A Moderate’s View on Trump’s Immigration Ban

National media programs, social media, trendy coffee shops, and dive bars across the country are buzzing with emotionally-charged rhetoric related to President Trump’s recent Executive Order regarding an immigration and travel ban for citizens of certain predominantly Islamic countries. Criticisms of the order allege everything from corruption, xenophobia, and racism to inexperience and ineptitude. Proponents of the order, however, cheer it as a long-needed first step in an urgent and radical change they see as necessarily to protecting the United States and its citizens from incoming terrorists. Regardless of our views or their extremity, though, it is important that we have an accurate understanding of the identifiable motivations behind the order, its implementation, and its potential.

One of the most divisive elements of the order has been the countries to which the non-refugee citizen ban has been applied. Some critics of both the Trump administration and of the order itself have suggested or accepted the idea that Trump selected the list of seven countries via a combination of his own personal racial, ethnic or religious bias and consideration for his personal overseas business relationships. While it may or may not be true that the list fits these considerations nicely, the list itself does not appear to have originated with Trump. The exact same seven countries are those listed around a year ago under the previous administration as countries to whose citizens visa waivers should not be granted. This also speaks to the current criticism of the Trump order accusing it of selecting countries that are not, in recent history, the countries of origin for Islamic extremist terrorism on American soil, as the previous administration seemingly completely agreed that these were the countries from which the largest threat of terrorist action existed.

Once we’re past the idea that Trump himself has unfairly or inaccurately created a list of countries to target based solely on his own personal interests, and if we accept that both the current and previous administrations believe that there is at least some level (even though those levels differ) of incoming terrorist threat from the listed countries, we can begin to examine whether or not a renovation of immigration policy was necessary and, if so, if it was correctly implemented. Upon examination of the Visa Waiver Program Improvement and Terrorist Travel Prevention Act of 2015 and of Trump’s executive order on immigration, it is undeniable…