United States President Donald Trump on Friday closed the borders of United States to refugees from around the world and ordered that families fleeing the slaughter in Syria be indefinitely blocked from entering the United States. He also temporarily suspended immigration from several predominantly Muslim countries. In an executive order that he said was part of an extreme vetting plan to keep out ‘radical Islamic terrorists,’ the US President also established a religious test for refugees from Muslim nations, ordering that Christians and others from minority religions be granted priority over Muslims. The executive order suspends the entry of refugees into the United States for a period of 120 days and directs officials to determine additional screening ‘to ensure that those approved for refugee admission do not pose a threat to the security and welfare of the United States.’ The order bars entry into the United States for 90 days from seven predominantly Muslim countries Iraq, Syria, Iran, Sudan, Libya, Somalia and Yemen. According to British newspaper Independent, the US border agents are checking people’s Facebook pages for their political views before allowing them into the country. The newspaper quoted a Houston-based lawyer Mana Yegani and said that several green card holders, who have the right to live and work in the US, were detained by border agents at American airports hours after President Donald Trump signed an executive order banning immigration from seven countries in the Middle East and Africa. In one alleged incident a Sudanese PhD student at Stanford University in California, who has lived in the US for 22 years, was held for five hours in New York and in another a dual Iranian-Canadian citizen was not allowed to board a flight in Ottawa. The move to bar immigrants has been condemned by the UN’s refugee agency (UNHCR) and the International Organisation for Migration who said ‘The needs of refugees and migrants worldwide have never been greater and the US resettlement program is one of the most important in the world,’ ‘The longstanding US policy of welcoming refugees has created a win-win situation: it has saved the lives of some of the most vulnerable people in the world who have in turn enriched and strengthened their new societies.’ It is estimated that only about 15 percent of Muslims worldwide are Arab. Another 30 percent of Muslims live in the Indian subcontinent, 20 percent in sub-Saharan Africa, 17 percent in Southeast Asia and 10 percent in the former Soviet states, according to the Muslim Journal. And there are an estimated 50 to 70 million Muslims in China. Will Trump slam the door shut on all of them; can the US actually do that without facing international isolation?
The idea of keeping family members of American Muslims out of United States, as well as academics, businessmen and women, diplomats, students attending universities in the US and tourists is absurd to say the least. The vast majority of Americans are against this ban, millions have Americans have taken to social networking websites to express their anger and resentment over Trump’s actions. Politicians, academics, authors and celebrities have all come out in force to condemn the ban. The ban and the vetting plan will also cause great difficulty for Pakistanis travelling to the United States. Thousands of Pakistani students travel the US each year for higher education, and many are already studying in US institutes, the vetting process and Trump’s aggressive anti-Muslim policies could pose major problems for them.
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