It finally happened. As promised, President Donald Trump has issued a new executive order regarding travel restrictions to six nations with known ties to terrorist organizations. You can read the order in its entirety here. The new directive halts immigration from those nations for ninety days and halts all refugees from any country entering the United States for the next one hundred twenty days.
However, there are significant procedural differences in this new edict. Instead of stopping the flow of people at U.S. airports by customs officials, U.S. embassies overseas have been ordered to discontinue processing travel documents until a national security review takes place by Trump administration officials.
Section 5 of the presidential executive order outlines how the review will be conducted and its express purpose:
The countries affected by the ninety-day ban are Syria, Iran, Sudan, Somalia, Libya, and Yemen. Iraq was dropped from the list after officials in Iraq said they would tighten their security checks before putting anyone on a plane bound for the U.S.
Also, the presidential order cuts the annual number of refugees almost in half – from one hundred and ten thousand to fifty thousand. It will also hand over to local communities the power to say whether they want to accept the refugees.
This new order essentially renders the previous one stalled in the courts as obsolete. As well, the new directive does not go into effect until March 16, giving people with valid visas from those countries an opportunity to enter the United States.
