Muslim Ban is " un-American and unconstitutional "

I am proud to be an American and Islam is my religion

While some among us attempt to delude themselves into thinking that we live in a post-racial society, with each passing day it become abundantly clearer that this concept is a farce. Racial tensions are increasing throughout the nation, and negative attitudes towards minorities have exacerbated substantially, with many thanks due to those who misuse religious principles to gain political power while simultaneously backing racist arguments and ideas.

For example, take hate-mongering administrative and senior advisory team of the newly elected republican president Donald Trump who for their nasty hidden agenda have attracted large evangelical Christian followers and far-right white supremacists just to destroy more than 60 years of American civil liberty success story? Many of us watch the ceremonies surrounding the presidential executive orders on Muslim ban and are left scratching our heads, trying to understand what about profanity and hate speech is so enticing to devoted members the Christian faith.

While the exact scope and meaning of the executive order continues to be deciphered, on its face and as applied to date, Trump's order appears to violate several international treaties ratified by the US, some provisions of which have been incorporated into US law and cited as binding by the US Supreme Court. In particular, the order seems to fly in the face of the 1967 Protocol Relating to the Status of Refugees which updated the post-World War II Refugee Convention of 1951, and other international human rights law that prohibits discrimination on the basis of race, religion, or national origin.

One of the reasons international law is so valuable is because the international community of nations has developed it as protection against such abuses, both in our country and around the world, often in the name of national security. International law has learned from the past and made explicit that none of these violations can be excused by an appeal to national security, nor should they be permitted by an appeal to xenophobia.

The United Nations Refugee Convention requires that the US provide protection and safe haven to those facing persecution. By shutting the door to refugee admissions whether temporarily or indefinitely, Trump's order flagrantly violates that core obligation. This order also breaks with the long US tradition and history (with some abhorrent exceptions that should never be repeated) of opening its doors to refugees.

The UN High Commissioner for Refugees and International Migration Organization noted this proud tradition in a joint statement in reaction to the executive order. "The long-standing US policy of welcoming refugees has created a win-win situation: it has saved the lives of some of the most vulnerable people in the world who have in turn enriched and strengthened their new societies," the statement read. "The contribution of refugees and migrants to their new homes worldwide has been overwhelmingly positive."

President Trump has further publicly and falsely stated that his order will protect our national security. But the UN High Commissioner for Refugees, acknowledging states' legitimate interests in maintaining public security and combating terrorism, has warned against the effects of making exceptions, or, in his words, "the erosion of long-standing refugee protection principles". While the order doesn't bar all Muslims from entering the US, barring immigration entry from seven majority-Muslim countries, especially when paired with his national security team's record of Islamophobia, leaves no doubt that Muslims are the target of this order. While Trump's order places a moratorium on refugee admissions and an indefinite halt on resettling refugees from Syria, the order leaves an exception for "religious minorities". And while the order's language is neutral, the president stated in a recent interview with the Christian Broadcasting Company that he wants to provide priority to Christian refugees.

But President Trump's un-American and unconstitutional action doesn't just violate the Refugee Convention - it flies in the face of other sources of international law that bind us. The International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination, or ICERD, to which the US is bound, requires states parties to "guarantee the right of everyone, without distinction as to race, color, national or ethnic origin, to equality before the law."

US violations of this treaty precede the Trump administration, and have already been so flagrant and obvious that nearly identical concerns were addressed by the ICERD's committee after 9/11. The Committee expressed concern at the US government's discriminatory anti-terrorism measures and remarked that "measures taken in the fight against terrorism must not discriminate, in purpose or effect, on the grounds of race, color, descent, or national or ethnic origin."

The one must wonder if the Republicans are getting paid to write propaganda for ISIS. Anyone works for ISIS would probably consider cutting the republican leadership a check or at least a thank you card for all the hard work they’ve been doing, helping create the narrative that the United States is so anti-Muslim, so consumed with hatred with all things Islam, that they can’t even tell the difference between bad guys like ISIS and the victims who are trying to find safety, i.e. the Syrian refugees. If I were trying to stoke the Us vs. Them narrative that ISIS uses to recruit people to join their apocalyptic war-mongering cult, I would argue that “the West” hates the ordinary Muslim as much as the ISIS fighter, so you might as well be the latter. But why should ISIS bother writing that propaganda, when Republicans are willing to do it for them?

The rush on the right to blame the Syrian refugees for the attacks in Europe has been breathtaking in its racism, and thoughtlessness. The excuse for the hysteria is that ISIS could be hiding wannabe terrorists in the ranks, and that justifies keeping them all out. This argument makes no sense, of course. Most, if not all, of the terrorists in Europe were European nationals. Meanwhile, the refugees are people who are trying to survive and many of them are trying not to be forced to fight. Blaming them only makes sense if you have an irrational fear and hatred of Muslims.

