Ever since 9/11, many American citizens and politicians have embraced a fear of Muslim immigrants. There have been many immigration laws that have been made since the US’s founding, but the recent immigration ban has been the most controversial. We will explain what the immigration ban means and who it affects.
Ever since Lyndon B. Johnson signed the Immigration and Nationality Act in 1965, the United States has been relatively lenient on immigration in regards to their country of origin. Before this, the United States was seeing immigrants from Eastern Europe, Africa, Asia and the Philippines being denied entrance due to The Immigration Act of 1924. Though the Act had been tweaked a few times in the 50’s and 60’s, it was still denying a staggering number of immigrants from entering the US. According to the State Department’s history page, “In all of its parts, the most basic purpose of the 1924 Immigration Act was to preserve the ideal of U.S. homogeneity.”
Middle Eastern countries are the targets of the current immigration ban. Believing that this ban will limit the number of terrorists that enter the country, the Trump administration is halting immigration from Somalia, Sudan, Libya, Yemen, Iraq, Syria, and Iran for 120 days. The executive order also bans immigrants from Syria for an indefinite amount of time. The United States will also put in place a refugee cap of 50,000 people per year.
The seven counties affected by the immigration ban have many common traits, the most prevalent being that they all have Islam as their country’s most prominent religion. What Trump’s administration seems to be ignoring is the fact that only one of the terrorists that have attacked Americans on US soil since 9/11 have come from one these countries. The majority of terror attacks on American soil have either been immigrants from Egypt or have been American citizens that have decided to join a Middle Eastern terrorist organization. According to CNN, a Trump official cited the attack that killed 14 people in San Bernardino as an example of the immigration connection to terror acts in the United States. This is troubling because neither of the terrorists that committed the acts would have been affected by the current ban.
The poem that is engraved onto the Statue of Liberty states, “Give me your tired, your poor, Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, The wretched refuse of your teeming shore. Send these, the homeless, tempest-tossed, to me: I lift my lamp beside the golden door.” Should this be changed to better reflect our current times, or should our laws change to better suit our country’s ideals?
For TMN, I am Kraig Pierce.