What Trump said about travel ban is false

[HonestJohn]

By Reza Aslan
Updated 9:44 PM ET, Sun
January 29, 2017

(CNN)Donald Trump released a statement Sunday afternoon in response to the massive protests that have erupted across the country in response to his latest executive order freezing all refugees from Syria and banning entry to foreign nationals from seven Muslim-majority countries.

"To be clear," the statement read, "this is not a Muslim ban, as the media is falsely reporting. This is not about religion - this is about terror and keeping our country safe."

As we have come to expect from Donald Trump, nearly every word of that sentence is false.

It is a Muslim ban. Rudy Giuliani admitted as much in talking about its origins on Fox News. "I'll tell you the whole story," he said. "So, when [Trump] announced it he said "Muslim ban." He called me up, he said, 'Put a commission together. Show me the right way to do it legally.'"

It is about religion. Trump said so on Christian Broadcast Network when he vowed that he would allow Christians to enter from the banned countries list but not Muslims. "If you were a Muslim, you could come in," Trump said, "but if you were a Christian, it was almost impossible," Trump said of our refugee system. This is, of course, another lie. According to the Pew Research Center, in 2016 the United States brought in 37,521 Christian refugees and 38,901 Muslims refugees.

It is not about terror. There is no great fear of terrorism from refugees. Of the 784,000 refugees resettled in the United States over the last 15 years, exactly three have been arrested for planning terrorist activities, according to a Cato Institute report by Alex Nowrasteh.

Of the 3,252,493 refugees admitted into the country from 1975 to 2016, 20 of them took part in terrorism. That's 0.00062%.

Of those 20, three were successful in actually carrying out the terror attack. Those three attacks killed a total of three people.

In fact, the likelihood of being killed in a terrorist attack perpetrated by an immigrant is 1 in 3.6 million, and that includes the total deaths in the attacks of 9/11.

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More at: http://www.cnn.com/2017/01/29/opinions/what-trump-said-about-travel-ban-is-false-opinion-aslan/

[Frank Cannon]

Oh noes. Some muslim is upset with Donny. Thinks islamic terror isn't really an issue. I am just torn up over it.

BTW, isn't this the asshat that wrote that Jesus slamming book claiming to he a religious historian when actually he is nothing more than a islam pimp?

[Weird Tolkienish Figure]

The media is not right about it being a Muslim ban, despite Trump and Guiliani's moronic statements. There are many Muslim countries that are not on the list in this ban, so to me, calling it a Muslim ban is stupid. Not that Trump hasn't helped the media's case in this.

[mountaineer]

 Did You Pass the “Muslim Ban” Test?
By Don Surber

This weekend was an intelligence test for conservatives, particularly those who only reluctantly – or even never – voted for Donald Trump.

If you are such a conservative – or not – let’s see how you did.

1. Did you call it a Muslim Ban?

If so, you were wrong. It isn’t. President Trump issued an executive order to temporarily ban immigration from seven nations: Iran, Iraq, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria, and Yemen.

While all the nations are majority Muslim, religion is not the reason for the ban. War and terrorism are. The latter six nations are war-torn, while the first one is Iran. I am not sure why we allow travel with Iran. The seven nations represent 12.2 percent of the world’s Muslim population.

The nations were selected by the Obama administration. The Trump administration likely will select and target other nations as we go along. While this executive order likely was drafted months ago – transition teams do more than recommend personnel – it is the beginning of an effort to improve the vetting of visitors and migrants.

2. Did you call it un-American? Unconstitutional? Illegal?

If so, you were wrong because Congress fully authorizes such action, and in fact requires the president temporarily ban immigration from nations under 8 U.S. Code § 1182 - Inadmissible aliens.

The law specifically lists who should be kept out (drug dealers, money launderers, terrorists, and many other categories of people who are bad news).

“Whenever the President finds that the entry of any aliens or of any class of aliens into the United States would be detrimental to the interests of the United States, he may by proclamation, and for such period as he shall deem necessary, suspend the entry of all aliens or any class of aliens as immigrants or non-immigrants, or impose on the entry of aliens any restrictions he may deem to be appropriate,” says paragraph (f).

“Whenever the Attorney General finds that a commercial airline has failed to comply with regulations of the Attorney General relating to requirements of airlines for the detection of fraudulent documents used by passengers traveling to the United States (including the training of personnel in such detection), the Attorney General may suspend the entry of some or all aliens transported to the United States by such airline.”

I broke it into two paragraphs to make it easier to read. I’m like that.

3. Did you call it unprecedented?

If so, you were wrong. President Obama in 2011 temporarily banned immigration from Iraq.

4. Did you say America should always take in refugees?

If so, you were wrong because America has a long history of turning away refugees. Just this month, Barack Obama banned the automatic acceptance of Cuban refugees. Also, he had a de facto policy of not accepting Christian, Jewish, and other religious minorities in these seven Muslim majority nations.

Far from banning refugees, the order gives priority to people who are the most likely to be religious refugees.

5. Did you say executive orders are unconstitutional?

If so, you were wrong because the Constitution specifically makes the president the chief executive of the federal government. Executive orders are how a president communicates with his various department heads. Often those orders merely authorize the Cabinet secretary to do what he wants to do.

Rest assuredly, General John Kelly, the new head of Homeland Security, believes that this executive order will help Make America Safe Again. This policy is neither Islamophobic, nor xenophobic, but rather a necessary step toward securing our borders.

Contrary to popular belief, Ellis Island was set up not as a welcome center. It was a screening place. We sent back to Europe the ill, the crazy, the criminal, and the anarchistic.

The poem on the Statue of Liberty is very nice, but it is neither the law or the policy. Americans want people who wish to assimilate and be Americans, not strangers from another culture who want to reshape our nation in their image.

So why would so many intelligent, good-hearted conservatives get so many things wrong? I will tell you in four words.

They believed the media.  ...

Link to article

[TomSea]

The media is not right about it being a Muslim ban, despite Trump and Guiliani's moronic statements. There are many Muslim countries that are not on the list in this ban, so to me, calling it a Muslim ban is stupid. Not that Trump hasn't helped the media's case in this.

 

[TomSea]

If you fight Muslims, you will get one side angry at you; now, it looks even if one tries to start cutting down on the radical Muslims coming to the US, you will get a bunch of infidels angry at you; I guess that's the way it is.

Bravo for Trump for starting something for the security of everyone.

This incident surely, doesn't make him look wrong.

[Weird Tolkienish Figure]

I love your selfie!