Read Draft Text
Of Trump's Executive Order Limiting Muslim Entry
To The U.S.
The document details how the president plans to
deliver on his campaign promise of a Muslim ban.
By Jessica
Schulberg
January
26, 2017 "Information
Clearing House"
-
"HP"
-
WASHINGTON
― The
White House intends to temporarily shut down
travel from a wide swath of countries to the
United States and implement dramatic
restrictions on immigration and refugee
admission, according to a draft version of a
White House executive order obtained Wednesday
by The Huffington Post.
The
document, which could still be amended before
being officially signed, confirms the details
reported by HuffPost on Tuesday, and adds
new information about the planned strategy.
According to the draft executive order,
President
Donald Trump plans to:
-
Block
refugee admissions from the war-torn country
of Syria indefinitely.
-
Suspend refugee admissions from all
countries for 120 days. After that period,
the U.S. will only accept refugees from
countries jointly approved by the Department
of Homeland Security, the State Department
and the Director of National Intelligence.
-
Cap
total refugee admissions for fiscal year
2017 at 50,000 ― less than half of the
110,000 proposed by the Obama
administration.
-
Ban for 30 days all
“immigrant and nonimmigrant” entry of
individuals from countries designated in
Division O, Title II, Section 203 of the
2016 consolidated appropriations act: Iraq,
Syria, Iran, Sudan, Libya, Somalia, and
Yemen. These countries were
targeted
last year
in restrictions on dual nationals’ and
recent travelers’ participation in the visa
waiver program.
-
Suspend visa issuance to countries of
“particular concern.” After 60 days, DHS,
the State Department and DNI are instructed
to draft a list of countries that don’t
comply with requests for information.
Foreign nationals from those countries will
be banned from entering the U.S.
-
Establish “safe zones to protect vulnerable
Syrian populations.” The executive order
tasks the secretary of defense with drafting
a plan for safe zones in Syria within 90
days. This would be be an escalation of U.S.
involvement in Syria and could be the first
official indication of how Trump will
approach the conflict there.
-
Expedite the completion of a biometric
entry-exit tracking system for all visitors
to the U.S. and require in-person interviews
for all individuals seeking a nonimmigrant
visa.
-
Suspend the visa interview waiver
program indefinitely and review whether
existing reciprocity agreements are
reciprocal in practice.
The draft
order, which is expected to be signed later this
week, details the Trump administration’s plans
to “collect and make publicly available within
180 days ... information regarding the number of
foreign-born individuals in the United States
who have been radicalized after entry into the
United States and engaged in terrorism-related
acts.” It also describes plans to collect
information about “gender-based violence against
women or honor killings” by foreign-born
individuals in the U.S.
The
language is unclear as to whether the names of
these individuals, which could include American
citizens, would be made public, nor does the
document define “radicalized” or
“terrorism-related acts,” leaving open the
potential to sweep vast numbers of people onto
the list. The move is reminiscent of the
expansive enemies lists created by former FBI
Director J. Edgar Hoover last century.
Trump’s first
few days in the White House have been marked by a
chaotic lurching from one issue to another. That
drafts of executive orders are circulating and
leaking to the press is another mark of early
dysfunction.
Trump’s
initial campaign promise, that he would ban all
Muslims from traveling to the United States, has
been dialed back to a blanket ban on all travel from
a smaller number of countries. But the focus is
still on Muslims. The executive order says that
priority will be given in the future to refugees who
face religious persecution, “provided that the
religion of the individual is a minority religion in
the individual’s country of nationality.” In other
words, an exception will be made for non-Muslims in
the Middle East, which undercuts the argument that
the policy does not target Muslims specifically.
The White
House and the Department of Homeland Security
declined to comment. Trump hinted at an announcement
in a tweet on Tuesday night.
Although it
reflects anti-refugee sentiment spreading worldwide,
the draft of Trump’s order represents a dramatic
upending of current U.S. policy toward some of the
globe’s most unstable regions. It will inevitably
face opposition from human rights groups, civil
liberties organizations, Democrats and even members
of the Christian right, who have encouraged a
sympathetic approach to the refugee crisis.
The
civil war in Syria, now in its sixth year, has left
4.8 million Syrians as refugees, according to the
United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees. Since
the war began in 2011, the U.S. has admitted
only about 18,000
refugees
from Syria, due in part to a lengthy vetting process
that typically takes from 18 to 24 months. But as
the humanitarian crisis in Syria worsened, former
President
Barack Obama
pushed for an increase in admissions. During the
last fiscal year, the U.S.
accepted over 10,000
Syrian refugees.
Despite the low number of admissions and the
intensive, multi-agency screening process,
resettling Syrian refugees in the U.S. has become a
controversial issue. In response to Obama’s push to
welcome more people from the country,
more than half of
U.S. governors ― all but one of them Republicans ―
attempted to block Syrian refugees
from resettling in their states.
Throughout the presidential race, Trump seized on
the growing national opposition to refugee
resettlement. He first proposed
banning Muslims from
entering the U.S.
in
December 2015, following the mass shooting in San
Bernardino, California. Though his specifics varied
over the year that followed, Trump continued to
promise to heavily restrict immigration from
countries with Muslim-majority populations.
At
least one refugee resettlement organization has
already been briefed on the expected decline of
refugee admissions to 50,000. That number is
significantly lower
than ceilings proposed before the Syrian civil war
began.
Because
the draft executive order gives religious
minorities priority in refugee admissions, that
may mean Christians in most countries in the
Middle East will be favored over Muslims.
Former intelligence analysts have pointed out
that a policy that specifically discriminates
against Muslims perpetuates the narrative that
the U.S. is at war with Islam, which
serves as a
powerful recruiting tool
for jihadist groups like the so-called Islamic
State and al Qaeda.
“I ask
Allah to deliver America to Trump,” one ISIS
spokesman
wrote
in August.
Read the draft executive order here:
