Period 11- Travel Ban?

Hi Emily

Make sure to include a 200-300 word reflection post with your discussion question.

A tweet from President Trump addressing the Travel Ban said "As President, I must act to protect the security and interests of the United States and it's people." By this tweet, he has made it clear that the countries he placed a travel ban on impose threat to our country. Although his statement may be viewed as being "racist" there is evidence that proves otherwise. "The seven Muslim-majority countries targeted in Trump's executive order on immigration were initially identified as "countries of concern" under the Obama administration." Prior to Trumps presidency, these countries were already showing signs of concern to the United States. In December 2015, Obama signed a document which placed restrictions on certain travelers that had visited Iran, Iraq, Sudan, or Syria from the point of March 1, 2011 and after. Shortly after, the Obama Administration also added Libya, Somalia, and Yemen to the list of countries. "It was called in an effort to address the growing threat from Foreign Terrorist Fighters." When looking at Trumps action of banning travel, how is it said that it could be of racial issues? "What the President did was take the first step through this executive order of ensuring that we're looking at the entire system of who's coming in, refugees that are coming in, people who are coming in from places that have a history or that our intelligence suggests that we need to have further extreme vetting for." said Sean Spicer from a CNN report. The travel ban was placed in order to keep American citizens safe from terrorisitic threats and attacks.

www.cnn.com/2017/01/29/politics/how-the-trump-administration-chose-the-7-countries/index.html

Q: If we can not safely vet the immigrants in our country, how else can we assure that we are safe?

@paigemartin - I agree with your statement of "making it tougher for Muslims to enter and thrive within the United States", not only has President Trump targeted these individuals, but he without a doubt has made them feel unwelcome and or dis-included based on his actions. It is quite confusing to express why he targets Muslims who have not in any way, shape or form made conflict with us U.S. citizens. Trump attacking illegal immigrants is clear and does not remain unnoticed. 


@logancroll-  I like how you included Obama and how he put restrictions on certain countries like Syria, Iraq and even Iran.But yes, I also agree how the travel ban was placed to keep our country safe from invaders. However,  those countries most likely were posing some sort of harm at the time so he had a right to put those policies on them, but Trump is just calling out any country without having any evidence behind it. 

President Trumps tweet "Making America Safe is my number one priority. We will not admit those into our country we cannot safely vet." This is a very direct and smart statement showing his reasoning for the travel bans. If we cannot safely check everyone that is coming into this country then we are failing to protect ourselves as much as we can from terror attacks and crimes against our citizens. Although the majority of countries targeted are mainly Muslim this is not racist or targeting of an ethnic group. However, in 2015, 450 of 452 suicide attacks that claimed 4,370 lives were committed by Muslim extremists around the world, according to The Times Of Israel. This does not mean that all Muslims are extremists but with the large amounts of citizens of these countries wanting passage to the United States, it would be extremely difficult to see who has good and bad intentions, because even those who seem moderate can be extremists and not show it completely until action is taken. Onto the ban of Venezuelan officials and North Korean citizens, I find similarities between this and a Cold-War era world. Venezuela has turned towards socialism while North Korea is mirroring the USSR with Military show and threats, along with the testing of ICBMs. So here is my question: Do you think President Trump's ban on Venezuelan officials and their families as well as all of North Korea is meant to prevent the spread of communist ideas and beliefs as we tried to do in the Cold War? And do you think we are in another Cold War situation right now with North Korea?

Both of President Trump's statements, while pertaining to a national safety issue, resorted to a an issue of racism. He is known to have said, “As president, I must act to protect the security and interests of the United States and its people.” as well as posting, "Making America Safe is my number one priority. We will not admit those into our country we cannot safely vet." on Twitter. After reading several articles on this topic it seems that the people opposing this travel ban are doing so because of their interpretation on human rights. An article from NPR says people are "challenging the ban as discriminatory based on religion." However, a majority the attacks that the U.S has faced from foreign countries have been from those that are extremists of the Islamic religion. Therefore, making it a logical decision of the government to place a ban on countries that hold citizens who pose a threat. Muslim majority countries were being supervised even before the Trump administration. For example, an article from CNN writes this," In December 2015, President Obama signed into law a measure placing limited restrictions on certain travelers who had visited Iran, Iraq, Sudan, or Syria on or after March 1, 2011. Two months later, the Obama administration added Libya, Somalia, and Yemen to the list, in what it called an effort to address "the growing threat from foreign terrorist fighters." All that the Trump administration is changing within this is the reinforcement of the original policy as well as an addition of 3 countries. With this the laws have become more strict for immigrants already present in the U.S and for the countries outside the U.S. The republican platform's stance on immigration, however, is still being followed. In an article from Fox News it is stated that, "They have standards that you can meet to get off the list." Therefore the administration is still all for immigration, but it must be safe for the existing legal American Citizens and those who are on the path to becoming legal. It is simply not meant to discriminate all Muslims, but filter out those that should not be entering our country for safety reasons. People should be worrying about the safety the United States and preventing situations like 9/11 from reoccurring, instead of making foreigners feel comfortable before they are even a citizen of the nation.

Question: The Republican party is so often seen as being traditional and not progressive, but when they are, in such a case of moving forward with the safety of the U.S, why is the change seen in such a negative light?

@sarver- I agree that Trump has left out several countries that pose a threat to our country but all of the ones currently on the list do pose a threat. North Korea, while nearly all of its citizens are restricted to travel anywhere foreign, is continually testing new bombs putting the U.S in reach. The Venezuelan government is refusing to comply with our safety standards and the citizens not in power do not pose a direct threat but certain officials in power are being uncooperative. Chad is reported as having terrorist groups within and near the country. All of these countries are possible threats for the time being so none of them should be controversial, however, there are countries that are concerning to the safety of our country that are not on the list so it does make me question the reasoning behind Trump's reformation of the travel ban.

@thompson- It is a possibility that the prevention of communist ideas is a motive for Trump to enforce the travel ban upon these countries, but why ban a country who has limited travel to the U.S in the first place? Was it just symbolic or do the minority of people who have traveled to the U.S from North Korea actually pose an internal threat to the nation? Maybe Trump is trying to make the American people see North Korea as more of a threat by putting them on a list of other threatening countries. Similar to a conversation we had in law about Trump exaggerating the National Anthem issue to create a sense of nationalism among the American people in case of another war.