Trump travel ban (Executive Order 13769)

In 2017, US President Donald Trump issued a travel ban (Executive Order 13769) that prohibited citizens from seven Muslim-majority nations from entering the United States. The executive order’s official name was “Protecting the Nation from Foreign Terrorist Entry Into the United States,” but it became commonly known as the Trump travel ban. Opponents of the measure sometimes referred to it as the “Muslim ban.” The measure temporarily put a halt to immigration from seven Middle Eastern nations and suspended the entry of Syrian refugees fleeing civil war in their home country. The ban was met with controversy and legal challenges upon its implementation, leading Trump to update the measure with two more executive orders. Each update was meant to combat the legal challenges the ban faced. Eventually, the ban was modified to the extent it was upheld by the US Supreme Court.

Background

In 2015, New York businessman and reality TV personality Donald Trump announced he would run as a Republican candidate for president in the 2016 presidential election. As Trump began campaigning in the Republican primary, he took a confrontational stance against immigration and promoted a series of nationalistic policies. He stirred controversy when he made disparaging remarks about Mexican immigrants, and promised to build a wall along the US-Mexico border to stem the flow of undocumented immigrants. Despite the controversy his remarks generated, Trump won the Republican primary, and moved on to run against Democrat Hillary Clinton in the general election. While Trump’s campaign continued to be plagued by allegations of racism, xenophobia, and later Islamophobia, he defeated Clinton in the general election, and was inaugurated as the 45th President of the United States in January 2017.

In the mid-2010s, an Islamic terrorist group known as Islamic State (IS) gained power in the Middle East. The group was connected to numerous terrorist attacks worldwide, including the deadly 2015 Paris Attacks. While some attacks by extremist Islamic terrorists occurred on US soil, those attacks were conducted by US citizens who claimed to be IS sympathizers. In December 2015, Trump seized on the issue by calling for a “complete shutdown” of Muslim immigration to the United States until the country “can figure out what is going on.” He also called for the surveillance of Muslims, including some mosques. Although his campaign later backed away from calling for a total ban on Muslims, Trump continued to push for immigration restrictions on countries he claimed posed a threat of terrorism. The majority of these nations were primarily Muslim.

Overview

After his inauguration on January 20, 2017, President Trump began implementing some of his policies by executive order. On January 27, 2017, Trump signed Executive Order 13769, banning foreign nationals from seven predominantly Muslim countries—Syria, Iran, Iraq, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, and Yemen—from entering the United States for ninety days. It stopped Syrian refugees from entering the country indefinitely and put a 120-day halt to accepting refugees from other countries.

The Department of Homeland Security and the US Customs and Border Protection (CBP) began implementing the ban the day after it was signed. The rollout of the order caused confusion among both prospective immigrants and the officials tasked with enforcing the ban. Many CBP officers were unaware of how they were supposed to implement the order. Because the ban took effect without warning, people from the banned nations were often caught off guard when they arrived at US airports. If a family or group was comprised of members from a banned nation and an open nation, they were often separated at CPB checkpoints. In some cases, families had to decide whether to stay together and return home or split up so some members could enter the United States.

National polls showed the travel ban had about an equal number of supporters and detractors. In the wake of its passage, thousands of people began to protest at airports throughout the country. Court battles against the order also started almost immediately, with the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) and other organizations filing lawsuits to halt the ban. Many of the cases argued that the order was illegal because it discriminated against people on the basis of religion, and was motivated by Islamophobia. The Trump administration countered that the order was based on preventing the threat of terrorism and not on excluding people on religious grounds. On January 29, only two days after Trump signed the order, a federal judge in New York granted the ACLU’s request for an injunction blocking the deportation of people from the seven banned nations. On February 3, a federal judge temporality halted the ban around the country.

Although Trump appealed the injunction, another judge upheld the decision. To overcome these legal hurdles, Trump signed a new executive order on March 6, 2017. The new order removed Iraq from the list of banned nations, citing that country’s progress in combatting IS within its borders. It also exempted those with legal permanent residence in the United States, and people who held dual citizenship in the United States and one of the six banned nations. However, on March 15, a federal judge blocked Trump’s second executive order. In June, the Supreme Court blocked parts of the order but allowed other parts to remain.

On September 24, 2017, President Trump signed a third version of the travel ban. This version removed Sudan from the list but added restrictions on immigration from Chad and North Korea and banned certain Venezuelan government officials from entering the country. In April 2018, Chad was removed from the list. Many of the administration’s changes were made to take the focus of the ban off of Muslim immigration, although five of the remaining banned nations—Iran, Libya, Somalia, Syria, and Yemen—were primarily Muslim.

This third version of the travel ban still faced legal challenges from the ACLU and from other organizations. On June 26, 2018, the Supreme Court upheld the final version of the executive order and it remained in effect through the remainder of Trump’s presidency. In the 2020 presidential election, Trump lost to Democrat Joe Biden, who used his own executive order to rescind the ban in January 2021.

Bibliography

“DHS Implementation of Executive Order #13769 "Protecting the Nation from Foreign Terrorist Entry into the United States" (January 27, 2017).” Department of Homeland Security OIG, 2018, www.oversight.gov/report/dhs/dhs-implementation-executive-order-13769-protecting-nation-foreign-terrorist-entry-united. Accessed 9 Feb. 2021.

Eyrich, Tess. “Research Suggests Trump’s ‘Muslim Ban’ Produced Rare Shift in Public Opinion.” UCR Today, 12 Jan. 2018, ucrtoday.ucr.edu/508994. Accessed 9 Feb. 2021.

Liptak, Adam and Michael D. Shear. “Trump’s Travel Ban Is Upheld by Supreme Court.” New York Times, 26 Jun. 2018, www.nytimes.com/2018/06/26/us/politics/supreme-court-trump-travel-ban.html. Accessed 9 Feb. 2021.

Nazita Lajevardi, Kassra, A.R. Oskooii, and Loren Collingwood. “Biden Reverses Trump’s ‘Muslim Ban.’ Americans Support the Decision.” Washington Post, 27 Jan. 2021, www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2021/01/27/biden-reversed-trumps-muslim-ban-americans-support-that-decision/. Accessed 9 Feb. 2021.

“Presidential Executive Orders 13769, 13780: Protecting the Nation From Foreign Terrorist Entry Into the United States.” U.S. Department of Homeland Security, 2017, www.dhs.gov/publication/executive-orders-13769-and-13780. Accessed 9 Feb. 2021.

Savage, Charlie. “Analyzing Trump’s New Travel Ban,” New York Times, 6 Mar. 2017, www.nytimes.com/2017/03/06/us/politics/annotated-executive-order-immigration-travel-ban.html. Accessed 9 Feb. 2021.

Shear, Michael D. and Helene Cooper. “Trump Bars Refugees and Citizens of 7 Muslim Countries.” New York Times, 27 Jan. 2017, www.nytimes.com/2017/01/27/us/politics/trump-syrian-refugees.html. Accessed 9 Feb. 2021.

Taylor, Jessica. “Trump Calls For ‘Total and Complete Shutdown Of Muslims Entering’ U.S.” NPR, 7 Dec. 2015, www.npr.org/2015/12/07/458836388/trump-calls-for-total-and-complete-shutdown-of-muslims-entering-u-s. Accessed 9 Feb. 2021.