Why The Immigration Ban Won’t Solve Anything
On January 27th, President Donald Trump signed an executive order that stopped people living in seven Muslim countries from entering the United States. Trump claims that the ban was done in order to protect the United States from terror attacks from radical Islam. Fear is something that Trump used to gain attention and support during his campaign, and it makes sense for him to justify questionable actions with the same reasoning. This time he is using the ongoing growth of islamophobia to gain support from his followers.
Except here’s the odd thing. Trump claims that the seven banned countries were chosen because of the high risk of terror attacks that might come from refugees in those countries. Not because they happen to be Muslim countries. However, Christian refugees get priority over Muslim ones when it comes to immigration. Despite the reasoning, another intriguing fact is that interestingly enough, Trump managed to somehow choose the wrong countries to ban. The ban was implemented to supposedly remove the threat of terror from those countries right?. However there is one teeny tiny problem; the seven countries listed in the ban have never carried out any notable US terror attacks in the past fifteen years. Even more puzzling is the fact that the country that happens to have the most attacks on US soil just happens to be the US itself. So it would make sense to start looking within our own society before blaming others now wouldn’t it?
Despite the clear targeting of Muslims and the manipulation of fear, the ban has a very high chance of accomplishing close to nothing. Let’s take into consideration the attacks that Trump so desperately relied on when bringing up radical Islam in his campaign. San Bernardino, The Times Square Bombing, The Orlando nightclub shooting, The underwear bomber, Fort Hood, and 9/11. The attackers in these fundamental islamophobia-fueling events are from the following countries; The United States, Afghanistan, Kyrgyzstan, Pakistan, and Saudi Arabia. If you were to carry out a ban to ban attacks like the ones emphasized in his campaign, common sense would lead you to implement an immigration ban coming from those countries right? Instead, Trump manages to somehow ban Iran, which is notorious for training most of their terrorists in Lebanon and Palestine. Literally the only terrorist attack directly from Iran didn’t happen and was foiled in 2011. Spoiler alert, both of Iran’s crucial terrorist hotspots aren’t on list either.
After looking at all of these facts you might start to ponder about what the real motive behind the ban really is. It wouldn’t make sense to ban countries that don’t really make sense with your supposed reasoning. Trump may think a lot differently than many of us, however he isn’t stupid. As president, he has all of the resources available to him to be able to carry out an effective and somewhat understandable ban if he really felt compelled to. Maybe he didn’t ban countries like Saudi Arabia because of economical gains such as oil. We may never know why, but we do know what is being accomplished. Intentional or not, the normalization of islamophobia within American society has begun. Halting the growth of the Muslim population in the United State by banning countries that contain Muslim refugees that desperately need to flee their countries. We already know Trump has promised to create a registry that will require all Muslims to register as Muslim in order to be distinguishable in the eyes of society. Literally making a whole group of people become outcasts in their own country.