Revised US travel ban

The revised executive order aims to protect the US by keeping out people who could pose a terrorist threat

After a federal court’s temporary halt to a Presidential executive order imposing a travel ban on people entering the US from seven Muslim countries, a revised version of the executive order has been put forth this past Monday. The revised travel ban now focuses on six Muslim-majority countries, excluding Iraq and Green Card holders from the purview of the entry ban, but it reinstates a temporary halt on allowing refugees to enter the US.

The revised executive order, like its earlier version, aims to protect the US by keeping out people who could pose a terrorist threat. While civil rights groups have vowed to resist this new executive order as well, there is also a parallel debate surrounding the very issue of whether the current travel ban will be effective in achieving its stated objectives.

One objection to the current travel ban is that there is no good evidence that citizens of the countries the US President has singled out actually present a significant threat to the US. Another objection is that any policy measure which effectively discriminates against members of a specific religion is decidedly un¬-American. Perhaps the most important criticism given the ostensible goal of protecting national security is that this ban is precisely the sort of a measure which can instigate radicalisation of Muslims already on American soil.

Over a hundred former diplomats and national security officials, including Bill Clinton’s former Secretary of State, Madeleine Albright, and Obama’s former national security adviser, Susan Rice, had signed an open letter condemning the original Presidential travel ban, categorically pointing out that it would make the country less safe by fuelling the narrative that America is against Islam.

The US executive order is also being questioned internationally, including in countries like our own, whose absence from the list of banned countries, was somewhat of a surprise. At the recent Munich Security Conference, our Defence Minister pointed out that equating militancy with Islam is not only fuelling Islamophobia, but that measures like the Us travel ban are also not helpful in the fight against terrorism.

Research indicates that the above mentioned fears are not mere speculation but are actually grounded in empirical evidence. In a 2015 study, published in a respected academic journal, Behavioural Science and Policy, illustrated how policies like a travel ban could in fact promote the psychological conditions which can fuel discrimination, alienation, and increase chances of radicalisation. Such findings also resonate with our own research a few years ago focusing on diasporic Muslim communities in Canada within the post-9/11 context.

The loss of meaning or social integration of Muslim diasporic communities has also been associated with greater support for fundamentalist groups and extremist causes. Extremist groups have been trying to target Muslims who feel culturally homeless, leaning heavily on the claim that the West is anti¬-Islam, in the effort to promote acts of what has become known as ‘home-grown terrorism’. It should thus not be surprising to note how pro¬-Islamic State web sites have been calling the US executive order banning travel from Muslim countries a “blessed ban.”

It is encouraging that there are a plethora of civil rights groups and public expressions of solidarity with those affected by the US travel ban. It is however crucial that the new US administration also begins to invest more energy in measures which help improve integration, instead of furthering the sense of alienation, amidst America’s Muslims.

Published in The Express Tribune, March 10^th, 2017.

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