Trump's revised travel ban blocks new visas for 6 Muslim-majority nations

March 7, 2017

Washington, Mar 7: President Donald Trump signed a new travel ban Monday that administration officials said they hope will end legal challenges over the matter by imposing a 90-day ban on the issuance of new visas for citizens of six majority-Muslim nations.

travelban

In addition, the nation's refugee program will be suspended for 120 days, and it will not accept more than 50,000 refugees in a year, down from the 110,000 cap set by the Obama administration.

Trump signed the new ban out of public view, according to White House officials. The order will not take effect until March 16, officials said.

The new guidelines mark a dramatic departure from Trump's original ban. They lay out a far more specific national security basis for the order, block the issuance of only new visas, and name just six of the seven countries included in the first executive order, omitting Iraq.

The order also details specific sets of people who would be able to apply for case-by-case waivers to the order, including those previously admitted to the United States for "a continuous period of work, study, or other long-term activity," those with "significant business or professional obligations" and those seeking to visit or live with family.

"This executive order responsibly provides a needed pause, so we can carefully review how we scrutinize people coming here from these countries of concern," Attorney General Jeff Sessions said in announcing that the order had been signed.

Even before the ink was dry, though, Democrats and civil liberties groups asserted that the new order was legally tainted in the same way as the first one: It was a thinly disguised Muslim ban.

"While the White House may have made changes to the ban, the intent to discriminate against Muslims remains clear," said New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman, D, who had joined the legal fight against the first ban. "This doesn't just harm the families caught in the chaos of President Trump's draconian policies - it's diametrically opposed to our values, and makes us less safe."

Said Omar Jadwat, director of the ACLU's Immigrants' Rights Project: "The only way to actually fix the Muslim ban is not to have a Muslim ban. Instead, President Trump has recommitted himself to religious discrimination, and he can expect continued disapproval from both the courts and the people."

State Department, Homeland Security and Justice Department officials defended the new order as a necessary measure to improve public safety. They said the countries implicated - Iran, Sudan, Somalia, Libya, Syria and Yemen - were either state sponsors of terrorism, or their territories were so compromised that they were effectively safe havens for terrorist groups. Iraq was omitted, Secretary of State Rex Tillerson said, because it is an "important ally in the fight to defeat ISIS," and its leaders had agreed to implement new security measures.

A Department of Homeland Security official, speaking on the condition of anonymity on a call with reporters, said Iraq was "treated differently" in part because the country had agreed to "timely repatriation" of its citizens if they were ordered deported from the United States.

The new order provides other exceptions not contained explicitly in previous versions: for travelers from those countries who are legal permanent residents of the United States, dual nationals who use a passport from another country and those who have been granted asylum or refugee status. Anyone who holds a visa now should be able to get into the country without any problems, though those whose visas expire will have to reapply, officials said.

The order claims that since 2001, hundreds of people born abroad have been convicted of terrorism-related crimes in the United States, and that more than 300 people who entered the country as refugees were the subject of counterterrorism investigations. It cites two specific examples: Two Iraqi nationals who came to the United States as refugees in 2009, it says, were convicted of terrorism-related offenses, and in October 2014, a Somali native brought to the country as a child refugee was sentenced to 30 years in prison for plotting to detonate a bomb at a Christmas tree-lighting ceremony in Oregon. That man became a naturalized U.S. citizen.

"We cannot risk the prospect of malevolent actors using our immigration system to take American lives," Homeland Security Secretary John F. Kelly said.

U.S. officials declined to specify the countries of origin of the 300 refugees now being investigated in terrorism cases, and they declined to detail those people's current immigration status.

A Department of Homeland Security report assessing the terrorist threat posed by people from the seven countries covered by President Trump's original travel ban had cast doubt on the necessity of the executive order, concluding that citizenship was an "unreliable" threat indicator and that people from the affected countries have rarely been implicated in U.S.-based terrorism.

The Department of Homeland Security official, speaking on the condition of anonymity, criticized the report as being incomplete and not vetted with other agencies, and he asserted that the administration should not be pressed by the judiciary to unveil sensitive national security details to justify the ban.

"This is not something that the Department of Justice should have to represent to a federal district court judge," the official said.

The order represents an attempt by the Trump administration to tighten security requirements for travelers from nations that officials said represent a terrorism threat. A more sweeping attempt in January provoked mass protests across the country as travelers en route to the United States were detained at airports after the surprise order was announced. The State Department had provisionally revoked tens of thousands of visas all at once.

