Travel Ban Trade-Off

Chance and Sachin aren’t fans of this ban. Read on to find out why.

Sachin’s perspective:

President Trump’s executive order banning 218 million people from entering the United States is more than shocking. It’s downright scary. According to the New York Times, the executive order bars citizens from 7 Muslim-majority nations (Iran, Iraq, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria and Yemen) for 90 days, bans all refugees for 120 days, and bans Syrian refugees indefinitely. As a result, the ban prevents international students, workers, new immigrants, and refugees from touching or returning to American soil.

By banning certain Muslim immigrants from coming to the U.S., President Trump continues to alienate the Muslim community. When Muslim Americans see that the nation they call home is banning Muslim immigrants, they become second-class citizens. Imagine you’re a Muslim teenager who spent his whole life in America only to see his nation gradually marginalize his religion. You would feel devastated and betrayed. By alienating the Muslim community, President Trump makes radicalization easier not harder. History shows us how immigration bans and attacks on foreigners create lasting blemishes on our nation from the Japanese internment camps to the Chinese Exclusion Act. The real solution to this problem is equipping national security agencies with effective resources to stop terrorism, implementing common sense gun control legislation, and establishing positive contacts with the Muslim community in America. Only then can we comprehensively address this issue.

The security of our nation is important but so is protecting the rights of the citizens within it. This executive order demonstrates a clear lack of understanding by proposing a hastily put-together solution to a far-more complicated issue. I’d like to end with the sentiments of 16 attorney generals who explained “religious liberty has been, and always will be, a bedrock principle of our country and no president can change that truth.”

Chance’s perspective:

While I have my reservations about the travel ban, I don’t agree with Sachin that the executive order is incorrect because it will alienate Muslims. The five countries with the highest Muslim populations, (Indonesia, Pakistan, India, Bangladesh, and Nigeria), are not affected by this executive order, excluding around 86% of Muslims from this ban. Clearly, it is a misnomer to call this a Muslim ban. This temporary travel ban is instead harmful because it was ill-advisedly and hastily rolled out.

The intended purpose of this executive order was correct. A temporary break in travel, allowing time for the US to configure a better system for accurate background checking is very reasonable. The travel ban should have, however, been paired with another executive order calling for safe zones in the targeted Middle Eastern countries, which was in fact one of President Trump’s original plans. Conservative radio host Ben Shapiro explained it best when he argued that the order should’ve “run through the Office of Legal Counsel, and in accordance with the Department of Homeland Security, it should have exempted translators for the US Military” and “green card holders.” This travel ban could have been backed by several national security organizations who would’ve clarified its scope and specified its exemptions. Instead, we ended up with an executive order that left students with legitimate visas and military families in limbo. This hasty order proved detrimental as it further divided the country.

Common Ground: Chance and Sachin

We both disagree with the execution of this executive order and hope to see the Trump administration take more caution before hastily rolling out orders in the future. It seems that political compromise hasn’t died after all.