refugee program. It also no longer singles out Syrian refugees for exclusion, but continues to suspend all refugee resettlement in the United States for 120 days.
The new order also removes Iraq from the earlier list of banned countries, but it continues to include six majority-Muslim countries: Iran, Somalia, Libya, Sudan, Syria, and Yemen, with the justification that “the because their governments won’t help vet their citizens’ claims of government persecution.
