Washington, DC – Civil rights advocates in the US are elevating the alarm over a directive signed by President Donald Trump that they are saying lays the groundwork for an additional journey ban focusing on Muslim-majority international locations.
The executive order, launched on Monday, may be used to focus on overseas nationals who’re already within the US legally and crack down on worldwide college students who advocate for Palestinian rights, consultants say.
Deepa Alagesan, a lawyer on the Worldwide Refugee Help Mission (IRAP), an advocacy group, stated the brand new order is “larger and worse” than the “xenophobic” journey ban that Trump imposed on a number of Muslim-majority countries in 2017 throughout his first time period.
“The worst a part of it now, it’s trying to not simply ban individuals outdoors the US coming into the US, but additionally to make use of these identical rationales as a foundation to get individuals out of the US,” Alagesan instructed Al Jazeera.
The brand new order directs administration officers to compile an inventory of countries “for which vetting and screening info is so poor as to warrant a partial or full suspension on the admission of nationals from these international locations”.
It goes additional, nonetheless. It requires figuring out the variety of residents who entered the US from these international locations since 2021 — throughout Joe Biden’s presidency — and amassing “related” details about their “actions and actions”.
The White Home then orders “instant steps” to deport overseas residents from these international locations “every time info is recognized that might help the exclusion or elimination”.
Trump’s govt order additionally says the administration should be sure that overseas residents, together with these within the US, “don’t bear hostile attitudes” in direction of Americans, tradition or authorities and “don’t advocate for, support, or help designated overseas terrorists”.
Advocates name order ‘scary’
Alagesan warned that the decree, dubbed “Defending the US from International Terrorists and Different Nationwide Safety and Public Security Threats”, may inflict extra hurt on immigrant families than the 2017 journey restrictions, recognized collectively because the “Muslim ban”.
She stated the order’s imprecise language is “scary” as a result of it seems to provide US companies broad authority to suggest actions towards individuals whom the administration seeks to focus on.
“At its core, it’s simply one other methodology to maintain individuals out, to get people out, to interrupt up households, to incite worry, to ensure that individuals know that they don’t seem to be welcome and that the federal government will carry its power to bear towards them,” Alagesan instructed Al Jazeera.
Different advocacy teams have additionally decried the order since its publication.
The American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee (ADC) stated the decree goes additional than the 2017 “Muslim ban” by giving the federal government “wider latitude to make use of ideological exclusion” to disclaim visas and take away individuals from the US.
“ADC calls on the Trump administration to cease stigmatizing and focusing on total communities, which solely sows division,” the group stated in an announcement.
“America’s promise of freedom of speech and expression — a precept that President Trump himself has lengthy highlighted — now stands in stark contradiction to his new govt order.”
The Muslim Public Affairs Council additionally cautioned in an announcement that enhancing vetting measures for particular international locations dangers “functioning as a de facto Muslim ban underneath the guise of safety protocols”.
Maryam Jamshidi, a professor on the College of Colorado Regulation Faculty, stated the order seems to revive the travel ban from Trump’s first time period, whereas pushing a right-wing agenda within the broader tradition wars.
Components of the decree additionally particularly goal Palestinians and Palestinian rights supporters, Jamshidi added.
“The best may be very invested in persevering with this notion that foreigners, people who find themselves Black, brown, Muslim — not white Judeo-Christian, successfully — are threatening ‘actual People’.”
‘Ugliest potential motion’
In 2018, a number of US media shops reported that Trump told aides the US ought to admit extra immigrants from locations like Norway slightly than individuals from Haiti, El Salvador and African nations, which he known as “s***gap international locations”.
Many right-wing politicians — together with Trump’s present vp, JD Vance — have embraced the “nice alternative” conspiracy principle, which posits that there’s an effort to switch native-born People with immigrants.
Trump’s current order warns towards overseas nationals within the US searching for to undermine or exchange American tradition.
