The anti-travel and anti-immigration Executive Order Trump signed on January 27, 2017, is a violation of the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment to the United States Constitution. Specifically, the clause states, ” Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof…”
Trump and his people have consistently said that Trump’s travel and immigration ban does not have a religious component and that it does not favor Christians over Muslims.
This is part of the language of the order:
“Upon the resumption of USRAP admissions, the Secretary of State, in consultation with the Secretary of Homeland Security, is further directed to make changes, to the extent permitted by law, to prioritize refugee claims made by individuals on the basis of religious-based persecution, provided that the religion of the individual is a minority religion in the individual’s country of nationality.”
By putting a religious rationale into the order, Trump has made this in part a religiously based Executive Order.
In addition to this, Trump has claimed that his Executive Order, which has been stayed by the U.S. Court of Appeals of the Ninth Circuit, will “keep out radical Islamic terrorists.”
This claim is absurd on its face. First of all, there are many ways that radical Islamic terrorists not already in the United States could gain entry to the United States, even if Trump’s EO were enforced and in effect — through Saudi Arabia, through Egypt, through France, through the United Arab Emirates — the list of countries through which any “radical Islamic terrorists” could enter the United States is very long.
I believe this is essentially a test by the Trump administration. If, by claiming a “national security,” rationale, Trump gains a win from the United States Supreme Court (which is where the legal battle on Trump’s EO is likely to end up) Trump could put other restrictive EOs into effect, ones that would curtail or eliminate other rights granted through the US Constitution, such as freedom of assembly or freedom of speech, all in the name of “national security.”
We’ll see how this plays out, but at this point, although the earlier EO is essentially on hold, Trump has said that he may write another EO to take its place.
As for the “danger” that refugees place for Americans, the conservative Cato Institute conducted a study, in which it concluded that the likelihood of an American being harmed by a refugee was at 3.6 billion (with a B) to 1.