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muslim ban
Resisting Authoritarianism by Exhaustion: Why We Must Fight Trump’s New Travel Ban
Despite affecting far more people than the 2017 ban, Trump's second ban passed almost without notice: no airport protests, no sustained outrage, and little public awareness that it had happened at all.
Jan 15, 2026
Just a week after Donald Trump first took office as president, he signed Executive Order 13769—his first travel ban. It halted refugee admissions and suspended entry into the US for citizens of Iran, Iraq, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria, and Yemen. All of these countries have a Muslim majority. Because of that, and also because Trump had previously said that he intends to ban Muslims from the US, critics referred to the order as a “Muslim ban.”
The backlash was immediate and broad, coming from Republicans and Democrats alike, as well as US diplomats, business leaders, universities, faith groups, and international organizations such as the United Nations and Amnesty International. Protests erupted in airports and cities across the US. A friend and I—both of us immigrants to the US ourselves—spontaneously drove to the international airport in Houston to express our outrage, along with hundreds of other protesters. I remember I felt hopeful. Surely, even people who didn’t come out to the airport would recoil once they learned what the order was actually doing to real human beings—for example, to the 78-year-old Iranian grandmother, certainly not a threat to national security, who came to the US with a valid visa to visit her children, as she did every year. She was detained for 27 hours at LAX, denied access to lawyers, and fell ill before finally being allowed to enter the country.
Today, nine years later and one year into the second Trump presidency, I’m less hopeful. On the first day of 2026, a proclamation signed by Trump took effect, expanding an earlier travel restriction to 39 countries. Citizens of these countries, as well as holders of travel documents issued by the Palestinian Authority, are generally barred from obtaining visitor, student, exchange, or immigrant visas. Turkmenistan is a partial exception: Its citizens may obtain nonimmigrant visas such as tourist, student, or exchange visas, but immigrant visas remain suspended. The other countries subject to the ban are Afghanistan, Angola, Antigua and Barbuda, Benin, Burkina Faso, Burundi, Chad, the Republic of the Congo, Côte d’Ivoire, Cuba, Dominica, Equatorial Guinea, Eritrea, Gabon, the Gambia, Haiti, Iran, Laos, Libya, Malawi, Mali, Mauritania, Myanmar, Niger, Nigeria, Senegal, Sierra Leone, Somalia, South Sudan, Sudan, Syria, Tanzania, Togo, Tonga, Venezuela, Yemen, Zambia, and Zimbabwe. Together, they make up about 20% of the world’s countries.
Despite affecting far more people than the 2017 ban, this one passed almost without notice: no airport protests, no sustained outrage, and little public awareness that it had happened at all. This is partly because it has become impossible to keep up with the incessant noise coming from the White House, which Trump’s former chief political strategist Steve Bannon has explained is strategic: “The real opposition is the media. And the way to deal with them is to flood the zone with shit.” As the noise about the Nobel Peace Prize, the “War on Christmas,” shower pressure, and wind turbines causing cancer absorbs public attention, Trump advances a steady program of norm breaking and lawlessness. The ongoing extrajudicial killings of people on boats in the Pacific and the Caribbean, the illegal abduction of Nicolás Maduro, the threats against Greenland, the masked federal agents terrorizing communities across the US, the separation of families and disappearances of people to inhumane prisons at home and abroad, and the cuts in foreign aid that have already cost countless lives are just some examples. In normal times, none of these would be partisan issues. But these are not normal times.
Entire populations are labeled as dangerous or undesirable, reinforcing discrimination and social exclusion both inside and outside the US.
As understandable and human it is that many of us are worn down by a sustained state of outrage, we must pay attention and cannot allow exhaustion to harden into indifference. Silence is complicity, and complicity is not an option.
On a human level, the January 1 travel ban means this: Students who earned admission to US universities and secured funding after years of studying and planning are now barred from enrolling, losing scholarships and life-changing educational opportunities. Students who already started academic programs in the US and traveled home to renew their visas cannot return to finish their degrees. Parents with lawful status in the US are unable to have their children abroad come and join them, leaving families indefinitely separated. Children are prevented from traveling to the US to sit with a dying parent, attend a funeral, or provide end-of-life care. Married couples, fiancés, and partners are forced into separation. Patients who rely on specialized or lifesaving treatment available only in the US are prevented from entering. Professionals and academics are unable to attend conferences. Entrepreneurs and businesspeople are blocked from attending critical meetings or negotiating deals. Entire populations are labeled as dangerous or undesirable, reinforcing discrimination and social exclusion both inside and outside the US.
This is not an exhaustive list, but merely a snapshot of the devastating and entirely predictable consequences of Trump’s new travel ban. Like its predecessors, it is not a security measure. It is a choice to inflict harm on ordinary people, and this choice is deliberately cruel. As I’m writing this, the Trump administration has announced a further escalation: the suspension of immigrant visas for 75 countries, a move that primarily affects families by closing the door on reunification. If we meet such policy choices with silence, authoritarianism has already won.