Nonetheless, consultants say it’s unlikely for use as a mass deportation automobile.
“It provides marching orders to the companies to mainly use the complete extent of authorized frameworks and loopholes to take the ugliest potential motion to take away those who the president has determined he doesn’t need right here,” Alagesan stated.
“That stated, there are nonetheless legal guidelines limiting the grounds on which somebody may be eliminated, and there are protections out there to people who find themselves in deportation proceedings.”
Jamshidi additionally stated it’s not clear how the order would go about deporting individuals, noting that it’s not established whether or not the immigration legislation cited provides the administration authority to take away overseas nationals.
The decree depends on a piece of the Immigration and Nationality Act that provides the president energy to limit entry to the US for “any class of aliens” — however to not take away individuals already right here.
“That is most likely not a blanket deportation cost,” Jamshidi stated.
However she warned that the order may result in additional scrutiny towards individuals from these international locations and deter political actions — particularly Palestinian solidarity — that might be perceived as working afoul of the administration’s pointers.
Efforts to deport pupil activists
The order directs US officers to make suggestions to “defend” residents from overseas nationals “who preach or name for sectarian violence, the overthrow or alternative of the tradition on which our constitutional Republic stands, or who present support, advocacy, or help for overseas terrorists”.
Jamshidi stated the language is “actually about overseas nationals, together with overseas college students who’re collaborating in Palestine advocacy”.
With pro-Israel politicians usually calling campus activists “pro-Hamas”, Jamshidi stated Trump’s edict might be used to focus on Palestinian rights advocates who’re within the US on pupil visas.
Each Trump and Secretary of State Marco Rubio have beforehand known as for deporting worldwide college students.
As Palestinian solidarity protests swept the country’s universities following the outbreak of the battle on Gaza, Israel’s supporters, particularly Republicans, painted pupil demonstrators as a menace to campus security.
Rubio led a Senate letter to the Biden administration in October 2023, calling for the elimination of worldwide college students who participated in protests in help of Palestinians.
The letter drew parallels between pupil protesters and the 9/11 attackers. It cited “classes discovered on September 11, 2001, when terrorists, a lot of whom have been finding out in the US or had overstayed visas, carried out the deadliest assault on American soil”.
“Sadly, twenty-two years later, our nation is witnessing public shows from terrorist sympathizers taking to the streets and condoning Hamas’ brutal assaults towards the State of Israel,” the letter learn.
The 2024 Republican Celebration platform additionally requires deporting “pro-Hamas radicals” to make faculty campuses “protected and patriotic once more”.
‘Broader implications’
Dima Khalidi, director of the advocacy group Palestine Authorized, stated it’s “clear” that Trump’s current govt order was crafted to particularly goal Palestinian rights supporters.
She added that, whereas the decree doesn’t specify Israel, pro-Israel teams have been making an attempt to painting criticism of the US ally as not simply anti-Israel and even anti-Semitic however as “un-American”.
“We now have to attach it to this order to the broader ideological imposition that’s occurring and a part of the bigger purging that Trump appears very intent on finishing up,” Khalidi instructed Al Jazeera.
She stated the Trump administration is searching for to make use of the broad discretion in immigration legislation to crack down on Palestinian rights supporters due to their views and circumvent free speech rights.
“They’re actually portray an image for individuals of what’s acceptable, what will not be; what’s American, what will not be; what’s patriotic, what will not be,” Khalidi instructed Al Jazeera.
Critics say the underside line is that, whereas Trump’s first “Muslim ban” focused travellers from a number of Muslim-majority international locations, this order has farther-reaching penalties, together with about what it means to be an American.
For instance, the decree requires measures to make sure the “correct assimilation” of immigrants and “promote a unified American id”.
Jamshidi stated the order has “broader implications for all types of teams than the preliminary iterations of the Muslim ban”.
“It’s one other salvo in the best’s tradition wars,” she instructed Al Jazeera.
