Emma Discher of The New Orleans Advocate interviewed me on Sunday for a story about the executive order on immigration that President Donald Trump signed late Friday afternoon. The order was rushed into implementation that night before DHS and lawyers could figure out what the language means and how it should be applied, and the chaos, fear and heartbreak that took place this weekend came as a result. People from the affected countries were detained even if they had green cards or were U.S. citizens, though by Sunday White House Chief of Staff Reince Priebus said on Sunday morning that those two groups would not be affected.
I told Discher what I have been telling my clients since Trump was elected. The uncertainty we all have about what Trump will do or say means that this is a bad time to travel. The value of visas and other documents that establish status for travel can’t be counted on to speak with the authority that they once had, so as we saw this weekend, travel is risky now for certain classes of immigrants and foreign nationals.
If there is anything positive to come out of the weekend, it is that the courts found in favor those travelers who were detained, and we saw the outpouring of anger and disapproval from across the country and around the world. Neither will mean a lot in the short term, but legal opinions will put pressure on the Trump administration to narrow the scope of the executive order, and public opinion will give politicians reason to strengthen their spines where immigration in concerned.
The most discouraging part of this weekend beyond the unnecessary human pain caused as families were split up and futures were summarily changed is the weak thinking behind the executive order. Trump’s rhetoric during the campaign often equated refugees with terrorists, which is an offensive and grossly erroneous generalization, and he spoke of the need for “extreme vetting” as if he was not aware of the extensive vetting process refugees go through to come to the Unites States already.
The concern he expressed about Syrian refugees “overrunning” Europe isn’t an American one since the Atlantic Ocean lies between them and our borders, and the numbers of Syrian refugees European countries are dealing with pale next to the number of refugees that flow to neighboring countries including Turkey, Lebanon, Jordan, Iraq, Egypt, Pakistan, Greece, and a number of African countries. In short, rather than address anxiety about international and security honestly, President Trump rushed a painful process into place to address a need that doesn’t exist to solve a problem that doesn’t exist.
If this weekend and Trump’s campaign are any indication of what we can expect, this is a good time for everyone in the United States to make sure that there are no questions about their immigration status.
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