Trump bars citizens of 7 Muslim countries
Michael D Shear and Helene Cooper WASHINGTON, Jan 29, 2017, NYT:
US President Donald Trump on Friday closed the nation’s borders to refugees from around the world, ordering that families fleeing the slaughter in Syria be indefinitely blocked from entering the United States. The US president also temporarily suspended immigration from predominantly Muslim countries – Iraq, Syria, Iran, Sudan, Libya, Somalia and Yemen.
In an executive order that he said was part of an extreme vetting plan to keep out “radical Islamic terrorists”, Trump also established a religious test for refugees from Muslim nations: he ordered that Christians and others from minority religions be granted priority over Muslims.
“We don’t want them here,” Trump said of Islamist terrorists during a signing ceremony at the Pentagon. “We want to ensure that we are not admitting into our country the very threats our soldiers are fighting overseas. We only want to admit those into our country who will support our country, and love deeply our people.”
Earlier in the day, Trump explained to an interviewer for the Christian Broadcasting Network that Christians in Syria were “horribly treated” and alleged that under previous administrations, “if you were a Muslim you could come in, but if you were a Christian, it was almost impossible”.
“I thought it was very, very unfair. So we are going to help them”, the president said. In fact, the United States accepts tens of thousands of Christian refugees. According to the Pew Research Center, almost as many Christian refugees (37,521) were admitted as Muslim refugees (38,901) in the 2016 fiscal year.
Rebuilding army
Additionally, Trump signed a memorandum on Friday directing what he called “a great rebuilding of the armed services”, saying it would call for budget negotiations to acquire new planes, new ships and new resources for the nation’s military. “Our military strength will be questioned by no one, but neither will our dedication to peace”, Trump said.
Announcing his “extreme vetting” plan, the president invoked the specter of the 9/11 attacks. Most of the 19 hijackers on the planes that crashed into the World Trade Center, the Pentagon and a field in Shanksville, Pennsylvania, were from Saudi Arabia. The rest were from the United Arab Emirates, Egypt and Lebanon. None of those countries are on Trump’s visa ban list.
Human rights activists roundly condemned Trump’s actions, describing them as officially sanctioned religious persecution dressed up to look like an effort to make the United States safer.
The president signed the executive order shortly after issuing a statement noting that Friday was International Holocaust Remembrance Day, an irony that many of his critics highlighted on Twitter. The statement did not mention Jews, though it cited the “depravity and horror inflicted on innocent people by Nazi terror”.
In an executive order that he said was part of an extreme vetting plan to keep out “radical Islamic terrorists”, Trump also established a religious test for refugees from Muslim nations: he ordered that Christians and others from minority religions be granted priority over Muslims.
“We don’t want them here,” Trump said of Islamist terrorists during a signing ceremony at the Pentagon. “We want to ensure that we are not admitting into our country the very threats our soldiers are fighting overseas. We only want to admit those into our country who will support our country, and love deeply our people.”
Earlier in the day, Trump explained to an interviewer for the Christian Broadcasting Network that Christians in Syria were “horribly treated” and alleged that under previous administrations, “if you were a Muslim you could come in, but if you were a Christian, it was almost impossible”.
“I thought it was very, very unfair. So we are going to help them”, the president said. In fact, the United States accepts tens of thousands of Christian refugees. According to the Pew Research Center, almost as many Christian refugees (37,521) were admitted as Muslim refugees (38,901) in the 2016 fiscal year.
Rebuilding army
Additionally, Trump signed a memorandum on Friday directing what he called “a great rebuilding of the armed services”, saying it would call for budget negotiations to acquire new planes, new ships and new resources for the nation’s military. “Our military strength will be questioned by no one, but neither will our dedication to peace”, Trump said.
Announcing his “extreme vetting” plan, the president invoked the specter of the 9/11 attacks. Most of the 19 hijackers on the planes that crashed into the World Trade Center, the Pentagon and a field in Shanksville, Pennsylvania, were from Saudi Arabia. The rest were from the United Arab Emirates, Egypt and Lebanon. None of those countries are on Trump’s visa ban list.
Human rights activists roundly condemned Trump’s actions, describing them as officially sanctioned religious persecution dressed up to look like an effort to make the United States safer.
The president signed the executive order shortly after issuing a statement noting that Friday was International Holocaust Remembrance Day, an irony that many of his critics highlighted on Twitter. The statement did not mention Jews, though it cited the “depravity and horror inflicted on innocent people by Nazi terror”.
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