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The US Is Slamming the Door on Children From Gaza; I Saw Their Faces
This is Muslim Ban 2.0: treating every Palestinian from Gaza as a threat, as if even wounded children were anything other than victims of Israeli genocide.
Aug 26, 2025
Farah doesn’t know me. I was just one of 100 people who gathered at San Francisco International Airport when she arrived last year. I work for the Council on American-Islamic Relations, and we had invited the media to cover her story. HEAL Palestine, a humanitarian nonprofit, had arranged for her medical treatment in the Bay Area after she lost her eye and leg in an Israeli bombing in Gaza.
Now, the State Department has announced it is blocking new visas for Palestinians from Gaza. On X, the department stated: “All visitor visas for individuals from Gaza are being stopped while we conduct a full and thorough review of the process and procedures used to issue a small number of temporary medical-humanitarian visas in recent days.”
In plain terms, this means slamming the door on children like Farah and others I’ve seen arrive in the Bay Area. Ahmed came through San Francisco carrying his own war injuries and trauma, clinging to the hope that here, at least, he could heal. Just weeks ago, three more children made it through: Layan, 14, burned and struck by shrapnel when her school was bombed. Anas, 8, who lost his father in an airstrike that crushed his leg. Ghazal, 6, wounded when an Israeli bomb exploded while her family was displaced in Rafah.
These are the children that Laura Loomer and Rep. Randy Fine (R-Fla.) call “terrorists.” Loomer posted videos of some of the most recent arrivals and demanded that the State Department ban entry to “Islamic invaders.” That’s not just cruelty—it’s Islamophobia, plain and simple.
The same government that funds and arms Israel’s bombardment of Gaza is now moving to stop even the few wounded children who might otherwise reach safety and care.
And it worked. The State Department’s move to stop visas for Gazans echoes the same fearmongering behind US President Donald Trump’s Muslim Ban. This is Muslim Ban 2.0: treating every Palestinian from Gaza as a threat, as if even wounded children were anything other than victims of Israeli genocide.
That is what dehumanization looks like: You stop seeing children as children. You don’t see the burns on their skin, the missing limbs, the trauma etched into their faces. You don’t see the mothers and fathers carrying them through bombed-out streets, desperate just to keep them alive.
The same government that funds and arms Israel’s bombardment of Gaza is now moving to stop even the few wounded children who might otherwise reach safety and care. The cruelty is staggering.
When Layan, Anas, and Ghazal arrived at the San Francisco airport, I saw Farah again—this time with her prosthetic eye and leg. She cried as she welcomed the newcomers.
These children are our shared responsibility, and to deny that is to deny our own humanity. James Baldwin understood this truth when he wrote: “The children are always ours, every single one of them, all over the globe; and I am beginning to suspect that whoever is incapable of recognizing this may be incapable of morality.”
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Trump's New Blanket Travel Bans Denounced as 'Beyond Shameful'
While advocacy groups vow to fight the unlawful order, one Democratic lawmaker said, "We cannot continue to allow the Trump administration to write bigotry and hatred into U.S. immigration policy."
Jun 05, 2025
Progressive lawmakers, civil rights groups, and humanitarians responded with outrage and condemnation overnight and into Thursday after President Donald Trump announced a blanket travel ban on 12 countries and harsh restrictions on seven others, calling the move a hateful and "unlawful" regurgitation of a policy he attempted during his first term.
In total, the executive order from Trump's White House would impact people and families from 19 countries. Twelve nations would face a total ban: Afghanistan, Myanmar, Chad, the Republic of the Congo, Equatorial Guinea, Eritrea, Haiti, Iran, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, and Yemen. People from seven other nations would face severe restrictions: Burundi, Cuba, Laos, Sierra Leone, Togo, Turkmenistan, and Venezuela.
In a video posted to social media late Wednesday night, Trump cited this week's attack, carried out by a lone individual in Colorado, to attempt to justify the need for the far-reaching restrictions, which the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), the nation's largest Muslim civil rights and advocacy organization, decried as "unnecessary, overbroad and ideologically motivated."
"Just like his first Muslim Ban, this latest announcement flies in the face of basic morality and goes directly against our values. This racist policy will not make us safe, it will separate families and endanger lives. We cannot let it stand." —Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.)
While the order sparked fresh condemnation, it does not come as a surprise from the Trump administration, which has made xenophobic rhetoric and anti-immigrant policy a cornerstone of its tenure. As the Washington Post reports:
Reinstating a travel ban has been a long-standing campaign promise for Trump. During his first term, he initially barred travel from seven Muslim-majority countries — under what became known as "the Muslim ban."
After legal challenges, updated versions expanded the list to eight countries, including North Korea and Venezuela. President Joe Biden revoked the policy in 2021.
"Automatically banning students, workers, tourists, and other citizens of these targeted nations from coming to the United States will not make our nation safer," said Nihad Awad, the executive director of CAIR, in response to Trump's new order. "Neither will imposing vague ideological screening tests that the government can easily abuse to ban immigrants based on their religious identity and political activism."
Even with the exceptions outlined in Trump's executive order, said Awad, "this new travel ban risks separating families, depriving students of educational opportunities, blocking patients from access to unique medical treatment, and creating a chilling effect on travelers."
