Columns Opinion

Executive order cannot discern between refugees and extremists

Embed from Getty Images

What does a terrorist or Islamic extremist look like? Can you tell the difference between an extremist and a refugee?

There is no way to tell who is a jihadist and who is an innocent refugee.

In the first few weeks of his term, President Trump committed the biggest case of racial profiling in the history of modern society.  

Most United States citizens can agree that terrorism is a real, horrible plague on not only our nation, but the world. However, there is no justification for punishing tens of millions for the actions of a few.  

One claim is that each of the nations on the ban list has produced terrorists who have attacked the U.S.  

Banning Iranian nationals is a big issue. There has never been an Iranian national terrorist. I challenge President Trump to produce evidence otherwise.

There are also millions of Syrian refugees trying to escape a war-torn nation. There are men, women and children who have seen horrors such as Aleppo, and all they seek is freedom.

Similarly, Libya’s place on the list is almost humorous, given the fact that our nation is directly responsible for its destabilization during former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s term. One Muslim country that is not on the list is Saudi Arabia: a country historically proven to have funded terrorist organizations such as Al-Qaida.

This order is not only distasteful, it is a slap in the face to the brave, honorable men and women who, although being foreign nationals, assist our armed forces in the Middle East.

Hameed Khalid Darweesh, an Iraqi man who put himself and his family in harm’s way during the 2003 invasion of Iraq, served the U.S. as a translator. He is directly responsible for several successful missions because of his knowledge of the local languages and landscapes.

Thankfully, Darweesh was released and returned to his family. However, he should have never been detained in the first place.

To make matters worse, President Trump’s ban only pertains to Muslims from these countries. U.S. citizens, green card holders and visa holders are permitted to enter, as long as they are members of Christian or Jewish faiths. Although the president has sole authority to invite or bar immigrants and refugees to and from the U.S., his authority does not always go unchecked.

Judge Ann Donnelly, a federal judge from Brooklyn, started to pick apart the executive order by declaring that immigrants and refugees who were mid-flight during the signing could not be sent home after being detained. The problem: she left those people and border control in limbo. No one is sure who is allowed to stay and who must go.

It is understandable that, given escalated terror around the world, the Trump administration wants to protect the borders. One can even claim that desperate times call for desperate measures. However, human rights should never be violated, people should never be discriminated against and the fundamental principles of the Constitution should always be upheld.  

What most of Trump’s supporters fail to understand is that these refugees and immigrants are not knocking on the door and asking for welfare or food stamps. They are seeking asylum from unstable countries. Just like the Irish in the 1920s, or the Italians in the 1940s, these are hard-working, innocent people looking to achieve that American dream.

Give them the natural rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness that each human deserves from birth. Citizen or not, America is supposed to be the land of the free, not the land of the aggressively racist.

Opinion columnist John Brucato is an economics senior and can be reached at [email protected]

4 Comments

  • I would just like to understand how temporarily refusing entry to certain people violates their “human rights”? These individuals do not have a human right, nor a legal right to enter the United States. It is a privilege granted to them just as it is a privilege for Americans to enter other countries. Painting this as a racist issue against muslims is incorrect given the fact that the worlds most populous muslim country isn’t included nor are numerous other muslim majority nations. Why are you not concerned that wealthy gulf states in the same region as Syria refuse to take in any refugees? Are they “aggressively racist” or does that only apply to America because everything we do is just racist and evil by your standards. You are 2 for 2 this week in articles that bash American motives, and paint everyone as evil racists.

  • If you cannot tell the difference between an extremist and a refugee my Amish looking friend Lil Johnny ….
    ……………………………………. then deny them both.

    If Muslims cannot be extreme vetted then their gone. Case Closed. Send them back.

    Or do you want Lil Johhny, more Orlando’s? More San Bernardino’s? Because extending Obama like policies that gave terrorists an Equal Opportunity to kill us. It’s not feasible.

    Trump actually loves the United States, while Obama loathed what we stand for, which is why Barack allowed UNVETTED potential Islamic terrorists into Our Land.

    Your gullibility Lil Johnny is most apparent, and more than likely you were a coddled child, with Mommy and Daddy saying, “little Johnny, we are not gonna let anything bad come to pass on you. You will not be exposed to the ills that the World would visit upon you.”

    Yes, Lil Johnny. Your eloquent prose of Irish and Italian immigrant plights is poignant, but has not one bearing on today’s immigration problem. Those immigrants came to America to become American. They came to live the American way of life.

    Lil Johnny, you say give the immigrants “the natural rights to life,” when you other Socialists don’t even want to afford that right to viable Black fetuses.

    Where is the liberty in choosing or not choosing whether to have health insurance? Obama gave us no choice … now that’s dictatorial.

    The beauty of the United States is Our Freedoms extended to our citizens. Those same rights are not guaranteed to those in those seven Muslim nations.

    But to call any immigration policy that begins the steps to ensure that we are a safe nation, to call them “aggressively racist” is childish, and supports my reference to John Brucato as Lil Johnny.

    • I would love to have the drugs you are doing. The guy in Orlando was a U.S. citizen, not a refugee. All of them have been, except the 911 aholes that Bushy Wussy didn’t have tracked down. But then again, people of your ilk don’t care about facts do you?
      The people they are sending back have been vetted thoroughly and your hero, Orangeman, is just being a bully and a loud mouthed ahole that bullies generally are.
      Now he is pissing off the Aussies? What a dumb azz..

      • I smell an Alex J. Colvin, founder, president, and lone member of Gun Free UH.

        Word is that Colvin suspects himself in a recent alleged embezzling episode of funds from GFUHs funds. But Colvin himself is holding up the GFUH investigation, saying there is no credible evidence against himself to promote further investigation of himself. At press time Colvin had no comment for or against himself.

        And of course, not to mention, Alex is an alleged sexual harasser of young, pretty, and innocent millennial women.

        Could it be?

Leave a Comment