Shocked by Trump's Muslim Ban? US Has Had This Policy for Decades

Rasa - President Donald Trump is not the first president to have issued an executive order banning Muslims traveling to the United States. Surely, he won’t be the last.

News ID: 427334

Date: 12 February 2017 - 23:39

RNA - The only difference here is that he extended that ban to include Green Card holders and permanent residents. Mind you, he is now considering issuing a new executive order banning Muslims traveling to the US after his initial attempt to clamp down on immigration and refugees snarled to a halt amid political and judicial chaos.

Trump has announced the possibility of a “brand new order” that could be issued at any moment. His signaling of a possible new attack against Muslims comes after an appeals court upheld a ruling that temporarily suspended Trump’s original January 27 executive order banning travel from seven Muslim countries, including Iran.

Trump gives no details of the new edict he is considering. But there is another element at play here, which goes deeper than his political agenda. For what many do not realize, is that the policies and their undergirding ideology that Trump is unleashing on the US and the Muslim world have been pursued by previous administrations for decades and through different methods:

- Trump will rewrite the original order to explicitly exclude Green Card holders and permanent residents. This is simply designed to alleviate international pressures and domestic concerns expressed by the courts.

- Whether or not Trump issues a new edict, or his administration pursues its case in the courts over the original order, US embassies across the globe will not issue new travel visas for Muslims. This hypocritical policy has been around, albeit quietly for decades. The only mistake Trump made was that he escalated the situation by making it public.

- True, the courts fight out this case on the grounds of human rights. But this is only to save face and protect America’s image internationally. They will never bother to enact a law to protect the rights of those who are unable to get new travel visas. Should Trump issue a new order (quietly), he is unlikely to face legal challenges, as opponents will befittingly look the other way.

- Trump’s original order, which he called a national security measure meant to head off attacks by terrorists, has been suspended temporarily. This is not a longer hold and it only focuses solely on Green Card and visa holders. Many people from Iran, Iraq, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria and Yemen are still unable to get new visas. Syrian refugees are also banned indefinitely. This is particularly true for those who apply for a visa at US embassies in the United Arab Emirates and Turkey, where the ban on refugees and blanket immigration restrictions have been applied for decades on the basis of national origin and religion.

- Trump’s unabashed endorsement of torture has horrified politicians, human rights activists and former prisoners alike. At the Guantanamo Bay Prison and other Black Sites around the globe, however, the torture of terror suspects is routine - and rubber-stamped by not just Washington, but also by the Senate and the Congress. Just last month, Trump confirmed that “waterboarding” or other torture methods used on detainees - including physical and psychological abuse, works. The revelations came as no surprise to Muslims, nor those who have documented practices such as sexual torture by American soldiers at the Abu Ghraib Prison in Iraq.

- Last but not the least, Trump denies his hypocritical immigration restrictions constitute a Muslim ban. This grim reality is also well-known to international human rights groups. They report that his ban is designed to ensure no refugees can travel to the US from countries the United States has invaded and destroyed.

The fundamental injustice of this policy is brutally obvious. Many of the countries Trump reportedly is trying to insulate America from would have been happy to be insulated from America. Of the 7 countries that are targeted, 6 are currently being bombed by the US and allies.

The US bans Yemenis, even as it funds a catastrophic war against their country. A war, by the way, that is almost nonexistent in the American press and that is being perpetuated by their vassals in Saudi Arabia. The US bombs Iraq, Libya and Afghanistan, creating a humanitarian nightmare, then locks their peoples inside, and calls it anti-terror executive order. Syria is another country that has been floated as a potential nation non grata. For all the wrong reasons, the US remains a proxy participant in that country’s war, never accepting to end the war, let alone a moral obligation to aid those displaced and harmed by its actions, policies, weapons, and proxy forces.

In a nutshell, the message of Trump’s Muslim ban has to be this: You come from a country we have bombed, occupied, invaded, attempted to overthrow, funneled weapons to, or imposed sanctions on. Stay out. We don’t want you.

847/940