An open letter to the citizens of the world:
Wrapping up his first week in office, President Donald Trump embarrassed himself, our nation and people of conscience across the globe with a cowardly and foolish barring refugees and others from our land. We apologize for the global harm our president has done, and urge you to consider the resulting outrage from our countrymen as you re-evaluate our nation’s reputation as a beacon of democracy.
Many of you have seen the . Families fleeing violence, who had already worked through the proper channels for months to escape to American hosts anxious to help them, locked out. Students on their way back to the states denied re-entry, their visas cancelled. Established professionals with legal status to live here either blocked or delayed.
Trump’s action fulfills a campaign pledge meant to satisfy legitimate fears about terrorism. But the slipshod manner in which he enacted this order suggests he and his advisers were more interested in fulfilling his original xenophobic focus on banning Muslims. His remarks to a Christian broadcaster that focused only on protecting Christians further solidifies the message. Even more so when we know from researchers at Pew that since 2002, our country has refugees.
But take note of what the resulting chaos in putting the new order in place says about it. Trump’s own Defense secretary didn’t see the final version of the order until hours before it went live. Top brass at Homeland Security found out about particulars of the new order while Trump was signing it. The order went into effect with little or no advice from officials in the departments of Justice, Defense and State. Customs and border control agents on Saturday had little knowledge of what to do.
Trump’s action also baffles for its obvious ineffectiveness. Trump’s list of black-listed countries doesn’t include the known terrorist breeding grounds of Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Pakistan — curiously, all countries in which . In those banned (Syria, Iran, Iraq, Libya, Somalia, Sudan and Yemen), he does not. A review by the Cato Institute that from 1975 through 2015, of all the foreign-born people who harmed Americans on U.S. soil, only 17 hailed from Trump’s chosen countries, and none of those attacks resulted in death.
Trump’s action strikes us as neither American nor Christian, and many American Christians rose up in the outcry. We worry Trump’s order hands extremist recruiters working for the degenerates of the Islamic State and al-Qaeda powerful evidence to argue our nation is at war with all Muslims.
We take heart that some top Republicans joined Democrats in denouncing the move. GOP Sens. John McCain and Lindsey Graham called the order a “self-inflicted wound in the fight against terrorism.” We’re encouraged that Sen. Cory Gardner of Colorado also criticized the order and urge our Republican leaders to hold their president accountable.
America is a better place than this. Take comfort in the fact, then, that many of us recoil at this latest example of Trump’s overreach.
Yes, America must protect its citizens, and thoughtful reform of the vetting process would please us. But this was not that, and we share the shame at the betrayal of our nation’s values this president has now committed.
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