COVER STORY

Sign of our times

30trump You’re fired: President Trump signs an executive order on January 28 | AP

Barely two weeks into his presidency, Donald Trump has stunned the world by signing into effect some of the controversial promises he made as a candidate. His decision to ban refugees and immigrants from seven Muslim majority nations has deepened the fissures within the United States

Picture this. A Harvard graduate from Sudan with a green card, pursuing a PhD from Stanford University, in handcuffs. Back from a research trip, Nasrin Omer was held for over five hours at New York’s JFK airport by immigration officers. The 39-year-old was questioned about her views on Sudanese politics and was patted down aggressively, upon which she broke into tears. Omer was among hundreds who bore the brunt of President Donald Trump’s decision to ban immigrants from seven Muslim majority countries.

Barely two weeks into his presidency, Trump has stunned the US and the world by speedily signing into effect several of his controversial campaign promises. These include building the Mexico border wall, recommissioning oil pipelines, pulling America out of the Trans-Pacific Partnership and repealing Obamacare. But none of them evoked the punch-in-the-gut reaction like the executive order banning refugees from seven Muslim majority countries. The “extreme vetting” orders were signed on January 27, suspending with immediate effect entry of all refugees to the United States for 120 days, barring Syrian refugees indefinitely, and blocking for 90 days citizens from Iran, Iraq, Libya, Somalia, Sudan and Yemen. Political pundits were quick to point out that Trump had no business interests in those countries.

Chaos and despair unravelled at airports across the US as the ban went into effect. Sara Yarjani, an Iranian student at the California Institute for Human Science, was returning after a trip when she was stopped at the Los Angeles airport. She was forced to void her visa on her own, after being threatened with serious consequences if she resisted. Only then was she allowed to use a phone. She was then put on a plane to Oslo, Norway, en route to Austria where her family lived.

32columbiauniversity Fighting spirit: Students at Columbia University in New York protesting against Trump’s anti-immigration policies | Reuters

Opponents of the ban said it violated the spirit of the US constitution, which ensured protection from all forms of discrimination. Moreover, the seven countries on the list have had no history of attacks on US soil. And yet, the ban spared no one. Not even Hameed Khalid Darweesh, an Iraqi refugee who had worked as an interpreter for the US Army’s 101st Airborne Division and saved the lives of several American servicemen. He was detained upon his arrival at JFK.

Luckily for Darweesh and many others, the American Civil Liberties Union stepped in and got a stay on certain provisions of the ban from federal district court judge Ann M. Donnelly.

34-mexican-wall

As fear and despair gripped homes and campuses, wary protesters were seen flocking to airports, city squares and public places. “We barely rested from the women’s march [against Trump], but had to come here,” said Hamzah Safieh, who was at Battery Park, New York, with friends Sarah and Katie. “These are testing times for American democracy.”

Thousands of academics, including 20 Nobel laureates, have signed a petition against the executive order. They said conducting international diplomacy was completely different from running a presidential campaign. Trump, however, is unrelenting. In an unprecedented move, he fired acting Attorney General Sally Yates for instructing justice department lawyers against making legal arguments defending the ban on immigrants. Miranda Yaver, who taught at Yale University, said there was no other way to interpret the order. “The narratives Trump created of a world out of control are simply untrue. The Muslim ban is about fascism and not democracy,” said Yaver.

The Council on American-Islamic Relations, America’s largest Muslim civil rights and advocacy organisation, has filed a federal lawsuit challenging the constitutionality of the executive order. “It takes two years for a Syrian refugee to come to the US. They are extremely vetted,” said Nihad Awad, executive director of CAIR. “Trump’s executive order is not based on national security. It is based on fear-mongering. He is still in the campaign mode,” he said.

32-H1-B-VISAS

Samantha Crane, legal director of Autistic Self Advocacy Network, a disability rights movement based in Washington, DC, agreed with Awad. “Trump’s refugee ban is personal,” she said. “My mom came to America in 1948 as a refugee from Czechoslovakia. There is extreme vetting and then to be turned away at the airport or prevented from entering the country is very traumatising.”

Such callousness is what the immigrant community is worried about. Safieh said her friends were cancelling their summer vacation plans. Immigrant students said they were scared to leave the country. Boston University, in fact, advised students hailing from the countries on the banned list against travelling.