Democratic lawmakers, including Reps. Ilhan Omar of Minnesota and Pramila Jayapal of Washington spoke out forcefully against the presidential order.
"This discriminatory policy is beyond shameful," said Omar in reaction to the news. "Just like his first Muslim Ban, this latest announcement flies in the face of basic morality and goes directly against our values. This racist policy will not make us safe; it will separate families and endanger lives. We cannot let it stand."
In her statement, Jayapal said there "are a myriad of reasons that people come to the United States, from travel and tourism to fleeing violence and dangerous situations. This ban, expanded from Trump's Muslim ban in his first term, will only further isolate us on the world stage."
Jayapal continued by saying the "discriminatory policy," which she noted is an attack on legal immigration processes, "not only flies in the face of what our country is supposed to stand for, it will be harmful to our economy and our communities that rely on the contributions of people who to America from this wide range of countries. Banning a whole group of people because you disagree with the structure or function of their government not only lays blame in the wrong place, it creates a dangerous precedent."
Referencing the broader approach of Trump's policies, Jayapal accused Trump of "indiscriminately taking a chainsaw to our government, destroying federal agencies that keep us safe, indiscriminately cutting jobs, and hindering our progress across research fields. This will only further hurt our country, and cannot be allowed to stand."
Sen. Ed Markey (D-Mass.) offered a similar assessment:
Oxfam America also slammed the announcement.
"A new travel ban marks a chilling return to policies of fear, discrimination, and division," said Abby Maxman, the group's president and CEO.
"By once again targeting individuals from Muslim-majority countries, countries with predominantly Black and brown populations, and countries in the midst of conflict and political instability, this executive order deepens inequality and perpetuates harmful stereotypes, racist tropes, and religious intolerance," said Maxman. "This policy is not about national security—it is about sowing division and vilifying communities that are seeking safety and opportunity in the United States."
The travel ban on predominantly Muslim-majority nations attempted by Trump during his first term sparked large public protests as well as a wave of legal challenges. The new ban is likely to garner a similar response.
"This latest travel ban would deny entry to individuals and families fleeing war, persecution, and oppression, forcing them to remain in dangerous conditions. It will prevent family reunifications, and America’s historical legacy as a welcoming nation will be further eroded," said Maxman. "Oxfam will continue to advocate to ensure that this ban is struck down. The U.S. must uphold the dignity and rights of all people, no matter their religion or country of origin."
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Dear Europe: Time to Confront Your Hypocrisy on Trump's America
If we want to understand the political and material conditions that make anti-democratic movements like Trumpism possible, then we must openly and honestly confront how our own apathy in the face of eroding rights for society's most vulnerable.
Apr 16, 2025
The United States is witnessing a collapse in travel and tourism from Europe, often based on a fear of what could happen when the U.S. border is reached. Many Europeans are refusing to purchase U.S. products and services in protest against the Trump administration. Solidarity is also being expressed for U.S. university professors and students in the wake of crackdowns on academic freedom and free expression on campuses across the country.
As an American in Europe, and as someone who has consistently and publicly pointed to Trump’s obvious anti-democratic ideology, I completely understand these reactions. There is justified outrage over what is happening right now in the U.S.
This justification, however, cannot hide an uncomfortable truth. Namely, that Europeans (and many of my fellow Americans) have for decades been more than happy to ignore state violence and the abuse of human rights committed by the United States so long as the victims were poorer people in “other” parts of the world, or poorer people in marginalized sections of U.S. society.
The U.S. has the death penalty, the application of which had been proven to be overtly discriminatory and racist. The U.S. has a long history of supporting regimes engaged in human rights abuses, including the suppression of academic freedom. The U.S. has for decades interfered with democratic elections across the globe, often subverting the will of the people. The U.S. destroyed Iraq in the interests of oil. The Obama government convicted more whistleblowers than all other U.S. administrations combined, and he also engaged in the wide-scale use of “extra judicial” drone warfare that led to the deaths of large numbers of civilians, including children. During his first administration, Trump passed a “Muslim Ban.”
Trumpism was made possible, at least in part, by a political and cultural environment where commitments to democracy and human rights—the supposed core of “Western values”—proved to be little more than flexible PR slogans.
These things, it seems, were tolerable to many European democrats. But when U.S. actions impacted Europeans coming to the U.S., caused damage to the European stock market or led to Europeans being denied jobs or research grants? Well, you have to draw the line somewhere.
And therein lies an even more uncomfortable truth. That Trumpism was made possible, at least in part, by a political and cultural environment where commitments to democracy and human rights—the supposed core of “Western values”—proved to be little more than flexible PR slogans.
I was a PhD student in Texas on September 11, 2001. I witnessed how my country (and the UK) engaged in the destruction of Iraq and the killing of hundreds of thousands of innocent Iraqis as U.S. media (and many U.S. citizens) cheered the grotesque killing. As would become apparent, these were citizens who not only had nothing to do with September 11, but their country wasn’t even involved.
The Western reaction? A collective shoulder shrug.
