More than a month after the second term of US President Donald Trump, his brutal repression against immigration and asylum seekers has already injured countless people. The police have carried out mass raids in the United States, bringing together people. Tens of thousands have been expelled and the asylum route was blocked for tens of thousands of others.
Faced with this attack, people mobilized in mass to protect vulnerable groups at local and national levels. Legislation could make a difference in this struggle: the law on anti-discrimination based on national origin for non-immigrants (without ban), presented at the American Congress on February 6 by the representative Judy Chu and Senator Chris Coons. The bill would create essential limitations and responsibilities for any president determined to categorically prohibit refugees, asylum seekers or persons of confessions or specified nationalities to enter the United States.
Why is it necessary today? Because there is an increasing fear that Trump is preparing the way for a resurrection of the notorious Muslim and African prohibitions of his first mandate.
Eight years ago, as a freshly inaugurated president, Trump issued an executive decree to keep his campaign promise to promulgate a “total closure of Muslims entering into the United States”. In the hours following the decree, thousands of travelers from Muslim predominance countries were detained for hours in airports across the country, while federal agents were fighting to decipher who could enter and that would be excluded.
Hundreds of families were separated, and Trump later extended the ban to include Tanzania, Sudan, Myanmar, Eritrea, Kyrgyzstan and Nigeria – nicknamed “African Prohibition”. People fleeing war, famine and other humanitarian disasters have been cut off from the search for shelters in the United States.
More than 40,000 people have been denied visas due to Muslim and African prohibitions, which caused a 94% drop in Muslim refugee admissions between January and November 2017.
The traumatic impacts of Muslim and African prohibitions, currently canceled, are still linger for years later: families separated, those deprived of critical medical treatment, travel and lost visa, anti-immigrant and anti-muslims.
Among the people affected is Maral Tabrizi, who was denied the support of her family when she needed it most. When Maral was pregnant in 2018, his parents asked for tourist visas to attend the birth of their first grandchild. The request of his father was retained in the administrative treatment and while they were waiting, the Muslim ban was approved by the Supreme Court and the visas of the two parents were refused.
Maral was deprived of the support of her parents during pregnancy and postpartum. With a connective tissue disorder making daily tasks incredibly painful, Maral found it impossible to return to work as quickly as she had hoped. She suffered from postpartum depression due to the pain and sadness that it caused and made antidepressants for more than a year. His parents will not be able to meet his stepfather, who died while waiting to come and visit the United States.
Maral was a classes’s dispute claimant who sought to force the government to reconsider visa requests for people affected by prohibitions. Our organization, Muslim Advocates, co-advisable. Following the trial, a court ordered the government to provide nearly 25,000 people affected by prohibitions with a process of reviewing visas on costs, the implementation of which is underway today.
However, President Trump is about to promulgate a potentially broader travel ban and his administration could target people with legal status for interrogation and surveillance simply because they are citizens of prohibited countries or because his administration considers them as “hostile”.
This is why since 2019, Muslim defenders and our partners of the No Muslim Ban Ever Ever Ever Coalition defended the representative of the NA BAN Act of the CHU representative and the senator. If it is adopted, this legislation would extend to religion the provisions of non-discrimination under the law of immigration which already cover race, sex and nationality. Any travel restriction imposed under article 212 (f) of the Immigration and Nationality Act should also be based on specific and credible facts, and in a way that closely addresses a convincing government interest. The secretaries of the United States Department of State and internal security should provide an opinion at Congress before any travel restriction and a briefing within 48 hours.
Without the limits of the law on non-proficed, the presidents will continue to mistreat their power by closing our borders arbitrarily or on the basis of a barely veiled religious or racial hatred. Last year, the President of the time, Joe Biden, used the same INTI 212 (f) authority to close the border, in a plausible violation of the US immigration law. And Trump invoked 212 (F) when he closed the southern border in January. The act without prohibition limits such cruelty and has an alternative to hatred and racism which feeds it.
In a world full of humanitarian disasters, our decisions today can make the difference between life and death for an incalculable number of people. In 2017, the NO Muslim Inter Inter inter -inter -inter -inter -inter -trained coalition of the movement that arose in airports, while people from all walks of life converged to protest the first Muslim ban. Today, legislators should also adopt a bold position for the highest aspirations of religious freedom in our country and refuge of tyrannical leaders and adopt the law on non-prison.
The opinions expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect the editorial position of Al Jazeera.
