A key pitch in the message from Islamic extremists in seeking to radicalize their fellow Muslims is that it is “them versus us.” I’m afraid that in seeking to counter this message, the announcement from President Trump about refugees is less than helpful.
Of course his policy doesn’t amount to a ban on Muslims entering America – which he proposed in the election and would have in any event have been impractical. But the ban on everyone from Syria, Iraq, Iran, Sudan, Libya, Somalia, and Yemen means everyone gets the general message.
It is right for the West to differentiate between providing sanctuary to those who are our friends and those who wish to destroy us. The trouble is the measures brought in by Trump lack the sophistication to achieve that aim. An important caveat is that the ban is to last for 90 days, while heightened vetting procedures are developed.
Rather more serious is the position of interpreters who worked with American servicemen in Afghanistan and Iraq to help in the fight against terror. Those interpreters were promised resettlement in the U.S. under a Special Immigrant Visa programme to protect them as they face being targeted for assassination. They now face being betrayed and that is something that the US Government should urgently review. It needs to be made clear that each application will be considered on merit – on a case by case basis (which is allowed for in the wording of the Executive Order).
However, if the new policy has some perverse implications, some of the attacks on it have also been confused and hypocritical. Critics have noted that the banned list didn’t include those from Saudi, Arabia or Egypt – the two countries where nearly all the 9/11 hijackers came from. Would they have been supportive if those countries had been added?
Others have been busy quoting Emma Lazarus’s powerful poem on the Statue of Liberty – “Give me your tired, your poor, Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free…”
That is where the hypocrisy comes in – with the message that Trump is to be denounced on the grounds that an open door policy is a moral imperative. Thus in some way, Obama’s annual refugee cap of 70,000 was magnificent, while Trump’s
proposal of 50,000 is pure evil.
So where were the critics in 2011 when President Obama completely halted the processing of refugees from Iraq for six months? The justification for doing so concerned evidence of terrorist infiltration. Why should such concerns raised by Obama have been acceptable but similar ones from Trump be dismissed out of hand?
Then we had the very recent refusal of President Obama to accept refugees from Communist Cuba. As a direct result of that, Mexico has deported 91 of them back to Cuba. Where was the condemnation on that occasion?
Obama deported over 2.5 million people during his eight years in office. Again, there seems to have been barely a murmur of discontent.
Furthermore, while there is great indignation against Trump’s discrimination against Muslims, the previous situation has been of discrimination against Christians – even though they have been facing the greatest persecution.
As the US Council on Foreign relations has reported: “The United States has accepted 10,801 Syrian refugees, of whom 56 are Christian. Not 56 percent; 56 total, out of 10,801. That is to say, one half of one percent. The BBC says that ten percent of all Syrians are Christian, which would mean 2.2 million Christians. It is quite obvious, and President Obama and Secretary Kerry have acknowledged it, that Middle Eastern Christians are an especially persecuted group.”
The reason is that Christians have been forced to flee the refugee camps from where the refugees are taken. Trump’s new policy addresses this by giving priority to those facing religious persecution – that change is very welcome.
So it is a bit more complicated than either Trump’s supporters or opponents might like to suggest. The previous arrangements saw a big distinction between Obama’s rhetoric and Obama’s policy.
There is a risk of a crass ban assisting the ISIL propaganda drive. There is also a genuine risk of terrorists seeking entry masquerading as refugees. The best way to proceed is to work on the details to find a sensible policy that balances these risks and combines a concern for justice with the safeguarding of security.