Did European travel to the U.S. collapse? Did European universities call for an academic boycott of U.S. higher education and academic journals? Was there a call to end research collaboration? Did academics stop attending conferences in the U.S.? Did citizens boycott U.S. products? No. Europeans were happy to travel to the U.S. as soldiers slaughtered civilians in Iraq and the government passed the Patriot Act (allowed for mass surveillance).
Why? Because the people being killed, surveilled, stopped and searched at the airport were Muslims or other minorities, not Christian families from London, Stockholm, or Frankfurt on their way to New York or Disneyland. The Iraqi stock market crashed, not Spain’s. The slaughter in Gaza is a stain on global humanity, only made possible by U.S. weapons and financing. I have yet to hear a call for cutting cultural or political ties with the U.S. over this ongoing atrocity. If we are being completely honest with ourselves, we should at least admit that, because of its massive global reach, boycotting the U.S. would have a major impact on our daily life in ways that boycotts of other nations simply do not. So we do not do it.
My argument is simple. If we want to understand the political and material conditions that make anti-democratic movements like Trumpism possible, then we must openly and honestly confront how our own apathy about the violation of the rights of the weakest in society can be exploited and expanded to later violate the rights of groups usually seen as “safe” from such exploitation.
There is plenty of blame for Trumpism to go around. That sometimes means a painful look inward.
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How Harris Can Win Back Voters Who Opposed Biden Over Gaza
By fully charting a new course on Gaza policy, Vice President Harris can build on this goodwill, win back the support of American Muslims and other voters in key swing states and, ultimately, save the country from another Trump presidency.
Jul 29, 2024
In the weeks leading up to President Biden's withdrawal from the presidential race, most of the editorial boards, party activists, and elected officials calling for him to end his reelection campaign focused on only one issue: age.
But there was another reason President Biden needed to drop out: Gaza.
Long before President Biden's debate meltdown sparked panic in the Democratic establishment, his support for the Israeli government's war in Gaza sparked outrage in the Democratic base, where 56 percent of the party's supporters have described the war as a genocide.
At least half a million Democratic voters protested President Biden's support for the Gaza genocide by voting uncommitted or submitting blank ballots during the presidential primaries earlier this year, including over 100,000 people in Michigan, 88,000 in North Carolina and 46,000 in Minnesota.
Over 1 in 5 Democrats or independents in key swing states said they were less likely to vote for President Biden due to the war, according to a YouGov-AJP-Action poll in May. Over a quarter of those voters said that an immediate and lasting ceasefire, full entry of humanitarian aid to Gaza, and conditions on military aid for Israel’s war were the minimum policy changes needed to secure or solidify their votes for Biden.
Vice President Harris has already neutralized the concerns of voters worried about President Biden's age. Now she must address the concerns of voters who opposed his support for the war on Gaza.
Many Democratic voters were alienated even more by President Biden's failure to call out reports of anti-Palestinian racism and Islamophobic violence with the same fervor he uses to call out reports of antisemitic rhetoric, as well as his criticism of the diverse, overwhelmingly peaceful student protests on college campuses.
Frustrated voters included Muslim Americans, Arab Americans, Black Americans, young people and others who helped carry him to victory in 2020. If those voters ended up supporting third party candidates or boycotting the presidential race altogether in November—as some promised to do if Biden remained on the ticket and did not change course—they could have easily tipped the results in Michigan and other key swing states.
Now that President Biden has withdrawn from the presidential race, Vice President Kamala Harris has a chance to turn the page, chart a new course, and win back those voters, including American Muslims.
That's what our coalition of American Muslim political organizations is calling on her to do.
Vice President Harris has already neutralized the concerns of voters worried about President Biden's age. Now she must address the concerns of voters who opposed his support for the war on Gaza.
Many American Muslims are open to supporting Vice President Harris if she distances herself from President Biden's Gaza policy, respectfully engages with all of our community leaders, picks a vice presidential nominee who does not have a history of explicit hostility towards our community like Governor Josh Shapiro, and commits to concrete policy proposals that would stop the genocide, end the broader occupation of the Palestinian people, and establish a just peace.
Taking these steps will set her apart from not only President Biden, but also from President Trump.
Most American Muslims do not want Donald Trump to return to office for perhaps obvious reasons. The former president has made it clear that he plans to round up undocumented immigrants as part of the largest mass deportation in American history, reinstate the Muslim Ban, stack the federal civil service with political loyalists, and pursue a foreign policy just as or even more, immoral than President Biden’s foreign policy.
During the presidential debate, President Trump even said that the Israeli government should be allowed to complete its war on Gaza, ignored the question of whether he would support the recognition of a Palestinian state to achieve peace, and weaponized Palestinian identity as a racist insult.
After President Trump's speech at the RNC, Republican Jewish Coalition CEO Matt Brooks reportedly said that he believes Trump will give the Israeli government a "blank check" to “finish the job quickly” in Gaza.
“If you need to carpet bomb the area, do it," Brooks said.
Vice President Harris now has the opportunity to contrast herself with Trump on this issue in ways President Biden could not. She has already built up some goodwill in the American Muslim community by using a noticeably more humane tone when discussing Palestinian suffering compared to others in the administration.