Of course, a lot of Americans, particularly in the conservative base, do have an irrational fear and hatred of Muslims, and so Republicans—who clearly see civil war, terrorism, and a humanitarian crisis mostly as an opportunity to score political points with the base—are pandering as hard as they can. Republican governors are rushing forward to say they will not allow Syrian refugees to enter their states. Most Republican presidential candidates picked up the same message, that the way to fight ISIS is to refuse its victims shelter.

While the cover story is fear of sleeper agents, the rhetoric shows that the real purpose of this is to stoke hatred of Muslims and feed the Christian right’s narrative about how this is a war between Christianity and Islam, starting with the argument, originating with Ted Cruz, that it would be okay to take in Christian refugees, but not Muslim ones.
Mike Huckabee went on Fox News and, in a stunningly overt bit of racism, sneered, “It’s time to wake up and smell the falafel.” Get it? They eat “weird” food and so they shouldn’t be allowed to live here! Did you know that many of these people have seen entire city blocks wiped out with bombs and have watched loved ones die in front of their eyes? But, weird food!

Chris Christie bragged that New Jersey won’t even accept “orphans under age 5.” Because this is not and never was about legitimate fears of terrorism, but about stoking right-wing hatred of Muslims, even those who aren’t even old enough for school yet.
Many experts rushed forward to immediately explain that states don’t have a right to simply ban huge swaths of legal immigrants from living in their state, but it’s doubtful that any of these governors actually intended to try. It’s all posturing for the cameras, showing the conservative base that you hate and fear Muslims just as much as they do.
Luckily for ISIS, the propaganda that works for the Christian right works just as perfectly for ISIS! The only people who want a “clash of civilizations” between Christianity and Islam more than conservative Christians is ISIS, which is, at its heart, an apocalyptic cult that wants to conquer the non-believers, both non-Muslims and Muslims who have a different take on Islam than ISIS fundamentalists do. So, let us give big ups from ISIS to every conservative who feeds the ISIS narrative with their hysterical anti-Muslim bleating.

A lot of ISIS propaganda bashes refugees, telling them that true Muslims should move to the caliphate. Luckily for ISIS, Christian conservatives agree that the Syrian refugees should go home. It is a Fact that ISIS and the Republicans are working together to terrorize Syrian refugees. Nothing brings disparate people together like hate, I guess.
ISIS holds some territory, but at its heart, it’s an idea: A twisted interpretation of Islam, coupled with an aggressive plan of terrorism and conquest. ISIS fights with bombs and guns made by the west, sure, but its main weapon is propaganda. The strategy is to convince people, mostly oppressed Muslims, to buy into the ISIS bullshit about some epic world-changing showdown, which definitely involves the West vs. ISIS. And so Republicans are giving them a gift: The more hate they pile on Muslims, the easier it is for ISIS to argue to potential recruits that peace is not possible and so all-out war is all there is left.

The way to fight propaganda is to get smart, persuasive counter-messages out there. The United States needs to get the word out that ISIS kills Muslims (which they do, in great numbers), but the U.S. helps save Muslim lives. The best way to do this is to take in Syrian refugees and to be faithful to its longstanding policy as the leader of the free world and the founder of the bill of rights. It’s not just the right thing to do, but it’s just smart politics. It shows that we reject, whole-heartedly, the ISIS narrative about clash of civilizations, and that we want peace and unity between peace-loving people everywhere. We can’t accomplish this goal while refusing to treat Syrian refugees like human beings in need of help, which is what they are.

If you care about breaking ISIS up and reducing violence, the first step is to take Syrian refugees gladly, to show that we are better and more moral and more peaceable than our enemies. Republicans refuse to do this; instead feeding the ISIS propaganda machine and helping them recruit more people with their hate. Looking over the landscape, it’s hard not to conclude that given a choice between saving lives—not just Muslim lives, but the American lives that will be lost if this conflict escalates—and scoring political points against the Democrats, they will score their points rather than save lives.

The international community has seen this before, and it has wisely created mechanisms to stop history from repeating itself. International companies, academic institutions, and even the international air transport association have raised serious concerns regarding the detrimental impact of the order on their staff and ability to conduct business. Even Trump's own employees took a bold and public stance against the ban.

Trump's Muslim ban has enraged world leaders and was condemned by UN officials. The secretary general of the UN, Antonio Guterres, said that Trump's executive actions "violate our basic principles … [and] are not effective if the objective is to indeed avoid terrorists to enter the United States."

Additionally, several UN human rights experts issued a joint statement blasting Trump's immigration ban as discriminatory and in violation of US human rights obligations. It shouldn't take the chancellor of another country or the top refugee and human rights officials in the world to tell President Trump that fear and xenophobia are no excuse for discrimination.
But if he won't listen to the UN or Chancellor Merkel or concerned companies, academic institutions, transport associations, human rights organizations, and over 100 diplomats, maybe he should listen to former US President Ronald Reagan, supposedly a hero of his. In 1980, a year after the Refugee Act was signed into law, the new president, just a few months into his presidency, re-affirmed the US' commitment to welcome the exiled.
"We shall continue America's tradition as a land that welcomes peoples from other countries," he said. "We shall also, with other countries, continue to share in the responsibility of welcoming and resettling those who flee oppression."