Officials sought to dismiss the idea that there would be any confusion surrounding the implementation of the new order. Officials said they delayed implementation so the government could go through the appropriate legal processes and ensure that no government employee would face "legal jeopardy" for enforcing the order.

"You should not see any chaos, so to speak, or alleged chaos, at airports. There aren't going to be folks stopped tonight from coming into the country because of this executive order. If they are, it's pursuant to our ordinary screening procedures," the Department of Homeland Security official said. "We're going to have a very smooth implementation period."

A federal district judge in Washington state first suspended the travel ban Feb. 3, and a three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit later upheld that freeze.

That setback was a blow to the White House, which was criticized for failing to include lawmakers and stakeholders in its deliberations.

The revisions to the order will make it more defensible in court - limiting the number of people with standing to sue - though the changes might not allay all the concerns raised by judges across the country. The three-judge panel with the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals, for example, said that exempting green-card and current visa holders from the ban would not address their concern about U.S. citizens with an interest in noncitizens' travel.

The administration, too, will have to wrestle with comments by the president and top adviser Rudolph Giuliani that seemed to indicate the intent of the order was to ban Muslims from entering the United States, which could run afoul of the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment.

On the campaign trail, Trump called for a "total and complete shutdown of Muslims entering the United States." After the election, Giuliani, a former New York City mayor, said: "So when [Trump] first 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.' "

A federal judge in Virginia referenced those comments in ordering the ban frozen with respect to Virginia residents and institutions, calling it "unrebutted evidence" that Trump's directive might violate the First Amendment.

Comments

Add new comment

  • Coastaldigest.com reserves the right to delete or block any comments.
  • Coastaldigset.com is not responsible for its readers’ comments.
  • Comments that are abusive, incendiary or irrelevant are strictly prohibited.
  • Please use a genuine email ID and provide your name to avoid reject.
News Network
June 22,2020

Karachi, Jun 22: India-born renowned Pakistani Shia scholar and author Talib Jauhari passed away here after a prolonged illness. He was 80.

Jauhari, who was born on August 27, 1939 in Patna, is survived by his three sons, Dawn News reported on Monday.

He migrated to Pakistan along with his father in 1949, two years after the Partition.

After obtaining early education from his father, he went to Iraq where he studied religion for 10 years under the renowned Shia scholars of that time.

Jauhari, who was on a ventilator in the intensive care unit of a private hospital for the past 15 days, breathed his last on Sunday night.

His son Riaz Jauhari confirmed his death and said that the body has been shifted to Ancholi Imambargah for the funeral prayers, The Express Tribune newspaper quoted his son as saying.

Jauhari was respected among his sect as he was a class fellow of the widely revered scholar Ayatollah Sayyid Ali al-Husayni al-Sistani.

He was also a poet, historian and philosopher and authored many books.

Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan has condoled Jauhari's death.

Comments

Add new comment

  • Coastaldigest.com reserves the right to delete or block any comments.
  • Coastaldigset.com is not responsible for its readers’ comments.
  • Comments that are abusive, incendiary or irrelevant are strictly prohibited.
  • Please use a genuine email ID and provide your name to avoid reject.
Agencies
May 31,2020

Washington, May 31: US President Donald Trump said Saturday he will delay the G7 summit scheduled to take place in June and invite other countries -- including India and Russia -- to join the meeting.

"I don't feel that as a G7 it properly represents what's going on in the world. It's a very outdated group of countries," Trump told reporters on Air Force One.

He said he would like to invite Russia, South Korea, Australia and India to join an expanded summit in the fall.

It could happen in September, either before or after the UN General Assembly, Trump said, adding that "maybe I'll do it after the election."

Americans head to the polls in early November to choose a new president, with Trump keen for a return to normalcy after the coronavirus pandemic and a healthy economy as voters cast their ballots.

Describing the event as a "G-10 or G-11", Trump said he had "roughly" broached the topic with leaders of the four other countries.

Leaders from the Group of Seven, which the United States heads this year, had been scheduled to meet by videoconference in late June after COVID-19 scuttled plans to gather in-person at Camp David, the US presidential retreat outside Washington.

Trump created suspense last week, however, when he announced that he might hold the huge gathering in-person after all, "primarily at the White House" but also potentially parts of it at Camp David.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel became the first leader to decline the in-person invitation outright.

