A complete breakdown of Trump’s Immigration Executive Order

Everything you need to know to understand exactly what it means

Within the past few days, just over half of this country has erupted in a collective anger towards the recent executive order signed by President Donald Trump. The executive order, titled above, has been both been branded as a ‘Muslim ban’ but also as something that President Obama approved of back during his first term. What this article is meant to do is to cut through the BS so that the facts and truths can be seen.

Who drafted it?

While the full list of draftees is unknown, the two major government officials that headed this order were Steve Bannon and Stephen Miller.  Steve Bannon, the former executive chair of Breitbart News and now Chief Strategist to the President of the United States. Stephen Miller, previously worked for the senator Jeff Sessions but now is the senior advisor to the President.

Protests erupted at JFK airport following the executive order

What does it do?

For 120 days, anyone who is a citizen of Iran, Iraq, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria or Yemen may not enter the United States unless they are also a legal citizen of the United States. This means that even if you have a green card, student visa, or work visa you may not enter the United States until the ban has either been disbanded or the 120 days has passed. There have been stories of US military translators and university professors not being allowed entry and this is true though their cases may be looked at by US officials and after some time, they may be let in before the 120 days are up.

Though people holding dual citizenship with the United States and one of the seven countries may be subjugated to further questioning at airports before granted entry as reported by The Atlantic.

What doesn’t this do?

What this executive order doesn’t do is ban all Muslims from entering this country. If you are a Muslim from any other country than the 7 listed above, you may enter the country as you would have just days ago.

Does it really affect the countries with the most Muslims?

No, it does not. As of 2010, Pew Research published a list of the top ten countries with the highest Muslim population. Only Iran, one of the seven countries listed in Trumps executive order, made it on the list. Indonesia tops the list with over 200,000,000 Muslims, 13% of the World’s Muslim Population. But of the seven countries chosen, all of them have an extremely high Muslim majority; Syria containing the lowest at 90%.

A Muslim mother with her children at the JFK protests

Are the 7 countries chosen where the majority of terrorists come from?

No. Not at all. There have been no deadly attacks on U.S. soil carried out by terrorists who were from the seven countries listed in the ban. Now, there have been attacks planned but prevented by the U.S. government that ended in imprisonment but it totals to seventeen people over the past forty-five years according to Uri Friedman. The 9/11 hijackers were from Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates, Egypt, and Lebanon. The Boston Marathon bombers were from Kyrgyzstan. The Orlando Pulse shooter was born and raised in New York. Osama bin Laden was born in Saudi Arabia and he died in Pakistan. The fact is, the countries chosen by President Trump through Steven Bannon and Stephen Miller were not based off previous terrorist attacks on the US.

Did Obama do something like this?

Under the Obama administration in 2015, a bill was attached as a “rider” to a “must pass” bill. Basically, the “rider” was too controversial to pass in congress so it was attached to a bill that would pass regardless. In this “rider”, it stated seven countries that were deemed as “countries or areas of concern” with intentions of making it more difficult to gain visas to the United States. It was not to ban people from entering.

What President Trump, Steve Bannon, and Stephen Miller did was take the seven countries already identified previously, and applied them to their executive order.

Did President Trump want a Muslim ban?

On Fox News, Rudy Giuliani, the former mayor of New York City, talked with host Jeanine Pirro about Trump’s immigration executive order and the reasoning behind it. Giuliani went on to say:

“I’ll tell you the whole history of it so when [Trump] first announced it, he said, ‘Muslim ban.’ He called me up. He said, ‘Put a commission together. Show me the right way to do it legally.’”

You may interpret what Rudy Giuliani said however you want but the lawsuit that is in the process of being filed against this executive order will use what Mr. Giuliani said on air as evidence of an intentional religious/Muslim ban.

 

All photos by Charlie Capel.

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