Greater than a month into US President Donald Trump’s second time period, his brutal crackdown on immigration and asylum seekers has already harmed numerous folks. Legislation enforcement has carried out mass raids throughout the US, rounding up folks. Tens of 1000’s have been deported, and the pathway to asylum has been blocked for tens of 1000’s extra.
Within the face of this onslaught, folks have mobilised en masse to guard susceptible teams on the native and nationwide ranges. One piece of laws might make a distinction on this wrestle: the Nationwide Origin-Primarily based Antidiscrimination for Nonimmigrants (NO BAN) Act, launched to the US Congress on February 6 by Consultant Judy Chu and Senator Chris Coons. The invoice would create much-needed limitations and accountability for any president intent on categorically banning refugees, asylum seekers, or folks of specified faiths or nationalities from getting into the US.
Why is that this wanted immediately? As a result of there may be rising worry that Trump is setting the stage for a resurrection of the infamous Muslim and African bans of his first time period.
Eight years in the past, as a freshly inaugurated president, Trump issued an government order to satisfy his marketing campaign promise of enacting a “whole and full shutdown of Muslims getting into the US.” Inside hours of the decree, 1000’s of travellers from predominantly Muslim nations have been detained for hours at airports throughout the nation, as federal brokers struggled to decipher who might enter and who could be barred.
A whole lot of households have been separated, and Trump subsequently expanded the ban to incorporate Tanzania, Sudan, Myanmar, Eritrea, Kyrgyzstan and Nigeria – dubbed the “African ban”. Individuals fleeing warfare, hunger and different humanitarian disasters have been thus lower off from in search of shelter within the US.
Over 40,000 folks have been denied visas because of the Muslim and African bans, which triggered a 94 p.c drop in Muslim refugee admissions between January and November 2017.
The traumatic impacts of the Muslim and African bans, presently rescinded, nonetheless linger years later: households separated, folks disadvantaged of crucial medical remedy, journey and visa payment bills misplaced, anti-immigrant and anti-Muslim hate.
Amongst these affected is Maral Tabrizi, who was denied her household’s help when she most wanted it. When Maral was pregnant in 2018, her mother and father utilized for vacationer visas to witness the delivery of their first grandchild. Her father’s software was held up in administrative processing, and whereas they waited, the Muslim ban was authorized by the Supreme Court docket, and each mother and father’ visas have been refused.
Maral was disadvantaged of her mother and father’ help throughout being pregnant and postpartum. With a connective tissue dysfunction making each day duties extremely painful, Maral discovered it not possible to return to work as shortly as she had hoped. She suffered from postpartum despair because of the ache and unhappiness this triggered and was on antidepressants for greater than a 12 months. Her mother and father may even by no means have the ability to meet her father-in-law, who died whereas they have been ready to come back go to the US.
Maral was a plaintiff in class-action litigation which sought to pressure the federal government to rethink the visa purposes of people affected by the bans. Our organisation, Muslim Advocates, co-counsels the case. Because of the lawsuit, a court docket ordered the federal government to offer practically 25,000 people affected by the bans with a fee-waived visa reconsideration course of, the implementation of which is ongoing immediately.
Nonetheless, President Trump is poised to enact a doubtlessly broader journey ban and his administration may goal people with authorized standing for questioning and monitoring just because they’re residents of banned nations or as a result of his administration considers them “hostile”.
Because of this since 2019, Muslim Advocates and our companions within the No Muslim Ban Ever coalition have championed Consultant Chu’s and Senator Coons’s NO BAN Act. If handed, this laws would prolong to faith the nondiscrimination provisions below immigration legislation that already cowl race, intercourse, and nationality. It could additionally require that any journey restriction imposed below Immigration and Nationality Act (INA) part 212(f) be based mostly on particular and credible info, and in a means that narrowly addresses a compelling authorities curiosity. It could require the secretaries of the US Division of State and US Homeland Safety to offer discover to Congress earlier than any such journey restriction, and a briefing inside 48 hours.
With out the constraints of the NO BAN Act, presidents will proceed to abuse their energy by closing our borders arbitrarily or based mostly on thinly veiled non secular or racial hate. Simply final 12 months, then-President Joe Biden used the identical INA 212(f) authority to close down the border, in a believable violation of US immigration legislation. And Trump invoked 212(f) when he closed the southern border in January. The NO BAN Act constrains such cruelty and presents a substitute for the hate and racism fuelling it.
In a world replete with humanitarian disasters, our choices immediately can imply the distinction between life and dying for untold numbers of individuals. Again in 2017, the No Muslim Ban Ever coalition shaped from the motion that confirmed up at airports, as folks from all walks of life converged to protest the primary Muslim ban. Right this moment, lawmakers also needs to take a daring stance for our nation’s highest aspirations of non secular freedom and refuge from tyrannical leaders and go the NO BAN Act.
The views expressed on this article are the creator’s personal and don’t essentially replicate Al Jazeera’s editorial stance.
