It’s well-documented by now that Donald Trump has proposed temporarily excluding all non-American Muslims from entering the United States. Recently, however, it has become clear that Trump has changed his position. Now his handlers are describing a new position, while Trump articulates a third option. Good thing we all know he doesn’t mean any of it.
In early December 2015, Donald Trump called for a temporary ban on all Muslim travel into the United States. In the months that followed there was the typical Trump equivocating and vacillating, but the core proposal generally held: Non-US citizens of the Muslim faith would not be permitted to enter the United States.
Of course there were a number of questions: Is such a plan constitutional? How will the United States know the religious affiliation of those at our borders? Will more walls be involved, and if so, who will pay for them? But Trump is nothing if not stalwart in the face of perfectly reasonable requests for details. One Republican, at least, was horrified by the proposal.
Then, around the time of the Republican convention, Trump changed tack. In his convention speech, Trump said America “must immediately suspend immigration from any nation that has been compromised by terrorism until such time it’s proven that vetting mechanisms have been put in place.”
Although it seems likely that this policy shift was intended to tamp down accusations that the policy was driven by bigotry, not security, instead it raised more questions: What is a “nation that has been compromised by terrorism”? Would this ban include all travelers from those nations? Would it include American Muslims who have traveled abroad?
In addition, it’s not clear whether the Trump campaign wants this to be seen as an expansion or a narrowing of his xenophobia. Although Trump denied it was a roll-back, his running mate and campaign chairman each want to spin it as a softening of the anti-Muslim crusade:
Mike Pence, Trump’s running mate, criticized Trump’s original proposal but says he can support Trump’s current position, which he described as temporarily suspending “immigration from countries where terrorist influence and impact represents a threat to the United States.” Trump’s campaign chairman, Paul Manafort, also has pushed that characterization of the ban, while dodging questions on whether it would still target followers of Islam.
I remain hung up on the application of this proposal. Which nations will be affected? Will a blanket ban affect all parts of a fractious nation, such as Iraq, or would pro-western Kurds be admitted? The most obvious challenge to the policy is France. The nation has suffered multiple terrorist attacks, perpetrated by both French citizens and foreigners, with most at least tentatively linked to international terrorist organizations. Any definition of nations “compromised by terrorism” would have to include France unless the definition also included reference to the dominant religious affiliation within the nation. And if it does, we’re right back where we started.
This would all be very troubling if there was any chance Trump intended to follow through on a single word of it.
Another thought:
If Trump believes that “radical Muslim terrorists” are a threat to the United States, why is he backing down from targeting his ban to them? He associates the threat with a religion: isn’t creating a rule that conspicuously avoids reference to religion an example of the “political correctness” he so loudly and frequently decries?