Trump’s immature executive order worsens tenuous international relations
January 30, 2017
President Donald Trump announced Friday his executive order to ban citizens of seven Muslim-majority countries from entering the nation for the next 90 days and any refugees for the next 120.
Along with others who have enough humanity to not discriminate against people based only on their religion, I am outraged at and disappointed by this ban.
It’s difficult to vocalize my complete disbelief that this is the world we live in right now, because it seems so ridiculous. The point of this ban, in Trump’s own words, is to keep “radical Islamic terrorists” out of the country because “we don’t want them here.”
Now, I must point out the obvious: Just because someone practices Islam, it does not imply that they are a threat, or have any ill will toward the United States.
Banning millions of innocent citizens from entering a country in an effort to keep out just a few people takes all the maturity of a grade school bully.
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But unlike the actions of an immature schoolyard bully, the actions of the president have very real repercussions.
As a self-imposed judge of morality, our country sets a precedent for justice on the international playground. This extreme executive action takes many steps backward from achieving a nuanced approach to this highly complicated issue.
It shows that the United States, in the next four years, won’t be reasonable. It will be impulsive.
It won’t be understanding, but intolerant, and the very freedom that we pride ourselves on as an “unalienable right” will now have disclaimers.
The ban is particularly infuriating because there seems to be no way it will solve any of the problems Trump is trying to combat. This ban is temporary. Are we expecting that in 90 days, “radical Islamic terrorists” will just somehow see the light? Do you think in three months they will realize the errors of their ways and will come out as red, white and blue fanatics, eating apple pie and singing the Star Spangled Banner?
The truth is, this issue is far more complicated than Trump seems to realize. Putting immigrants and refugees in a time-out for a few months will just create more chaos in an already delicate situation. As Iranian foreign minister Mohammad Javad Zarif tweeted, “#MuslimBan will be recorded in history as a great gift to extremists and their supporters.”
Trump is just doing what he thinks is best for the country, and it is easy for relatively uninformed civilians to be confused by his actions.
In retrospect, we can only consider many political decisions to be good or bad ideas, but this executive action seems without a doubt to be a mistake.
It takes strength to be a country with open borders in tumultuous times, and it would be immature and insensitive to just shut out millions of people instead of taking a more reasonable response.
President Trump is not on a reality show anymore — the decisions he makes affect millions of people, and more importantly, our future relations with these countries for years to come.
He has a responsibility to fix problems and the right decision might not always be the easiest solution, but I, for one, was under the impression that we did not elect a child for president.
Shankari is a sophomore in LAS.