Muslim Ban 2.0:

Trump Is Adding More and More Floors to a Historic Blunder

Rasa - President Donald Trump has signed a new executive order on blocking citizens of six Muslim countries from entering the United States - with certain changes intended to blunt legal and political opposition.

News ID: 427970

Date: 07 March 2017 - 23:50

RNA - The Muslim ban 2.0 executive order was revised to avoid the tumult and protests that engulfed America’s airports and cities after Trump signed his first racist immigration directive on Jan. 27. That order was ultimately blocked by a federal appeals court. The new order, however, continues to impose a 90-day ban on travelers, but it removed Iraq. It also exempts permanent residents and current visa holders, and drops language offering preferential status to persecuted religious minorities, a provision widely interpreted as favoring other religious groups over Muslims. Further, it reverses an indefinite ban on refugees from Syria, replacing it with a 120-day freeze that requires review and renewal.

But the heart of the racist executive action is still intact, reflecting White-Supremacist Trump’s “War on Islam” pledge to safeguard against what he claims is a hidden influx of terrorists and criminals - a hardline campaign promise that resonated deeply with White Supremacists and far-right voters.

As previously, Trump’s revised Muslim ban in the pre-textual guise of national security is still indefensible, discriminatory, and against International Human Rights Law. He has replaced it with a scaled-back version that shares the same fatal flaws. He has recommitted himself to religious discrimination, and he can expect continued disapproval from both the courts, the American people, the rights groups, Muslim nations, and the international civil society.

No doubt the new directive will also continue apace long after the 90-day entry ban on citizens of Iran, Libya, Syria, Somalia, Sudan, and Yemen. History tells us this is just the beginning of a decades-long campaign against the Islamic world. The travel ban will include other Muslim nations too, and will most likely repeat itself like the Iran Sanctions Act.

To substantiate, the Iran Sanctions Act was a 1996 act of Congress that imposed economic sanctions on firms doing business with Iran. On September 30, 2006, the act was extended until December 31, 2011. Last year, and despite the 2015 nuclear deal signed between Tehran and world powers, the US Senate passed a 10-year extension of existing sanctions against Iran, which former President Barack Obama signed into law - despite being in violation of the nuclear agreement.

You get the idea. The act was set to expire at the end of 2016, but still got renewed and extended on new bogus charges. The same argument could be made about Trump’s Muslim ban 2.0. Don’t expect him to waive his own racist policy at the end of the 90-day entry ban. His order is subject to renewal every three months, and despite the ongoing international condemnations and protests, there will be travel ban orders of 3.0 and 4.0 that will most likely apply to other Muslim nations as well.

The order will expire neither after three months, nor after three years, nor after three decades. Like the old executive order, it is intended to target Muslims forever. Simply put, once a Muslim ban, always a Muslim ban:

1- This ban doesn't target those who are the greatest security risk, nor those few Arab regimes that are openly aiding and abetting ISIL and Al-Qaeda militant groups in the region. Instead of “making the Americans safer,” it serves as a gift for terrorists and their patrons who seek to undermine security in the United States and the broader West.

2- The order stigmatizes the faith of Islam and Muslim. This religious discrimination in the pre-textual guise of national security does in no way make America any greater, but does make America less great. Even US lawmakers agree. Many are now calling it "heartless and xenophobic," urging the American people to “reject this dangerous and unconstitutional action that undermines our national security.”

3- This madness will go further. There is overwhelming evidence that the most recent executive order is intended to discriminate against Muslims forever - without a valid security justification. Trump’s own Department of Homeland Security recently concluded that an individual’s “country of citizenship is unlikely to be a reliable indicator of potential terrorist activity" and that few of the impacted countries have terrorist groups that threaten the West.”

The Trump White House should lay its cards on the table regarding exactly what the evidence is. But they never tell the American people and the world community what the evidence is. At its core, this policy is indefensible though, as Trump holdovers have slapped together a shoddy pretext for it. They seek to divide the American people up and to escalate the unending War on Islam.

What’s actually happening here should be obvious. Instead of ending their “regime change” strategies in Syria and Yemen that only exacerbate the current refugee crisis in Europe, the disorganized Trump administration has handed over ideological ammunition to various terrorist groups seeking new recruits to kill Americans. There should be alarm here. Official Washington is now adding more and more floors to this historic blunder.

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