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Version 6 Version 7
Trump’s Revised Travel Ban Spares Iraqis Trump’s New Travel Ban Blocks Migrants From Six Nations, Sparing Iraq
(about 5 hours later)
WASHINGTON — President Trump on Monday signed a revised version of his executive order that would for the first time rewrite American immigration policy to bar migrants from predominantly Muslim nations, removing citizens of Iraq from the original travel embargo and scrapping a provision that explicitly protected religious minorities. WASHINGTON — President Trump signed an executive order on Monday blocking citizens of six predominantly Muslim countries from entering the United States, the most significant hardening of immigration policy in generations, even with changes intended to blunt legal and political opposition.
The order, which comes about a month after federal judges blocked Mr. Trump’s haphazardly executed ban in January on residents from seven Middle Eastern and African countries, will not affect people who had previously been issued visas — a change that the administration hopes will avoid the chaos, protests and legal challenges that followed the first order. The order was revised to avoid the tumult and protests that engulfed the nation’s airports after Mr. Trump signed his first immigration directive on Jan. 27. That order was ultimately blocked by a federal appeals court.
But it did little to halt criticism from Democrats and immigrant rights groups, which predicted a renewed fight in the courts. Mr. Trump’s initial, hastily issued order on Jan. 27 prompted protests across the country, leaving tearful families stranded at airports abroad and in the United States. The new order continued to impose a 90-day ban on travelers, but it removed Iraq, a redaction requested by Defense Secretary Jim Mattis, who feared it would hamper coordination to defeat the Islamic State, according to administration officials.
The new measure will be phased in over the next two weeks, according to officials with the Department of Homeland Security. It also exempts permanent residents and current visa holders, and drops language offering preferential status to persecuted religious minorities, a provision widely interpreted as favoring other religious groups over Muslims. In addition, it reversed an indefinite ban on refugees from Syria, replacing it with a 120-day freeze that requires review and renewal.
John F. Kelly, the Homeland Security secretary, said the order was “prospective” and applied “only to foreign nationals outside of the United States” who do not have a valid visa. But the heart of the sweeping executive action is still intact, reflecting Mr. Trump’s “America first” pledge to safeguard against what he has portrayed as a hidden influx of terrorists and criminals — a hard-line campaign promise that resonated deeply with white working-class voters.
“If you have a current valid visa to travel, we welcome you,” said Mr. Kelly, appearing alongside Secretary of State Rex W. Tillerson and Attorney General Jeff Sessions at the Ronald Reagan Federal Building in Washington early Monday — before leaving without taking reporters’ questions. The new order retains central elements of the old one, cutting the number of refugees admitted to the United States each year to 50,000 from about 110,000. Mr. Trump is also leaving open the possibility of expanding the ban to other countries, or even putting Iraq back on the banned list if the country’s leaders fail to comply with a requirement that they increase intelligence sharing, officials said.
“Unregulated, unvetted travel is not a universal privilege, especially when national security is at stake,” Mr. Kelly added. “Unregulated, unvetted travel is not a universal privilege, especially when national security is at stake,” said John F. Kelly, the homeland security secretary, appearing alongside Secretary of State Rex W. Tillerson and Attorney General Jeff Sessions at the Ronald Reagan Federal Building in Washington on Monday.
The indefinite ban on refugees from Syria also has been reduced to a 120-day ban, requiring review and renewal. The new order retains a temporary ban on all refugees. Mr. Kelly said the order was now “prospective” and applied “only to foreign nationals outside of the United States” who do not have a valid visa. None of the men took questions.
Mr. Trump signed the first ban with great fanfare, in front of reporters at the Pentagon. “We don’t want them here,” Mr. Trump said of terrorists. “We want to ensure that we are not admitting into our country the very threats our soldiers are fighting overseas. We only want to admit those into our country who will support our country, and love deeply our people.” The Trump administration quickly tried to break the legal logjam, filing papers in United States District Court in Washington late on Monday seeking to lift an order blocking the fulfillment of the initial ban.
This time, he signed the order in private, with the White House releasing a photograph of the seldom-silent president doing so alone at his desk in the Oval Office. But the president’s revisions did little to halt criticism from Democrats and immigrant rights advocates, who predicted a renewed fight in the courts.
His staff offered no explanation for the lower-key rollout this time. But administration officials said the president wanted to emphasize that the rewrite was a collective effort, not like the secretive one by the White House advisers Stephen K. Bannon and Stephen Miller that resulted in the botched execution of the first order.