Wazir Ahmad, a Pakistani Ame-rican green card holder, who runs a small store in New York, is worried about the annual trip he makes to his homeland to meet his family. He fears that he may no longer be allowed back in, like Marzieh Moosavizadeh, a 75-year-old Iranian American from Phoenix, Arizona. Moosavizadeh, who travels regularly between Iran and the US on a green card, was in for a major shock as she was detained at the Los Angeles airport. With her grandson acting as an interpreter, Moosavizadeh spoke about how she was detained although she was a senior citizen, who had undergone triple bypass surgeries and was suffering from a range of medical issues. She said the detainees were denied food, given just 250ml of water and escorted to and from restrooms, which made them feel humiliated.

34PIPELINES

Marc Springer, an American citizen, is a worried man. Trump’s latest move has unnerved Springer and his wife, who is from Yemen. “It isn’t just about visa holders or people with green cards, it is about people with American citizenship as well,” he said. Many of his wife’s relatives living in the US are currently travelling abroad, like an aunt who is in Saudi Arabia to meet her ailing mother. Springer said he was not sure whether they would be allowed to return.

He said Trump’s policies had made him so worried that he was considering leaving the US for good. “I have been pondering over alternative plans in case the situation here becomes untenable. My wife and I have both lived overseas, so that is a possibility,” he said.

Former attorney and journalist Mark Fass said the fallout from the ban would be serious. “While it is true that Trump is playing to his base, what is being destroyed in the process is the image, reputation and goodwill of the United States as the leader of the free world,” he said. No wonder attorney generals of 16 states, including California and New York, have offered their support to ACLU in its fight against the ban. Even in the senate there appears to be a certain amount of bipartisan consensus against the ban. While Democratic Senator Elizabeth Warren said the US was facing a constitutional crisis, seasoned Republicans John McCain and Lindsey Graham observed that the ban was not likely to improve national security.

33-travel-ban

Senator Bernie Sanders said that telling over a billion Muslims in the world that they were not welcome to the US sent a horrible message and was against American values. “I hope very much that President Trump rescinds that ban.” Trump’s unprecedented decision forced former president Barack Obama, who had vowed to be respectful to the new president, to voice his displeasure. He said in a statement that he disagreed “with the notion of discriminating against individuals because of their faith or religion.”

Tanya Selvaratnam, an American citizen of Sri Lankan origin, who had exposed many of the malpractices of the Rajapaksa regime, said democracy in the US was hijacked by a regime which refused to listen to immigrant and citizen voices. The New York-based actor and writer said that after attacking the immigration policy, the Trump administration would clamp down on public protests and the media. “The US is on the verge of a civil war of a different kind,” she said.

Huddled in coffee shops, on college campuses and local hangouts, immigrants and citizens are in a collective fight for the soul of America. Some of them have doubts about their “settled lives in America.” Like Ahmad and Moosavizadeh, they fear that even a green card cannot protect them against the “unconstitutional or un-American” measures imposed by a government devoid of empathy. Worse still, they worry that the ban has alienated the US from its allies and has played right into the hands of terrorist groups like Islamic State.

“Isolationism will not serve us well,” said Yaver. “Regime stability is crucial. But I don’t feel optimistic until we preserve a free press in addition to the mutual co-existence of the executive, legislative, judicial branches. But with the White House refusing to comply with the judiciary’s orders regarding the ban, America finds itself at the edge of a socio-political precipice.”

WITH LAURA SILVIA BATTAGLIA

32vinuthashivannanew

H-1B VISAS

What reforms would mean to me

Vinutha Shivanna, final-year computer science engineering student, Bengaluru

THE US move to restrict H-1B visas is bad news for computer science engineering students in India. I wanted to work for an IT company after graduation, but now I feel that it is better to turn to teaching than pursue a career in IT.

As it is, getting into an IT company is very challenging. During one of the campus recruitments, an IT company selected only three out of 700 aspirants. Now, if these restrictions come into effect, IT companies in the US, especially the Indian firms, will be forced to hire locally. This will significantly reduce the chances of these companies recruiting freshers from India.

Also, I feel that job security in an IT company is low, and it is bound to get worse with restrictions in place as the companies may resort to mass sacking if they are under stress. Moreover, many Indian students go to the US to do their master’s in the hope of getting a job there. With the proposed restrictions, the prospects look bleak for them too.

AS TOLD TO ABHINAV SINGH

This browser settings will not support to add bookmarks programmatically. Please press Ctrl+D or change settings to bookmark this page.

Related Reading