She just took heat from the far-right Zionist Organization of America, which ridiculously accused her of embracing "Arab Islamist criminality" because she dared to express some understanding of college students protesting the war on Gaza.
This week, Vice President Harris also declined the opportunity to sit behind Benjamin Netanyahu during his controversial address to Congress. After privately meeting with him on Thursday, Harris delivered remarks about Gaza that were far more balanced and humane than anything Joe Biden has said in nine months.
By fully charting a new course on Gaza policy, Vice President Harris can build on this goodwill, win back the support of American Muslims and other voters in key swing states and, ultimately, save the country from another Trump presidency. She must not miss this opportunity.
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What Will It Take To Stop Hatred Towards Muslims?
Muslims are loving, peaceful people. Our holy book, the Quran, explicitly states that taking a life is the same as killing all of humanity, and saving a life is the same as saving all of humanity.
Jan 26, 2024
My faith tradition, Islam, has always taught me to speak up for justice, condemn hate, and value our shared humanity. For this reason, I have spent almost my entire career working for causes that advance social justice.
In the post-9/11 era, I chose to work for a Muslim civil rights organization. As a spokesperson for the organization, I became a target of hate groups and received hate emails and threatening messages. During the Trump Administration, I staunchly opposed the Muslim Ban and worked to reunify immigrant families, and faced backlash throughout. And now, as thousands of Muslims get killed overseas, I’m working to dismantle the forces of Muslim hatred here at home, and am once again experiencing opposition.
I’m holding out hope for a better tomorrow. But with every major period of hatred towards Muslims, my hope shakes. Despite decades of advocacy, most policymakers, leaders, and influencers are still fearful to speak in support of Muslims – or worse, they embrace blatant discrimination.
It’s mind-boggling that it is controversial to condemn hate against Muslims. The fact that we can’t even do that—the absolute bare minimum—reveals just how dangerous it is to be a Muslim in America and how far away we are from true acceptance.
While Muslim Americans are being violently attacked nationwide, some people believe that it is not the right time to combat Islamophobia.
Muslims in America face hatred in all aspects of their lives: School, work, banks, airports, houses of worship, interactions with law enforcement, polling locations, social media, and more. Muslims are among the most likely of all minority groups to be subject to hate incidents, according to research conducted by the Institute for Social Policy and Understanding (ISPU) between 2016 and 2022. It’s mentally and physically grueling.
Muslim civil rights organizations are also reporting that there has been an exponential increase in hate crimes and bias incidents against Muslims, especially Palestinians, since October 7th. And blood has been shed. A landlord in Illinois who was radicalized by elected leaders and the media killed his 6-year-old Palestinian tenant Wadea Al-Fayoume. Weeks later, three Palestinian students - Tahseen Ali Ahmad, Kinnan Abdalhamid, and Hisham Awartani – were shot in Vermont.
I recently drafted a resolution to condemn and combat Islamophobia along with my co-author Sami Shaban, a Palestinian American. I introduced the resolution to the Princeton community, where I have lived for almost two decades. I thought the process would be simple. After all, why would there be backlash to a statement that simply condemns hate against Muslims?
I was taken aback when the resolution faced opposition. A community leader felt that given the events of October 7th, it was not the right time to pass such a resolution without an equivalent for antisemitism. They also felt that there had not been sufficient condemnation of the attacks of October 7th.
It was painful, gut-wrenching opposition. Allies, including an LGBTQ+ community leader, and I explained that Princeton had already passed a resolution to condemn and combat antisemitism some time ago—and that the Islamophobia resolution was actually modeled after it. I also felt the need to state that as a Muslim, I am against all violence and that violence is never a solution, especially to a political problem.
After much negotiation, the community leader eventually supported the resolution. And in December, Princeton Mayor and Council elected leaders—who supported the resolution throughout wholeheartedly—unanimously passed it.
This experience was just a microcosm of what’s happening all over the country. While Muslim Americans are being violently attacked nationwide, some people believe that it is not the right time to combat Islamophobia. And, just as in this situation, many national leaders are seizing the opportunity to pit Jewish and Muslim communities against each other. That’s deeply troubling.
As a Muslim, I am against all violence and that violence is never a solution, especially to a political problem.
Muslim and Jewish communities are natural allies. Muslims love Moses as a prophet of God, and the Torah is one of our holy books. And right now, both of our communities are experiencing unbearable pain and hatred here at home. It is important, in our support of one another's communities, to recognize that while we must acknowledge and combat the hatred against both groups, we must not be conditional in that support.
The event was also a painful reminder that despite my decades-long work to advance justice for all marginalized communities, for some people, I will always be seen as a terrorist sympathizer. While every religion has its share of terrorists – those who claim to commit horrible acts falsely in the name of their religion – I don’t know that any other community has to constantly defend itself. It is exhausting for Muslim Americans to constantly state, “I condemn terrorism,” and to be held responsible for any acts of terrorism committed around the world by terrorists claiming to be Muslims. In fact, to demand and expect such condemnations of us is a perpetuation of Islamophobia and is harmful to the Muslim community because we continue to only be seen through the lens of terrorism. This is very traumatizing for the Muslim American community.
