It’s Not About a Muslim Ban or Even a Refugee Crisis

This weekend’s news was dominated by the story of two green card holders being detained at New York’s JFK airport on Friday night due to Trump’s executive order to issue a temporary moratorium on travelers from specific countries. These countries consist of mostly Muslim populations, with unstable governments and histories of terrorism, giving the US no viable way to check migrants that want to enter the country. However, the Left and the media jumped on this story and purposely mischaracterized it as a “Muslim Ban,” leading to country-wide protests and hysteria. It got so out of hand that there are now calls to boycott Uber because Uber turned off their price-surging and took people home from the airport while the city’s taxi drivers union, New York Taxi Workers Alliance, protested. Due to the company not involving themselves in the protests and doing their jobs, the hashtag #DeleteUber has taken off on Twitter.

But the madness is unfounded because the premise for it is wrong. Trump’s executive order was not a Muslim ban. It includes a list of seven countries—Iran, Iraq, Syria, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, and Yemen—all Muslim countries, but also all with a history of terrorism and either non-functioning governments or governments hostile to the US, both of which would make refugees virtually impossible to vet. The order does not say the words “Muslim” or “Islam” once. It states that the visa process needs to be revamped and that it is being implemented in order to keep the country safer, invoking 9/11, the Boston Marathon bombing, and many other attacks on US soil. It states that “The United States cannot, and should not, admit those who do not support the Constitution, or those who would place violent ideologies over American law.” The moratorium would last for 90 days and then would be reevaluated. Furthermore, the Secretaries of State and Homeland Security can waive the EO on a case-by-case basis.

However, what led to Friday night’s problem was that the EO was interpreted by Chief Strategist Steve Bannon and top Trump advisor Steven Miller to cover those with green cards. This led to a lot of confusion with the Department of Homeland Security. Indeed, there was a lot of incompetence at fault for Friday night’s debacle.

But the Left doesn’t care what the order actually does. The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) brought the case to a federal judge, who ruled in their favor. Since then, the ACLU has raised over $24 million and added over 150,000 new members since Saturday morning when they filed the lawsuit. The group’s fundraising banner reads, “He discriminated. We sued. Donate monthly.” In other words, it’s all about the ACLU and it’s agenda.

It couldn’t be more obvious that the Left doesn’t actually care if these Muslims were denied entry into the US, or any matter that they protest. It’s about an agenda of chaos and cashing in. Former President Barack Obama, a Democrat Leftist, issued similar moratoriums on migrant entry, and the list of countries that Trump used was actually based on the list that Obama named as sources of terror. In fact, Democrat President Jimmy Carter issued a moratorium on Iranian refugees in 1980 and Obama stopped processing Iraqi visas for six months in 2011.

That is not necessarily to say that just because one side does something, the other can do it too. Right is right and wrong is wrong, no matter who performs the action. However, the Left’s silence when Obama performed similar actions to Trump’s shows that they don’t care about the result of the policy, only about advancing the narrative and ideology.

The Left just wants conservatives to lose. Of course the executive order could have been made to be more specific and less confusing. But that’s not why the Left is angry. No matter what Trump would have done, the hysteria would not have been any different. This is the first time in a long time that we have a President who will stand up for the American people, defend them to the end and not cower to the Left. And it’s about time we stand our ground and defend our freedoms and beliefs.