The Risks of Trump’s “Safe Zones” in Syria

US President Donald Trump signed an executive order on Friday suspending refugee arrivals and imposing tough new controls on travelers from seven Muslim countries.

The State Department said the 90-day ban in the directive applied to Iraq, Syria, Iran, Sudan, Libya, Somalia and Yemen – all Muslim majority nations.

Martha MacCallum pointed out that the draft of the executive order only calls for a temporary ban on admitting Syrian refugees into the US, and it doesn’t affect people who are already in the country.

Titled, “Protecting the Nation From Foreign Terrorist Entry Into The United States”, the order also bars Syrian refugees from entering the USA indefinitely.

Both Mr Trump and his nominee for attorney general, US Senator Jeff Sessions, have since said they would focus the restrictions on countries whose migrants could pose a threat, rather than placing a ban on people who follow a specific religion.

Mr Trump said on Friday that the USA “didn’t want them here”, meaning radical terrorists, but his blanket ban is applied to all those attempting to flee violence, civil war and persecution.

The executive order, expected Thursday, would partially deliver on one of Trump’s most controversial campaign suggestions for a “Muslim ban” on immigrants and visitors to the USA and just skirts constitutional protections by focusing on countries of origin rather than religious affiliation.

Nekumanesh said many local Muslims fear the unknown that would come with Trump’s planned executive order.

“No it’s not the Muslim ban, but it’s countries that have tremendous terror”, Trump said.

The White House did not immediately release the wording of the order, but reports by several media outlets this week of draft copies of the order suggested it would put in place a 120-day ban on all refugee resettlement. The changes would be the most sweeping to US refugee policy since the Vietnamese resettlement programs of the mid-1970s.

The move directs Pentagon and US State Department to push for “safe zones” inside Syria.

“If applied literally, this provision would bar even those visitors who had made temporary trips overseas, for example a student who went home on winter break and is now returning”, Legomsky said on Friday evening executive order.

College junior Dania Hallak, who is Muslim, said her first reaction when she found out was gratitude that her relatives, who used to live in Syria, had already made it out safely. We’re going to take care of everybody … “Another line refers to a “temporary pause of refugee programs.’ Others appear to refer to those ‘extreme vetting” standards, and to a plan to block ‘individuals who provide material support” to terrorists.

It’s true that Christians make up only a small portion of Syrian refugees admitted into the United States.

Traditionally, the U.S. has accepted refugees based on their “vulnerability” and their ties to friends and family in the U.S., Brané said. “So we are going to help them“, the president said.