literature

Trumps travel ban tragedy

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Donald Trump has, during the election campain, already announced that he wants „a complete shutdown on Muslims entering the United States“.
In the first weeks after his inauguration, he passed a law which, first for 90 days, should ban all people from seven muslim-majority countries – Yemen, Syria, Iraq, Sudan, Iran, Somalia and Libya – from entering the United States.
Let me introduce you to some people affected by the ban:
Tarek Al-Wazir, from the green party, is vice prime minister of Germany’s federal state Hesse and minister for economy and a few other things in the government of Hesse. He is from Yemen.
Navid Kermani is a german author who was in discussion as a possible canidate for the recent election of Germany’s president. He is from Iran.
Omid Nouripour, representative of the green party in the german parliament, is the vice-president of the german-american committee of the german parliament. He is from Iran.
Except for some very rare cases, where the iranian government releases people from iranian citizenship, there is no way to resign from iranian citizenship. I am not sure how the juristical situation is currently in Yemen.  
Normally, the members of the german-american committee travel to the US several times a year. So, as long as the ban is in place, normal cooperation between people from those countries and the US would not be an option. Trump has not adressed this problem or offered any alternative yet. Communicating on Twitter?
So far, every american court which had to rule about the ban declared the ban unconstitutional, so it is currently not in place.
But why was the law even passed?
Supporters of the law normally argue that it was passed in order to keep terrorists out. None of the countries of origin from the perpretrators of the attack on the World Trade Center – Lebanon, Egypt, Saudi-Arabia and the United Arabic Emirates – is on the list of the countries who are affected by the ban. Vice versa, of the citizens from the countries on the list, between 1975 and 2015, not a single one has killed any american in the United States.
Donald Trump has business ties in some islamic countries: The United Arabic Emirates, Saudi-Arabia, Egypt and Turkey.
This as well as political reasons (the ban targeted Iran, which is traditionally hated by the Gulf States) have likely been reasons why some countries like the the United Arabic Emirates were reluctant to critizise his ban. This country was also a country of origin from some of the perpretrators of the attack on the World Trade Center.
Donald Trump apprechiated their reaction, writing on twitter „They know that if certain people are allowed to enter, it’s death and destruction“.
He also claimed on Twitter that entering the United States was not a right, but a privilege. But for people with an american passport, it is a right.
There has been the false claim that the ban does not affect people with double citizenship. But as long as it was in action, it did.
There has been the false claim that only around 109 people were affected by the ban -but alone during the short time while it was in action, tens of thousands were affected.
Similiar nonsense is a discussion about wether this law is a Muslim ban. While it does currently not ban all Muslims, Donald Trump has said himself that he intends to create a law which does so.
In a final attempt to defend Trump’s order, senior adviser Kellyanne Conway claimed falsely that Barack Obama had banned refugees from Iraq for six months in 2011 (which he had not done, he had just imposed stricter vetting measures) following the Bowling Green massacre (a massacre with that name never happened).
Meanwhile, in the islamic world, Iraq decided to react on the ban with banning Americans, including american soldiers, from entering Iraq. And the Yemen has withdrawn the permission to carry out counter-terrorism missions inside the country from the US.
The terrorist organisation „Islamic State“ has already started to call the law „blessed ban“.
So, a few thoughts about Trumps ban. I don't think that banning people from entering a country is necessarly racist. And I find the fundamentalism and lack of knowledge regarding the debate tiring. 

Some people seem to be unable to accept that the laws a country passes should fit with what stands in international law and the country's constitution. Of course, you could also stop caring for the constitution and international law, but then you'd likely be a dictatorship. 

The question wether this is racism aside, there are a few other issues I tried to adress here on why the law could be problematic. 
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