Opinion: The ‘horrible mess’ Trump created

Slamming the door shut on innocent people fleeing murderous men and machines from parts of the world which, in President Trump’s own words, is “in a horrible mess” defies everything America stands for.

Trump’s astonishing move within a week of his presidency to ban more than 218 million people from seven predominantly Muslim countries is nothing short of persecution or collective punishment.

Thousands have been denied entry out of some 375,109 who were in transit to the US already. In airports across the Land of the Free, there have been heart wrenching scenes. Families have been separated; students and teachers barred from class, executives stopped from attending meetings despite having valid travel, work and stay permits. Many of them have dual citizenship. Their “fault”? They are originally from Iran, Iraq, Libya, Syria, Somalia, Sudan and Yemen. In LA airport, an 80-year-old whose life depends on insulin was being held for hours. At Dulles airport, a five-year-old American boy waited about four hours to be in the arms of his Iranian mother on his birthday.

This discriminatory decree is baffling because America is a country of immigrants. In fact, Thomas Paine (1737-1809), one of America’s founding fathers, was an immigrant. A born English man, Paine is credited with inspiring the rebels to declare independence from Britain in 1776, within two years of his migration to the US. For centuries, immigrants have been a driving force of the world’s largest economy and an integral part of its identity and national pride. In 2015, its immigrant population stood at over 42 million or about 13 percent of the total population, according to the Centre for Immigration Studies. Needless to say these people are taxpayers, entrepreneurs, job creators and consumers.  

That doesn’t mean that the debate over whether the US should or should not allow immigrants or refugees in has not swept America in the past. The massive influx of Irish migrants to the US in the middle of the 19th century set off one of the biggest anti-immigrant movements in American history. A similar sentiment returned in the late 19th century centring the arrival of a huge number of Italian immigrants on the East Coast. During WW II, when nations across the world opened their borders with open arms to shelter Jews, the US in some cases even turned away Jewish refugees, including children, some of whom were later captured and killed by the Nazis.

And before being finally repealed in 1943, the infamous US Scott Act of 1888 barred Chinese immigrants, many of whom had stay permits and lived and worked in the US for years. The ban affected some 20,000 US residents of Chinese origin.   

But never in the past has a US president issued an executive order to impose such a blanket ban affecting so many people of so many nationalities and drawing such an angry reaction from home and abroad. That’s because President Trump’s decision to outlaw people fleeing war zones is decisively inept. Such discrimination on the basis of nationality alone is prohibited under international laws. The UN calls it “mean-spirited” and an immigrant journalist, who was present during President Ronald Regan’s October 1, 1984, speech welcoming immigrants, called it a “coup d’etat against what the US stands for”.

The intent of the order of course is to protect US citizens from the threat of “radical Islamic terrorism”. But targeting an entire nation, seven nations in this case, or a race or a religious group is counterproductive and only plays into the hands of those radicals Trump wants to protect the US from. It’s hard to believe how his administration can’t see that.

 Characteristically though, Trump defends all this and insists: “It’s not a Muslim ban…it’s working out very nicely.”

No it isn’t. Much of the world sees it as a Muslim ban and has described it as such. Iran, which banned all American nationals from travelling to the country in response, said the move “will be recorded in the history as a great gift to extremists and their supporters.” Already, at least one supporter of the so-called Islamic State promised Trump of attacks on US soil, not by outsiders, but by someone born and raised in the US.

The heat of the injunction has spread far and wide. European Council President Donald Tusk has labelled Trump as an “existential threat” to Europe. Germany and France reacted sharply, if not angrily. Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn has called for Trump’s state visit to Britain later this year to be cancelled as voters are signing a petition to that end, a rare treatment towards a US president.

But the whole thing has also brought forth perhaps the most beautiful aspect of American democracy in the form of resistance of its people, defiant enough to challenge their president when they think he is wrong.

Even as travellers were being held, thousands of Americans took position outside the airports, demanding the release of the immigrants; no one was beaten, tear-gassed or arrested. As opposed to Trump’s declaration that “we don’t want them [immigrants] here,” the demonstrators thundered: “Let them in” and “All people are legal”.

Someone sent in some pizzas for the protesters. Another offered to shelter the refugees; no one said it was against the “national interest,” no one threatened him with a sedition case. Rights groups vowed to fight on, in courts and on the streets, until the ban is relaxed or repealed altogether.

 For their part, several courts have struck down portions of the ban. And US missions around the world are considering taking the rare step of sending to Washington their “dissent cables”, like the one Archer Blood had sent in protest against the Nixon administration’s support for the Pakistani junta during the 1971 Liberation War.

It is this same spirit of resistance that the American people showed in support of the Vietnamese and the Bangladeshis, for example, even as their presidents were on the wrong side of history. 

It is this very spirit that makes America America, where the people, not presidents, dictate the terms. But with Trump their commander-in-chief, they have a long way to go.