Muslims are loving, peaceful people. Our holy book, the Quran, explicitly states that taking a life is the same as killing all of humanity, and saving a life is the same as saving all of humanity. As we gear up to introduce this resolution nationwide, I hope that our leaders will acknowledge the plight of Muslim people and treat us with the respect and dignity we deserve.
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Three Crimes Trump Should Have Been Indicted for Instead
Some of the actions Trump took while president were much, much worse than storing some old files in his bathroom.
Jun 11, 2023
Although the saga of Trump’s mishandling of classified documents, as revealed in the 38-count indictment, is shocking to anyone who has ever been involved in government work, it is also darkly comic and trivial. Trump seems to have held on to the top secret documents the way a collector hangs on to objets d’art once loaned to him—just to have them around and to take them out and show people to impress them from time to time.
There isn’t any evidence that he planned to use the documents to make money or to blackmail someone. He was just a spoiled rich guy born with a silver spoon in his mouth who was used to keeping stuff he wanted to keep, and was used to impressing people with his stuff.
In my view some of the actions Trump took while president were much, much worse than storing some old files in his bathroom. The government over-classifies things, and the 1917 Espionage Act, which underpins some of the charges against him, is unconstitutional and should be struck down. Maybe if the Republicans are angered enough by its use against their party’s leader they can be proper libertarians and get rid of the damn thing.
Trump seems to have held on to the top secret documents the way a collector hangs on to objets d’art once loaned to him—just to have them around and to take them out and show people to impress them from time to time.
So here are three things Trump did, which immediately come to mind, that should have been crimes that landed him in jail.
1. Trump initiated a formal policy of family separation of undocumented immigrants to the United States. He didn’t change the law, just the way Homeland Security and other agencies viewed the law. It is not intrinsically illegal for people to enter the U.S. without a visa, if, for instance, they are seeking asylum. You can’t really tell the status of their case until they go before a judge. So up until 2017 they weren’t considered criminals. But Trump encouraged law enforcement to disregard asylum claims and to view them as having broken the law for just having stepped foot in the U.S. If they were criminals they had to be jailed. And children cannot be held in a jail for adults. So the practical outcome of treating the parents as criminals was that their children would be taken from them by child services and placed in juvenile detention or even in foster homes.
The policy had no other rationale but cruelty. Then White House Chief of Staff John Kelly, part of Trump’s psychopathocracy, openly boasted about sending a message in this way to immigrant families not to come with their children. There is no, repeat, no evidence that the family separations slowed immigration. The practice did, however, resemble the actions of slavers in the America of the 19th century who separated enslaved families and sold family members down the river. Some of the children taken away were U.S.-born. The government lost track of others. Some children were abused.
Anybody who did a thing like that should go to jail for life.
Anybody who did a thing like that should go to jail for life. But it wasn’t even illegal, and, although 66% of Americans disapproved, 27% thought it was the right thing to do.
2. Muslim Ban. Trump tried three times to come up with regulatory language that would allow him to ban some Muslims from coming to the United States. Discriminating against people on the basis of religion is un-American. Because he finally tied the ban to countries that would not or could not conform to U.S. reporting requirements on would-be immigrants, he finally made it stick. Most of the big Muslim countries, like Egypt, Turkey, Bangladesh, and Indonesia were not even affected. He managed to make life more difficult for Yemeni-Americans who could not see their grandparents anymore, or for desperate Syrians trying to flee their civil war. As with family separation, the cruelty was the point.
3. Trump’s deployment of force against peaceful Black Lives Matter protesters at LaFayette Square in June 2020 was illegal and unconstitutional. His attempt to order in military forces contravened posse comitatus.
Scott Michelman of the ACLU observed, “The President’s shameless, unconstitutional, unprovoked, and frankly criminal attack on protesters because he disagreed with their views shakes the foundation of our nation’s constitutional order. And when the nation’s top law enforcement officer becomes complicit in the tactics of an autocrat, it chills protected speech for all of us.”
Also illegal was his use of federal agents to kidnap protesters in Portland, Oregon, off the streets without due process.
Of course these three lawless actions that harmed large numbers of innocent people are only a drop in the bucket among the innumerable unethical, illegal, unconstitutional, or just plain ugly things Trump did to our country. If he goes to jail for stupidly fooling around with some old Pentagon war plans, that will be ironic, since it is probably the least damaging of his crimes.
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Rights Groups Say Biden's Denial of Visas to Victims of Muslim Ban Has 'Cemented Trump's Legacy of Harm'
"To those families whose dreams were crushed by the Muslim Ban over the past four years, the Biden administration has sent a clear message: sorry, start over and pay us again."
Mar 09, 2021
President Joe Biden rescinded his predecessor's so-called "Muslim Ban," but his administration announced this week that thousands of "diversity visa" applicants who were denied entry to the U.S. by former President Donald Trump are not entitled to new visas, provoking outrage among progressives who say the White House is upholding the discriminatory effects of policies that excluded travelers from more than a dozen majority-Muslim nations.
