The latest presidential directive was signed at the Pentagon and the text of the Executive Order somehow wasn’t made available to the press until hours later, after the evening news shows and by the next morning the text still hadn’t appeared on the official White House list of Executive Orders which is running several days behind actual events.
Religious tolerance
Sadly, the Executive Order was signed on Friday, Holocaust Remembrance Day.
That is the day when we honour those killed in WWII concentration camps, many of whom were denied entry into the US as political refugees because of their religion.
The US constitution guarantees freedom of religion and courts have always applied this to immigration as with other aspects of American life and law, but President trump’s new Executive Order is a blatant attempt to impose a religious test on refugee status and their ability to enter the United States. Not only does The President target largely Muslim countries and refugees but he also gave special dispensation for "religious minorities" in those countries.
That would be mostly Christians
Part of his justification was his false claim that Christian refugees had been discriminated against in favour of Muslims - in actual fact, the numbers of Christian and Muslim refugees accepted into the US is about equal despite the fact that the countries involved are up to 90% Muslim.
Speaking about the ban and the order that Christian refugees would be given priorities President Trump said that far more Muslims than Christians had been admitted from those countries and said. “I thought it was very, very unfair. So we are going to help them”
This is yet another Presidential alternative-truth to justify his actions. A Pew Research Center study showed that 37,521 Christian refugees and 38,901 Muslim refugees were admitted to the US in 2016 despite the overwhelming numbers of Muslims in those countries.
The countries banned
The State Department was ordered to immediately cease issuing any visas for Syrian nationals. Other countries were only limited for 90 days.
President Trump’s order would, if enforceable, put major restrictions on immigrants from six other Muslim countries, Iraq, Iran, Libya, Somalia, Sudan and Yemen, but only for 90 days initially. He justifies his ban on Muslim immigration by citing terrorism, but does this make sense?
The bombing of the Trade Center, and Pentagon on 9/11 is always cited as a major example of terrorist attacks perpetrated by Muslims. Osama bin Laden was born and raised in Saudi Arabia. The actual hijackers numbered 19 al-Qaeda members. Of those, 15 were Saudi Arabian citizens, two were from the UAE, one each from Egypt and Lebanon.
Despite the origin of the worst foreign terrorists in US history, the countries named in the Executive Order ban were not Oil saturated Saudi Arabia, Lebanon, Egypt, or the UAE.
Domestic terrorists
One of the most horrific recent terrorist attacks was at an LGBT Florida nightclub resulting in 49 dead and 53 injured. The terrorist was 29-year-old Omar Mateen who pledged allegiance to ISIS. But Mr Mateen was a U.S. citizen born in New York and therefore qualified to run for President. Mr Trump’s justification for a ban was that the shooter was only born in the US because his parents were immigrants, as was Mr Trump’s mother.
Another domestic terrorist was Timothy McVeigh who’s bombing of the Federal Building in Oklahoma City killed 168, in retaliation of, according to McVeigh, the FBI killings at Ruby Ridge and Waco Texas. Coincidentally he too was born in New York, as were Mateen, and Mr Trump.
A number of US born anti-abortion terrorists have killed people in shootings and bombings. The KKK was known for many terrorist acts against blacks, Catholics, Jews, and others.