There’s more to Trump’s ‘Muslim ban’ than meets the eye

Those who fret that US President Donald Trump’s latest immigration order is some new edict should check the facts — and recent history, writes James Morrow.

“Trump’s banned Muslims!”

The cry that went out across social media over the weekend was so overheated it is amazing that somewhere in Oregon there is not a steaming pile of melted plastic and metal where once a Twitter server farm stood proudly.

Especially when one considers that this claim was made concurrently with other, contradictory assertions.

Such as that with the lure of a potential business deal on the horizon, the supposedly Islamophobic Trump put his distrust of the world’s Muslim population in his back pocket long enough to give the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia a pass.

Or that ISIS might turn Trump’s move into a new recruiting tool, offering aggrieved Muslims the chance to join up and... kill their fellow Muslims, who are by far the largest victims of that evil bunch.

Please check the facts. (Pic: Steve Marcus/Las Vegas Sun via AP)

For the reflexively anti-Trump, being outraged means never having to be consistent.

Yet details of Trump’s executive order, or EO, are becoming clearer. And while there is much not to like about how it was rolled out — stranding permanent residents who have already undergone countless security and background checks in transit caused much unnecessary grief — there was also nothing extraordinary about it. In fact, tapping the brakes on admissions from certain countries has plenty of precedent. In substance if not in style, former president Barack Obama (who also, let it be noted, bombed many of the countries in the frame of Trump’s edict with barely a peep of protest from today’s newly-energised Left) did the same thing when he suspended processing of all Iraqi visa applications for six months in 2011.

The combined population of countries affected by the order comes to about 213 million, and not all of those are Muslims. This is still about 1.4 billion souls short of an actual “ban on Muslims”. And the countries involved (Iran, Iraq, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria, and Yemen) were listed on the advice of the US Department of Homeland Security which targeted them as “countries of concern” during the Obama administration. That same administration also passed its own “Muslim ban”, aka, the Terrorist Travel Prevention Act of 2015. But as much as Trump might blame an American media, large segments of which have declared themselves in permanent opposition to the new administration (a healthy change from the Obama era when coverage was more, shall we say, softball), the White House has only itself to blame for a rollout which appeared to give little thought to communication or implementation.

And those who worry about an “imperial” presidency where the White House can run roughshod over Congress should always oppose government by executive fiat, no matter the party in power. But those who fret that Trump’s immigration order is some new, dark edict that foretells terrible days ahead should check the facts and recent history.

James Morrow is the opinion editor for The Daily Telegraph

Originally published as There’s more to Trump’s ‘Muslim ban’ than meets the eye