"This decision threatens to forever prevent thousands of Black and Brown immigrants who meet all of the legal requirements to immigrate to the United States from doing so, perpetuating the effects of the discriminatory ban."
--Manar Waheed, ACLU
"Donald Trump's Muslim Ban cruelly separated families and imposed serious psychological, financial, and even physical harm on countless individuals," Mary Bauer, legal director at Muslim Advocates, a national civil rights organization, said Tuesday in a statement. "Disappointingly, after a 45-day review, the Biden administration has chosen to do next to nothing to help undo that harm."
"For the last four years and even longer, victims of the Muslim Ban have been meticulously navigating the red tape to apply for a visa," Bauer continued. "This includes pouring over documents, paying significant fees, traveling to attend interviews, and getting by on the slim hope that they will get a visa and can resume their lives with their families."
And yet, she added, "to those families whose dreams were crushed by the Muslim Ban over the past four years, the Biden administration has sent a clear message: sorry, start over and pay us again."
On day one of his presidency, Biden signed Proclamation 10141, "Ending Discriminatory Bans on Entry to the United States." Calling his predecessor's executive actions that prevented roughly 40,000 individuals from predominantly Muslim and African countries from entering the U.S. "a stain on our national conscience," Biden revoked one executive order and three proclamations issued by Trump between March 6, 2017 and January 31, 2020.
On Monday, following a 45-day review period ordered by Biden, the State Department announced that some visa applicants who were denied entry to the U.S. as a result of Trump's Muslim Ban may "seek to have their applications reconsidered."
Reuters reported that visa applicants "who were refused visas prior to Jan. 20, 2020, must submit new applications and pay a new application fee. Those who were denied on or after Jan. 20, 2020, may seek reconsideration without re-submitting their applications and do not have to pay additional fees."
But, as Business Insider noted, "the White House left out one significant group: thousands of people who were selected to receive 'diversity visas'--intended, as the name suggests, to encourage migration from underrepresented people--only to have them taken away by an executive order by Donald Trump, who then tried to eliminate the diversity program altogether."
According to the State Department, diversity visa applicants from fiscal year 2017 to 2020 who were denied visas by the Trump administration are now ineligible for redress "as the deadlines for visa issuance in those fiscal years have expired."
Abed Ayoub, legal and policy director at the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee, told Business Insider that the Biden administration's failure to include diversity visa applicants among the beneficiaries of its reversal of Trump's Muslim Ban is "disheartening and disappointing."
"These individuals are in a worse off position now because this government, regardless of whether it's Biden or Trump, made a promise to them and they acted on that," said Ayoub, whose group has urged the federal government to circumvent any legal issues related to the expiration of diversity visa applications by granting "humanitarian parole" to those affected, after which legislation could be enacted to allow recipients to "apply for asylum or some other residency-granting legal status once they are here."
"If you call the Muslim Ban discriminatory," he added, "then you should [do] the full extent to rectify what was done."
"The Biden administration is not doing enough to do right by these families and must find some way to bring them meaningful help."
--Mary Bauer, Muslim Advocates
Biden's refusal to provide relief to diversity visa applicants who were discriminated against by the Trump administration was also denounced by Manar Waheed, senior legislative and advocacy counsel at the ACLU.
"While President Biden is right to call the Muslim Ban 'a stain on our national conscience,' he has failed to help so many of those harmed by it," said Waheed.
"The opportunity to 'win' a diversity visa is a rare and life-changing opportunity that was snatched away from thousands of people because of President Trump's hatred and discrimination," Waheed continued. "Instead of restoring this opportunity, President Biden just dusted off Trump's 'CLOSED' sign and locked the door behind him."
According to Waheed, "This decision threatens to forever prevent thousands of Black and Brown immigrants who meet all of the legal requirements to immigrate to the United States from doing so, perpetuating the effects of the discriminatory ban."
"Although Biden made the Muslim Ban rescission a day one priority, that alone is not enough," she added. "Today, he cemented Trump's legacy of harm."
In an op-ed published last week, Waheed argued that "the Biden administration must do everything possible to undo the Trump administration's harms, including reopening previously denied cases to fairly reassess their claims, waiving fees (especially for those who would have to pay a second time), expediting their cases, and ensuring people are not penalized for the previous administration's visa denials."
The State Department claims to have "explored every possible avenue under the law for providing relief to affected individuals."
In response, Bauer said that "while it may be true that they explored every possible avenue, it is clear that they chose not to take the avenues that would provide relief to families who were harmed by the Muslim Ban."
"The Biden administration is not doing enough to do right by these families," she added, "and must find some way to bring them meaningful help."
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Biden's Repeal of Trump's Muslim Ban Is Just the Beginning
It should kick off a bigger process of healing the harms this long-term dehumanization has caused.
Feb 05, 2021
President Joe Biden has repealed the Muslim ban.
Before we let the horrors of the Trump administration fade away like a fever dream, we have to ask ourselves how we got here.
As the news rolled in, I remembered how I felt four years ago, when the Trump administration first announced its intention to ban people from from several Muslim-majority countries from entering the country.
