PRESIDENT BIDEN SIGNS EXECUTIVE ORDER REPEALING TRUMP’S ‘MUSLIM BAN’
The so-called “Muslim ban,” first went into effect in January, 2017 and became one of Trump’s signature immigration policies. This Ban went through multiple iterations before it was finally upheld by the U.S. Supreme Court in 2018.
The original ban affected people from Syria, Iran, Iraq, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria, Yemen, Venezuela, and North Korea.
The ban was amended several times in the face of numerous court challenges. The list of countries changed over the court battle.
The ex-president Trump expanded the ban last February to include additional restrictions on citizens of six more countries: Myanmar, Eritrea, Kyrgyzstan, Nigeria, Sudan, and Tanzania. The ban has slowed or altogether halted legal immigration from certain countries.
Recently, on January 20, 2020 the new President issued an executive order to end travel ban on non-citizens from mostly Muslim countries. From now, travelers from several predominantly Muslim countries will be allowed entry to the United States. This has brought considerable hope to nationals of those countries and their families.
Moreover, the next step is to devote resources and develop a process to address the status of thousands of people, who are held up in backlogs caused by the additional checks needed to obtain waivers from the above-mentioned ban.
In addition to this, Department of State need to provide a remedy, so that people whose visas were denied because of these bans do not have to start their applications from the scratch.
People, who already applied for a visa had already been an exhausting application process, including traveling for the interviews, going for medical screenings, and filing tons of paperwork and now the Department of State has to find the way for people not to do that all over again.
Biden has ordered the State Department to develop a plan within 45 days to address these issues. The DOS should ensure that people affected get relief quickly.
References:
https://www.brennancenter.org/our-work/analysis-opinion/muslim-ban-gone-now-what