Justice Department lawyers said the revisions rendered moot legal cases against the original travel ban.
But opponents said that the removal of a section that had granted preferential treatment to victims of religious persecution — a provision that immigrant rights attorneys argued was intended to discriminate against Muslims — was a cosmetic change that did nothing to alter the order’s prejudicial purpose.
“This is a retreat, but let’s be clear — it’s just another run at a Muslim ban,” said Omar Jadwat, director of the Immigrants’ Rights Project at the American Civil Liberties Union, one of the groups that sued to stop the first order.
“At its core, the second order looks very similar to the first, and I expect it will run into the same problems from the courts and the public that the first one did. They can’t unring the bell.”
The Senate Democratic leader, Chuck Schumer of New York, described the new order as a “watered-down ban” that was still “meanspirited and un-American.”The Senate Democratic leader, Chuck Schumer of New York, described the new order as a “watered-down ban” that was still “meanspirited and un-American.”
Margaret Huang, executive director of Amnesty International USA, said in a statement that the new order would “cause extreme fear and uncertainty for thousands of families by, once again, putting anti-Muslim hatred into policy.” Margaret Huang, the executive director of Amnesty International USA, said in a statement that the new order would “cause extreme fear and uncertainty for thousands of families by, once again, putting anti-Muslim hatred into policy.”
Congressional Republicans, who were split over the first travel ban, had a more muted reaction. But Speaker Paul D. Ryan, who backed the first order, released a statement saying the revised order “advances our shared goal of protecting the homeland.” The new measure will be phased in over the next two weeks to avoid the frenetic, same-day execution of the order in January, which prompted protests across the country and left tearful families stranded at airports abroad and in the United States.
Citizens of Iran, Somalia, Sudan, Yemen, Syria and Libya will face a 90-day suspension of visa processing as the administration continues to analyze how to enhance vetting procedures, according to a Homeland Security summary of the order. The redrafted order, delayed by a week so it would not overshadow Mr. Trump’s address to a joint session of Congress last Tuesday, represented a recognition that the rushed first attempt at the ban did not pass muster legally or politically.
The removal of Iraq from the list came after talks with security officials in Baghdad, at the urging of State and Defense Department officials, who felt the ban would undermine the stability of the United States-allied government. Administration officials privately conceded that the initial version of the order was a political debacle that damaged Mr. Trump’s nascent presidency. But they were much more sanguine about the second order, arguing that the new, multiagency review process could be used in the future to bend Mr. Trump’s uncompromising messages toward Washington’s bureaucratic realities.
“On the basis of negotiations that have taken place between the government of Iraq and the U.S. Department of State in the last month, Iraq will increase cooperation with the U.S. government on the vetting of its citizens applying for a visa to travel to the United States,” Homeland Security officials wrote in a fact sheet given to reporters. Mr. Trump signed the first ban with great fanfare, in front of reporters, at the Pentagon. “We don’t want them here,” Mr. Trump said of Islamist terrorists. “We want to ensure that we are not admitting into our country the very threats our soldiers are fighting overseas. We only want to admit those into our country who will support our country, and love deeply our people.”
The Iraqis agreed to improve the quality of travel documentation and to bolster their sharing of information about potentially dangerous nationals, officials said. This time, the White House issued a photograph of the president signing the order alone at his desk in the Oval Office.
The new order was delayed for about a week as the White House sought to better coordinate its activities with federal agencies and to maximize its public relations impact, according to three administration officials. Justice Department lawyers said the revisions rendered moot legal cases against the original travel ban. But opponents said the removal of a section that had granted preferential treatment to victims of religious persecution was a cosmetic change that did nothing to alter the order’s prejudicial purpose. Immigrant rights lawyers had argued that the provision was intended to discriminate against Muslims, pointing to recent statements by Mr. Trump.
In a conference call with reporters Monday morning, officials with the Departments of Homeland Security, State and Justice defended Mr. Trump’s original order and said the rewrite was intended to address legal concerns quickly so they could deal with what they repeatedly characterized as an urgent national security threat. “This is a retreat, but let’s be clear — it’s just another run at a Muslim ban,” said Omar Jadwat, the director of the Immigrants’ Rights Project at the American Civil Liberties Union, one of the groups that sued to stop the first order. “They can’t unring the bell.”