The feeling wasn't incredulity. I distinctly remember my first reaction being something akin to: "well, duh."
As a Muslim American, it was the obvious outcome of the Islamophobia that has plagued my community since the 9/11 attacks, when I was in the third grade.
That's not to say its impact was negligible.
Trump's Muslim ban separated families who missed birthdays, weddings, funerals, and other moments they'll never get back--a feeling many more of us can relate to now that Covid-19 has kept us apart. And it took a special kind of cruelty to deny entry to refugees, asylum-seekers, and immigrants whose homelands our own government's wars have ravaged.
Despite the brutality of the policy, it should not have come as a surprise.
Donald Trump ran a campaign largely based on in-your-face Islamophobia--for example, inventing a lie that he'd seen Arab people in New Jersey cheering the attack on 9/11. As an actual Arab person from New Jersey, I can tell you we were just as shocked and saddened as everyone else.
In December 2015, Trump began campaigning openly on his Muslim ban, calling for "a total and complete shutdown of Muslims entering the United States."
What happened next may have shocked some well-meaning Americans. An NBC poll found 25% of Americans supported Trump's Muslim ban just after his announcement. By March, 51% were in favor.
But it didn't shock me. Like much of what would become a hallmark of Trump's presidency, he was merely saying the quiet part out loud. For decades, national political figures of both parties have practiced what law professor Khaled A. Beydoun has called "cautious Islamophobia," refusing to see Muslims as anything more than a national security concern.
It's the menacing portrait of Muslims the media paints that equates the word "terrorism" with crimes committed by brown people. Or my white middle school friends joking "Don't bomb me!" when I expressed disagreement in regular conversation.
This kind of Islamophobia has consequences. It breeds a culture that dehumanizes your Muslim neighbors. That way, when you see people who look like them being bombed because the United States wants to control their oil exports or make billions selling weapons, you can write them off as dangerous, their deaths deserving neither thought nor prayer.
Donald Trump may be gone and his Muslim ban repealed, but if we want to say "That was not my America" and mean it, we have a long way to go.
For instance, we should create a pathway to citizenship for immigrants who want it and expand the number of refugees and asylum seekers we welcome, as President Biden has proposed.
But that's not all.
We should also permanently end our weapons sales to countries like Saudi Arabia and Israel, who have used them again and again to kill civilians and violate human rights. We should rejoin the Iran nuclear deal and abide by its terms. We should end our "forever wars" in countries like Iraq, Afghanistan, Somalia, and Syria. And we should stop the surveillance and over-policing of Black and brown communities.
In short, ending the Muslim ban should begin a bigger process of healing the harms this long-term dehumanization has caused.
Before we let the horrors of the Trump administration fade away like a fever dream, we have to ask ourselves how we got here. Otherwise, it's going to become a recurring nightmare.
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In "Significant Rebuke" to Trump's Anti-Immigrant Administration, House Passes NO BAN Act
"Victory!"
Jul 22, 2020
The U.S. House on Tuesday passed the NO BAN Act to stop President Donald Trump's xenophobic travel restrictions, delivering what the Center for Constitutional Rights called "a significant rebuke to a hallmark of this administration's broader war on immigrants."
The legislation--formally known as H.R. 2214, the National Origin-Based Antidiscrimination for Nonimmigrants Act--passed largely along party lines in a 233-183 vote and takes direct aim at Trump's Muslim ban.
"The Muslim Ban is fundamentally discriminatory and should be repealed in its entirety. It was designed to target Muslims and amended to single out African countries," said the Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR).
Amnesty International USA also put the Muslim ban in the broader context of the administration's anti-immigrant policies and statements.
"From his very first week in office, President Trump delivered on the bigoted rhetoric of his campaign," said Ryan Mace, senior policy advisor with the human rights group. "The president and his advisors' dogged efforts to enshrine the Muslim ban into policy reveals a pattern of discrimination toward Muslims in particular, and people from other countries, especially people of color."
"Every single iteration of this administration's bans are a violation of the rights enshrined in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and an affront to human dignity. They must be overturned once and for all and today's passage of the NO BAN Act is a vital step towards that goal," said Mace.
The legislation, as the bill's summary explains, in part,
imposes limitations on the president's authority to suspend or restrict aliens from entering the United States and terminates certain presidential actions implementing such restrictions. It also prohibits religious discrimination in various immigration-related decisions, such as whether to issue an immigrant or non-immigrant visa, unless there is a statutory basis for such discrimination.
Still, the language of the final version is far from perect, said CCR, lamenting the "'clarification' that a president may bar entry to groups based on public safety in order to contain a 'communicable disease.' Such language plays into harmful tropes that have long been used to stoke anti-immigrant sentiment."
"Still, passing the NO BAN Act is one step toward ending discriminatory and racist immigration policies once and for all," said CCR. "It is past time to end Trump's war on immigrants and people of color."
Rights groups and Democrats took to social media to celebrate the measure's passge and note its groundbreaking nature. They also called on the Senate to follow suit and pass its version of the bill, though its prospects there are dim.
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