2:09 p.m. ET Jan. 30, 2017 President Donald Trump defended his sweeping immigration policy by calling it “similar to what President Obama did in 2011 when he banned visas for refugees from Iraq for six months.” That’s a faulty comparison.
There was a delay in processing Iraqi refugees in 2011 after it was discovered that two Iraqi refugees living in Kentucky had been involved in roadside bombing attacks on U.S. troops in Iraq. One of the refugee’s fingerprints were found on a detonation device in Iraq, prompting U.S. immigration, security and intelligence agencies to use federal databases to rescreen about 58,000 Iraqi refugees in the U.S. and more than 25,000 Iraqis who had been approved to enter the U.S., but had not yet been admitted, Department of Homeland Security officials testified at the time.
The Kentucky case not only caused a backlog in processing Iraqi refugees in 2011, but it also resulted in an overhaul of the refugee screening process.
The Obama administration’s actions were limited to one country and in response to a specific threat — the potential for other Iraqi refugees to take advantage of a flaw in the screening process.
By contrast, Trump ordered a far wider ban — albeit also temporary — without identifying a specific threat.
President Trump signed an executive order on Jan. 27 that bars Syrian refugees from entering the U.S. indefinitely and bars all other refugees for 120 days, and keeps out visitors for 90 days from seven predominately Muslim countries: Iraq, Syria, Iran, Sudan, Libya, Somalia and Yemen. Initially, as ABC News reported, administration officials said the ban also applied to U.S. green card holders re-entering the United States from those seven countries, though they could get a waiver to re-enter. But two days after Trump signed the executive order, administration officials said green card holders, who are permanent residents, would be admitted on a case-by-case basis after additional security screening.
Homeland Security Secretary John Kelly said in a statement that “lawful permanent resident status will be a dispositive factor in our case-by-case determinations.”
The order caused confusion at the nation’s airports over the weekend as refugees, legal visa holders and visitors affected by the new policy were detained and some even sent back to their home countries. Democrats and some Republicans criticized the Republican president for overreaching his authority and jeopardizing Muslim relations in the fight against terrorism.