The timing of the ban seemed intended to reset the White House political narrative, after a tumultuous week that began with a well-received address to a joint session of Congress. That success was quickly overshadowed by the controversies over Attorney General Jeff Sessions’s failure to inform the Senate of his contacts with a Russian diplomat and Mr. Trump’s unsupported accusation that President Barack Obama tried to wiretap Mr. Trump’s phones during the 2016 campaign. Eric T. Schneiderman, the attorney general of New York and a plaintiff in a suit seeking to block the first order, said his office was reviewing the new ban, adding, “I stand ready to litigate — again — in order to protect New York’s families, institutions and economy.”
Mr. Trump’s pledges to crack down on illegal immigration and prevent terrorist attacks on United States soil were cornerstones of his appeal to white working-class voters. Congressional Republicans, who were split over the first travel ban, had a more muted reaction. But Speaker Paul D. Ryan, who backed the first order, issued a statement saying the revised order “advances our shared goal of protecting the homeland.”
“The vast majority of individuals convicted of terrorism and terrorism-related offenses since 9/11 came here from outside of our country,” the president said last Tuesday, during the address to a joint session of Congress in which he reiterated his promise to build a wall on the border with Mexico and “win” wars against the Islamic State and “radical Islamic terrorism” — a phrase Mr. Obama avoided in his public utterances. Citizens of Iran, Somalia, Sudan, Yemen, Syria and Libya will face a 90-day suspension of visa processing as the administration analyzes how to strengthen vetting procedures, according to a homeland security summary of the order.
“We cannot allow a beachhead of terrorism to form inside America,” he added. “And we cannot allow our nation to become a sanctuary for extremists.” The removal of Iraq from the list came after talks with security officials in Baghdad and at the urging of Mr. Mattis and State Department officials, who have been in communication with Iraqi officials alarmed that the ban will turn public sentiment in their country against the United States.
Critics argue that Mr. Trump’s vow to impose “extreme vetting” on migrants, especially those from war-torn Syria, disregards a stringent screening protocol already in place, and the fact that none of the recent terrorist attacks or mass shootings on American soil were perpetrated by attackers from the nations listed in the ban. “On the basis of negotiations that have taken place between the government of Iraq and the U.S. Department of State in the last month, Iraq will increase cooperation with the U.S. government on the vetting of its citizens applying for a visa to travel to the United States,” homeland security officials wrote in a fact sheet given to reporters.
Last week, The Associated Press reported that it had obtained a draft Department of Homeland Security assessment concluding that citizenship was an “unlikely indicator” of a threat. The timing of the ban seemed intended to reset the White House political narrative, after a turbulent week that began with Mr. Trump’s well-received address to Congress. That success was quickly overshadowed by the controversies over Mr. Sessions’s failure to inform the Senate of his contacts with the Russian ambassador and Mr. Trump’s unsupported accusation that President Barack Obama tapped Mr. Trump’s phones during the 2016 campaign.
Homeland Security officials, speaking to reporters on Monday, pushed back against that news report, arguing that it was culled from public sources and excluded classified information that paints a more dangerous picture. Critics say that Mr. Trump’s vow to impose “extreme vetting” on migrants, especially those fleeing the war in Syria, disregards already stringent screening measures, and the fact that none of the recent terrorist attacks or mass shootings on American soil were perpetrated by people from the nations listed in the ban.
An official, speaking on the call, said the Justice Department had identified 300 “refugees” who were being investigated for their links to Islamic terrorist groups or pro-Islamic State positions. Some of those people already have permanent resident status, according to the official. Last week, The Associated Press reported that it had obtained a draft homeland security assessment concluding that citizenship was an “unlikely indicator” of a threat.
But Homeland Security and Justice Department officials refused to provide any further details, and they would not say how many of the 300 investigation targets came from any of the countries covered by the revised travel ban. Homeland security officials, speaking to reporters by telephone on Monday, pushed back against that news report, arguing that it was culled from public sources and excluded classified information that paints a more dangerous picture.
Since 2001, 18 of the 36 Muslim extremists who have engaged in attacks inside the United States were born in the United States, while 14 migrated here as children and would not have been stopped by the new vetting process, according to an analysis by Charles Kurzman, a professor at the University of North Carolina. An official speaking on the call said the Justice Department had identified 300 “refugees” who were being investigated for their links to Islamist terrorist groups or for holding pro-Islamic State positions. Some of those people already have permanent resident status, the official said.
None came from the banned nations; Muslim extremists have accounted for 16 out of 240,000 murders in the United States since the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. But homeland security and Justice Department officials declined to provide further details, and would not say how many of the 300 people being investigated came from the countries covered by the revised travel ban.