Trump's travel ban: the impact on Muslim Travelers

Donald Trump, before being elected, announced, “A total and complete shutdown of Muslims entering the United States.” One week after coming into power, Trump signed an executive order called “Protecting the Nation from Terrorist Entry into the United States”. The purpose of this order was to filter out radical Muslim terrorists. 

What was included in the executive order and what affect did it have on Muslim travelers? This will be discussed in this article.

The Executive Order

The ban by Trump included the following:

- Suspending all refugees for 120 days during which a new system of screening refugees will be put in place.

- Banning entry of individuals from seven majority Muslim countries— Iran, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Yemen, Syria, and Iraq—for 90days.

- Stopping the flow of refugees from Syria until further notice.

To make the ban well-known, Trump broadcasted on the national Christian broadcasting station that the ban was ordered to favor Christian refugees over Muslim refugees.

Many courts deemed the order unconstitutional and so Trump tweaked the order and issued a new one—the green card holders were exempted from this ban. However, this ban was not approved by the court, as it did not appear to be different from the first ban. The judges believed that Trump’s ban was outrageous as it violated the Immigration and Nationality Act.

Trump designed a new version of the ban, which denied entry to 150 million people from 6 Muslim countries and refused entry to individuals from countries like North Korea. However, since individuals from North Korea do not visit the United States anyway, the only people affected by the ban are Muslims.

The impact of the ban

The morning following the Executive Order, two Iraqis at JFK Airport, in New York City, were detained by immigration agents. The Department of Homeland Security reported that 109 people were denied entry into the United States, and around 173 people who were living abroad were not permitted to board their flights when they tried to return.

The ban impacted the Muslims in other ways too. The Guardian highlighted that a Muslim woman could not have her close family members visit her wedding ceremony because of the ban.

Trump’s Islamophobic ban against the Muslim countries is controversial and has affected many Muslims—those living in the United States and those living outside it too.