"Considering the overall pandemic situation, she cannot agree to her personal participation, to a journey to Washington," her spokesman said Saturday.

Her response followed ambivalent to positive reactions to the invitation from Britain, Canada and France.

The 65-year-old chancellor is the oldest G7 leader after Trump, who is 73. Japan's Shinzo Abe, also 65, is several months younger than Merkel. Their age puts them at higher risk from the coronavirus.

The G7 major advanced countries -- Britain, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan and the United States -- hold annual meetings to discuss international economic coordination.

Russia was thrown out of what was the G8 in 2014 after it seized Ukraine's Black Sea peninsula of Crimea, an annexation never recognized by the international community.

The work of the G7 is now more important than ever as countries struggle to repair coronavirus-inflicted damage.

The White House had previously said the huge diplomatic gathering would be a "show of strength" when world economies are gradually reemerging from shutdowns.

The United States is the worst-hit country for COVID-19 infections, recording more than 1.7 million cases and over 103,680 deaths.

Comments

Add new comment

  • Coastaldigest.com reserves the right to delete or block any comments.
  • Coastaldigset.com is not responsible for its readers’ comments.
  • Comments that are abusive, incendiary or irrelevant are strictly prohibited.
  • Please use a genuine email ID and provide your name to avoid reject.
News Network
February 14,2020

London, Feb 14: Five years ago Britain’s new finance minister Rishi Sunak wasn’t even a member of parliament and now he is running the world's fifth largest economy.

The 39-year-old former Goldman Sachs banker was appointed in dramatic fashion on Thursday when incumbent Sajid Javid unexpectedly quit — in a row over advisers — during what Downing Street had cast as a routine ministerial reshuffle.

Sunak is married to the daughter of Infosys co-founder NR Narayana Murthy, and was hand-picked to take over an ultra-safe seat in northern England, previously represented by former Conservative Party leader William Hague. The Murthy family was not reachable for comment.

In July, when he was promoted chief secretary to the Treasury, Murthy had said: “Our advice to our children, including Rishi, has been to work hard, be honest, and do good for society…We wish him well.”

After Thursday’s announcement, Sunak said: “Delighted to be appointed... Lots to get on with.”

Tipped for Promotion

As Boris Johnson moves to increase control of the finance ministry, one of the youngest chancellors in history will face a prime minister who wants to increase government spending on everything from infrastructure and police to health and education.

Sunak, seen as a rising star in the ruling Conservative Party since he entered Parliament in 2015, had been tipped for promotion to a senior post in the ministerial rejig as Johnson put together his post-Brexit cabinet.

But, despite an already rapid ascent through the ranks of government, few expected the Oxford University Politics, Philosophy and Economics graduate to ascend to one of the highest offices in the land.

Sunak had been serving as Javid’s deputy in the finance ministry since Johnson promoted him upon taking office in July 2019. Prior to that he had served as a junior housing minister.

“From working in my mum’s tiny chemist shop to my experience building large businesses, I have seen first-hand how politicians should support free enterprise and innovation to ensure our future prosperity,” Sunak says on his website.

Smooth and loyal

Seen as a smooth media performer and ultra-loyal member of the Conservative Party, Sunak has been used by the government to present and defend their policies in television interviews — a sign of trust from Johnson, who has a fraught relationship with Britain’s media.

Sunak takes control at a critical juncture for Britain’s $2.7 trillion economy. He will have to steer the economy through the turbulence of leaving the European Union and the forging of new trade links that will define Britain’s new relationship with the world.

However, the power struggle that forced his predecessor Javid to quit hints at a more diminished role for what is the second most powerful position in the government — with Johnson’s office wanting to centralise control and minimise dissent.

Sunak is one of the three ministers of Indian origin in Johnson’s cabinet, the other two being Priti Patel and Alok Sharma. Patel remains the interior minister after the cabinet reshuffle while Sharma, a former minister for international development, was appointed the new minister for business. Sunak’s father was a doctor and his mother ran a chemist shop. Before entering politics he worked for Goldman Sachs and a hedge fund, then co-founded an investment firm. He also has an MBA from Stanford University.

Comments

Add new comment

  • Coastaldigest.com reserves the right to delete or block any comments.
  • Coastaldigset.com is not responsible for its readers’ comments.
  • Comments that are abusive, incendiary or irrelevant are strictly prohibited.
  • Please use a genuine email ID and provide your name to avoid reject.