Trump’s refugee admission scaling inherently un-American; plays right into the hands of what ISIS wants

Kashif Butt
NJ Spark
Published in
3 min readNov 8, 2017

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President Donald Trump announced recently that his administration will cap the number of refugees allowed in the country at 45,000, less than half of the 110,000 Obama allowed in last year.

In addition, the administration also announced that there would be travel restrictions on seven countries. The restrictions for North Korea and Syria are the strictest, with any entry, whether for immigration purposes or not, suspended until further notice.

To justify this order, Trump said, “We cannot afford to continue the failed policies of the past… My highest obligation is to ensure the safety and security of the American people, and in issuing this new travel order, I am fulfilling that sacred obligation.” It is clear Trump is issuing these bans to protect the American people from terror groups such as ISIS. However, by banning people from the area who have been effected by conflicts such as the Syrian Civil War and the Iraq War, Trump is doing more to help the cause of the opposition than to protect the American people.

Not only are such restrictions on entry into the United States inherently contradictory to the founding principles, but in the case of Syrian refugees, it plays right into the hands of what the enemy we are supposedly defending ourselves from wants.

This country was founded and established by groups of people who fled war, tyranny, poverty, and persecution in their homelands so that they could start a new life, free to live with dignity they were not afforded back home. Are we truly “the land of the free and the home of the brave” if we turn down individuals who survived wars (one of the bravest things one can do) who are looking for their freedoms?

Specifically, in the case of Syrian refugees, curtailing their entry into the United States plays right into the hands of what ISIS, the entity these orders are allegedly supposed to protect us from, wants in the long run.

On top of the obvious intent to set up a global caliphate, it is clear ISIS has the underlying goal of creating a sharp dichotomy between the “Muslim world” and the “Western world.” Their appeal to potential members preys largely on this dynamic, with the group taking every opportunity they can get to demonize the West.

In a 2015 CNN article, Tim Lister talks about this phenomenon and how ISIS thrives on this polarizing rhetoric between “Islam” and “The West.” Lister says, “In the meantime… ISIS wants to stir religious hatred in Europe and the United States — so that Muslims no longer feel they belong in the West, and either carry out attacks in their homelands or leave to join the caliphate.”

Trump’s travel ban and cap on refugees not only will not make us much safer (if even at all), but will make those same people more susceptible to sympathizing with the same enemies we are trying to protect ourselves from. This nation for many years was one of the few safe havens where people from pretty much anywhere could come to in order to escape all the issues their previous lands may have been facing. When a nation with this kind of reputation all of a sudden bans people from coming, largely due to suspicion that these people are among the groups they are trying to escape from, it is hard to not see how such acts play a role in fomenting the type of polarization that ISIS thrives off of.

If this country wants to live up to the ideals it was founded on, then we cannot limit the number of refugees, especially by as much as Trump has.

Sources:

http://www.cnn.com/2017/09/24/politics/trump-travel-restrictions/index.html

http://www.cnn.com/2015/12/11/middleeast/isis-syria-iraq-caliphate/index.html

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