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Trump’s immigration policy raises the red flag

US President Donald Trump signed an executive order on January 27, 2017, temporarily banning individuals from seven predominantly Muslim countries from entering the US. Countries like Iraq, Iran, Sudan, Libya, Somalia, Syria, and Yemen have been barred from entering the US for 90 days. Trump also called for the construction of a wall on the US-Mexico border and a crackdown on so-called “sanctuary cities” that limit collaboration between local authorities and federal immigration agents.

What does the order mean?

The executive order signed by Trump, dubbed “Enhancing Public Safety in the Interior of the United States,” adopted a priority system that is far broader than the previous administration’s after 2014. Trump’s order specifically names “aliens who have been convicted of any criminal offence; have been charged with any criminal offense, where such charge has not been resolved; have committed acts that constitute a chargeable criminal offense; have engaged in fraud or wilful misrepresentation in connection with any official matter or application before a governmental agency; have abused any program related to receipt of public benefits; are subject to a final order of removal, but who have not complied with their legal obligation to depart the United States; or in the judgment of an immigration officer, otherwise pose a risk to public safety or national security.”

Trump says he wants more strictures in the US refugee admissions, which is one of the most rigorous vetting regimens in the world. It takes around 18 to 24 months in requiring interviews and background checks through multiple federal agencies. This provision would also allow the White House to prioritise Christians from West Asia over Muslims. In fiscal year 2016, the US accepted 37,251 Christian and 38,901 Muslim refugees. Since 2001, the US has accepted nearly 400,000 Christian refugees and 279,000 Muslim refugees. The US has also lowered the total number of refugees to be accepted from any country in 2017 to 50,000, down from 110,000. It has also ordered a review of states’ rights to accept or deny refugees.

What will be the consequences?

Several tech companies, universities and hospitals will be affected as the ban has threatened the work of several doctors, students, researchers, engineers and others. Nearly 200 Google employees, for instance, are affected, prompting the company to recall them to the US in coordination with lawyers. The order has suspended all refugee admissions to the US for 120 days which has left several students from the banned countries uncertain about their future. Samira Asgari, a 30-year-old Iranian woman, was stopped in Switzerland just before boarding a flight to Boston for a post-doctoral fellowship in genomics at the Harvard-affiliated Brigham and Women’s Hospital. The executive order can now certainly affect how companies hire employees and commit to trade deals.

Several immigration lawyers and universities like Princeton University have warned students and residents not to leave the country at present as they might be barred from re-entering. Leading US companies like Alphabet, Amazon, Ford, Goldman Sachs, and Microsoft came out against the policy. Nearly 500,000 people from these banned nations have received green cards in the past decade, which poses a threat to thousands of people who are now at risk of being barred from the US or getting separated from their families.

The order against humanitarian, interna-tional and national laws

The executive order signed by Trump seems to violate several international trea-ties signed by the US. It goes against the 1967 Protocol Relating to the Status of Refugees which updated the post-World War II Refugee Convention of 1951, and other international human rights law that prohibit discrimination on the basis of race, religion or national origin.

Germany’s Chancellor Angela Merkel reportedly “explained” to Trump over the phone the US’ obligations under international refugee law, which requires the international community to take in war refugees on humanitarian grounds. The United Nations Refugee Convention requires that the US provide protection and safe haven to those facing persecution. The country has flagrantly violated laws by shutting its door to refugee admissions, whether temporarily or indefinitely. The US, as per its municipal law, is supposed to follow certain rules when it comes to asylum seekers or refugees: (a) It must not separate refugee families; (b) it must provide them with housing; (c) it must provide them social security numbers and food stamps; (d) they can have work permits, etc.

Article 3 of the Refugee Convention makes clear that all signatory states “apply the provisions … to refugees without discrimination as to race, religion or country of origin”. In 1980, the US Congress enacted the Refugee Act to bring the US into conformity with these obligations after ratifying the 1967 Protocol Relating to the Status of Refugees. The legislative and negotiating histories of the Refugee Convention further made clear that discrimination by contracting states against different groups of refugees is a direct violation of the treaty.

While governments are responsible for design-ing their own refugee resettlement programmes, these programmes must conform to international obligations. They must select refugees for resettlement only on the basis of their needs, regardless of nationality, ethnicity, religion, or other related characteristics. The US seems to have clearly violated the refugee convention. Nobody can deny the fact that this is a Muslim ban seeing the President’s continuous rant of getting rid of ‘Islamic Terrorism’ and the fact that he barred the entry of seven majority Muslim countries. The President had stated in an interview that he wants to provide priority to Christian refugees.

The executive order also contravenes the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR), another treaty to which the US is a state party. Article 26 of the ICCPR requires equal treatment before the law of all persons, without discrimination on any ground, including race, religion, or national or social origin. Article 4 of the ICCPR notes that even in a “time of public emergency which threatens the life of the nation”, states cannot take any action to stray from their obligations that involve discrimination “solely on the ground of race, colour, sex, language, religion or social origin”.

The US accepted 12,486 Syrian refugees in 2016, compared to about 300,000 received by Germany the same year. Since the Syrian civil war began, Turkey has received about 2.7 million refugees, Lebanon 1 million refugees and Jordan 650,000, according to UN estimates. Given the fact that the US is among the international powers responsible to some extent in the ongoing conflict, it has not just a legal but a moral responsibility to take in asylum seekers.

How the world reacted?

After the ban heads of states across the globe reacted with sharp words against US President Donald Trump’s order to restrict people from seven Muslim-majority nations from entering the United States.

Sadiq Khan, the Mayor of London who himself is a son of Pakistani immigrants, had much stronger words, calling Trump’s ban “shameful and cruel.” France foreign minister Jean-Marc Ayrault had strong words for Trump, saying that “Terrorism knows no nationality. Discrimination is no response.” Iranian Foreign Minister Javad Zarif took to Twitter to lay out his government’s response in a series of tweets saying, “Muslim ban will be recorded in history as a great gift to extremists and their supporters.”

The Indian Americans too have voiced their opinion for that matter. Senator Kamala Harris, the first Indian-American to be elected the upper chamber of the United States Congress said, “Creating a deportation force to target immigrant families who are contributing to our society is not a show of strength. Asking taxpayers to pay for an unrealistic border wall is not a solution. And telling cities to deny public safety, education, and health services to kids and families is irresponsible and cruel.”

American activist and lawyer Deepa Iyer while talking to an Indian daily said that, “We are going to see relatively soon an executive order that deals with H-1B and other temporary visas. We are also going to see an executive order on undocumented people. Undocumented Indians comprise the largest population growth of all undocumented people in this country. Just because India is not named in this executive order doesn’t mean it won’t be in the future.”

A federal appeals panel solidly rejected President Trump’s bid to reinstate his ban on travel into the US from the seven largely Muslim nations, a sweeping reproach of the administration’s claim that the courts have no role as a check on the president.

The three-judge panel, suggesting that the ban did not advance national security, said the administration had shown “no evidence” that anyone from the seven nations had committed terrorist acts in the US. The three members of the panel were Judge Michelle T. Friedland, appointed by President Barack Obama; Judge William C. Canby Jr., appointed by President Jimmy Carter; and Judge Richard R. Clifton, appointed by President George W. Bush.  “The government has pointed to no evidence, that any alien from any of the countries named in the order has perpetrated a terrorist attack in the United States,” the decision said.

The ruling also rejected Trump’s claim that courts are powerless to review a president’s national security assessments. Judges have a crucial role to play in a constitutional democracy, the court said. “It is beyond question,” the decision said, “that the federal judiciary retains the authority to adjudicate constitutional challenges to executive action.”