Friday night, President Trump issued an executive order barring refugees and citizens from seven predominantly Muslim countries from entering the United States – and immigrants who were on flights Friday night are already being detained.
According to CNN, the order places a complete halt on all refugee admissions for the next 120 days, and bans all citizens of Iran, Iraq, Syria, Sudan, Libya, Yemen and Somalia. Additionally, the total number of refugees accepted into the United States during 2017 will be 50,000 – less than half of 2016’s 110,000.
The order was already in effect Saturday morning, and refugees and immigrants in airports across the country are already feeling the burden, the New York Times reports. Lawyers representing two Iraqi men being held at JFK airport have filed a lawsuit against the government for detaining the two men, Hameed Khalid Darweesh and Sameer Abdulkhaleq Alshawi, who arrived Saturday morning on separate flights. Darweesh served the U.S. government for 10 years as an interpreter, and Alshawi was planning to join his wife and son in the United States. Organizations like the American Civil Liberties Union have also reportedly filed complaints against the order according to the Times.
While the order is allegedly part of Trump’s effort to keep out “radical Islamic terrorists,” no immigrants from any of the countries listed on the ban have ever attacked the United States before, while members of the September 11, 2001 attacks were from Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Lebanon – none of which are countries POTUS has included in the ban.
Additionally, the order gives preference to those who are, “a minority religion in the individual’s country of nationality,” according to CNN, making it much easier for Christians coming from these countries to gain refugee status than for Muslims that make up the majority of the nine countries banned.
And as a quick reminder, even Vice President Mike Pence himself even called the Muslim ban unconstitutional one year ago:
Calls to ban Muslims from entering the U.S. are offensive and unconstitutional.
— Governor Mike Pence (@GovPenceIN) December 8, 2015