Trump executive order paves way for 'Muslim ban' targeting pro-Palestinian students | Muslim ban news

Washington, DC – Civil rights advocates in the United States are raising the alarm over a directive signed by the president Donald Trump That, they say, sets the stage for another travel ban targeting Muslim-majority countries.

The Executive orderissued Monday, could also be used to target foreign nationals already in the U.S. legally and break into international students who advocate for Palestinian rights, experts say.

Deepa Alajer, a lawyer for the International Refugee Assistance Project (IRAP), an advocacy group, said the new order was “bigger and worse” than the “xenophobic” travel ban Trump imposed on several Muslim majority in 2017 during his first term.

“The worst part of it is now seeking to not just ban non-US people entering the US, but to use those same rationales as a basis to take people out of the US,” Allagena told Al Jazeera.

The new order directs administration officials to compile a list of nations “for which screening and verification of information is so inadequate as to warrant a partial or complete suspension of admissions of nationals from those countries.”

However, this continues further. It calls for identifying the number of citizens who have entered the US from these countries since 2021. – during The presidency of Joe Biden – and collecting “relevant” information about their “actions and activities”.

The White House then ordered “immediate steps” to deport foreign nationals from those countries “whenever information is identified that would support exclusion or removal.”

Trump's executive order also said the administration must ensure that foreign nationals, including those in the U.S., “do not harbor hostile attitudes” toward American citizens, culture, or government and “do not advocate aid or support designated by foreign terrorists “.

Proponents of the order to call “scary”

Allegen warned that the order, called “protecting the United States from foreign terrorists and other threats to national security and public safety,” could do more harm to immigrant families than the 2017 travel restrictions known collectively as the “Muslim ban”.

She said the order's vague language is “scary” because it appears to give agencies broad authority to recommend actions against people the administration seeks to target.

“At its core, it's just another method to protect people, yes Get the people outto destroy families, to incite fear, to make sure that people know that they are not welcome and that the government will bring its power to prevent them,” Alajer told Al Jazeera.

Other advocacy groups have also called out the order since its publication.

The US-Arab Anti-Discrimination Commission (ADC) said the ruling goes further than the 2017 “Muslim ban” by giving the government “greater latitude to use ideological exclusion” to deny visas and remove people from the US.

“ADC calls on the Trump administration to stop stigmatizing and targeting entire communities that only sow division,” the group said in a statement.

“America's Promise of freedom of speech and expression — a principle that President Trump himself has long emphasized — now stands in stark contrast to his new executive order. “

The Muslim Public Affairs Council also warned in a statement that stepping up country-specific vetting measures risked “functioning as a de facto Muslim ban under the guise of security protocols”.

Mariam Jamshidi, a professor at the University of Colorado School of Law, said the order appeared to revive travel ban Since Trump's first term, while pushing a right-wing agenda in the broader culture wars.

Parts of the decree also specifically target Palestinians and Supporters of Palestinian rightsAdded Jamwidi.

“The right is very invested in perpetuating this notion that foreigners, people who are black, brown, Muslim—not white Judeo-Christian, effectively—threaten 'real Americans.'

“The Ugliest Action Possible”

In 2018 several US media reported on it Trump told aides The US should accept more immigrants from places like Norway, not people from Haiti, El Salvador, and Africa, which he called “S***hole States.”

Many right-wing politicians—including Trump's current vice president, JD Vance—have embraced the “Great Replacement” conspiracy theory, which claims there is an effort to replace native-born Americans with immigrants.

Trump's latest order warns against foreign nationals in the US seeking to undermine or replace American culture.

Still, experts say it is unlikely to be used as a vehicle for mass deportation.

“It gives marching orders to agencies to use the full extent of legal frameworks and loopholes to take the ugliest possible actions to remove people who the president He decided he didn't want to be here,” Allagena said.

“That said, there are still laws limiting the grounds on which someone can be removed, and there are protections for people who are being deported.”

Jamshidi also said it was unclear how the order would deport people, noting that it was not clear whether the cited immigration law gives the administration authority to remove foreign nationals.

The executive order relies on a section of the Immigration and Nationality Act that gives the president the power to restrict entry to the U.S. for “any class of aliens” — but not to remove people already here.

“It's probably not a blanket deportation charge,” Jamshidi said.

She warned, however, that the order could lead to further scrutiny of people from those countries and a crackdown on political activities — particularly Palestinian solidarity — that could be perceived as undermining the administration's guidelines.

Efforts to Deport Student Activists

The order directs U.S. officials to make recommendations to “protect” citizens from foreign nationals “who preach or call for sectarian violence, the overthrow or replacement of the culture upon which our Constitutional Republic stands, or who provide aid, advocacy, or support to foreign terrorists “.

Jamshidi said the language was “certainly for foreign nationals, including foreign students, who are involved in Palestinian advocacy.”

With pro-Israel politicians often calling campus activists “pro-Hamas,” Jamshidi said Trump's edict could be used to target Palestinian rights activists who are in the U.S. on student visas.

Both Trump and the Secretary of State Marco Rubio You have previously called for the deportation of international students.

As Palestinian solidarity protests swept The universities of the country Since the war on Gaza broke out, supporters of Israel, especially Republicans, have painted student demonstrators as a threat to campus safety.

Rubio led a letter from the Senate to Biden administration In October 2023, calling for the expulsion of international students who participated in pro-Palestinian protests.

The letter drew parallels between the student protesters and the 9/11 attackers. He cited “lessons learned on September 11, 2001, when terrorists, many of whom were studying in the United States or had excessive visas, carried out the deadliest attack on American soil.”

“Unfortunately, twenty-two years later, our country is witnessing public displays of terrorist sympathizers taking to the streets and justifying Hamas's brutal attacks against the State of Israel,” the letter said.

The 2024 Republican Party Platform also calls for deporting “pro-ham radicals” to make college campuses “safe and patriotic” again.

“Broader implications”

Dima Khalidi, director of the advocacy group Palestine Laker, said it was “clear” that Trump's recent executive order was designed to specifically target Palestinian rights advocates.

She added that while the decree did not specify Israel, pro-Israel groups sought to portray criticism of the US ally as not just anti-Israel or even anti-Semitic, but as “un-American”.

“We have to connect it to this line with the broader ideological imposition that's going on and part of the larger purge that Trump seems very intent on doing,” Khalidi told Al Jazeera.

She said the Trump administration is seeking to use broad discretion in immigration law to crack down on Palestinian rights advocates for their views and circumvent free speech rights.

“They really paint a picture for people of what's acceptable, what's not; What is American, what is not; What is patriotic, what is not,” Khalidi told Al Jazeera.

Critics say the bottom line is that while Trump's first “Muslim ban” targets travelers from several Muslim-majority countries, the order has more far-reaching implications, including what it means for Be an American.

For example, the decree calls for measures to ensure the “proper assimilation” of immigrants and “promote a single American identity.”

Jamshidi said the order had “broader implications for any groups than the initial iterations of the Muslim ban.”

“This is another flip in the culture wars to the right,” she told Al Jazeera.