For more than a month in President Donald Trump's second term, his brutal crackdown on immigrants and asylum seekers has already hurt countless people. Law enforcement has made massive raids across the United States and cut people off. Tens of thousands have been deported, and the routes to exile have been blocked by tens of thousands more.
In the face of this onslaught, people mobilized on a large scale to protect vulnerable groups at the local and national level. One of the laws can make a difference in this struggle. This is the National Origins-Based Differentiation (No Prohibition) Act for Non-immigrants, introduced to the US Congress on February 6 by Rep. Judy Chu and Sen. Chris Coons. The bill creates much-needed restrictions and accountability for the President, whose purpose is to decisively prohibit refugees, asylum seekers, or people of identified beliefs and nationalities from entering the United States.
Why is this necessary today? It's because fears are rising that Trump is setting the stage for the revival of the infamous Muslims and African bans of his first term.
Eight years ago, as a newly established president, Trump issued an executive order to fulfill his campaign promise to enact “a complete and complete closure of Muslims entering the United States.” Within hours of the decree, thousands of travelers, primarily from Muslim countries, were detained for hours at airports across the country, as federal agents struggled to decipher who could enter and who would be banned.
Hundreds of families were separated, and then Trump expanded the ban to be called the “African ban” – including Tanzania, Sudan, Myanmar, Eritrea, Kyrgyzstan and Nigeria. Therefore, those who fled war, hunger and other humanitarian disasters were cut off from seeking American shelters.
The Muslim and Africa ban led to more than 40,000 people being denied visas, bringing a 94% drop in Muslim refugee hospitalizations between January and November 2017.
The traumatic effects of the Muslim and African ban have now been revoked and remain in years to come. Families are separated, people have lost critical care, travel and visa fees, and have been deprived of anti-immigrants and anti-Muslim hatred.
Among those affected is Maral Tabrizi, who was denied support from her family when she needed her most. When Maral got pregnant in 2018, her parents applied for a tourist visa to witness the birth of their first grandchild. Her father's application was postponed in administrative processing, and while they waited, the Muslim ban was approved by the Supreme Court and the parents' visa was denied.
Maral was deprived of her parents' support during and after pregnancy. Connective tissue disorders make daily tasks so painful that Maral felt it was impossible to return to work as quickly as she had hoped. She suffered from postnatal depression due to the pain and sadness this caused and had been taking antidepressants for over a year. Her parents also cannot meet their deceased stepfather while waiting to visit the United States.
Malal was the plaintiff in a class lawsuit that called for the government to force the government to reconsider visa applications for individuals affected by the ban. Our organization, Muslim supporters, have co-registered the case. As a result of the lawsuit, the court ordered the government to provide a process for reconsidering fee-sales visas to nearly 25,000 individuals affected by the ban. Its implementation is underway today.
But President Trump is poised to enact a potentially broader travel ban, and his administration may target individuals with legal status for questioning and surveillance simply because they are citizens of a banned country or because his administration considers them “hostile.”
This is why since 2019, our partners in the Muslim advocates and the Muslim no ban coalition have defended Chu and Senator Koons ban laws. If passed, the law extends to non-discrimination religions under immigration laws that already cover race, gender and nationality. Additionally, travel restrictions imposed under section 212(f) of Immigration and Nationality Act (INA) are based on certain credible facts and are necessary in a way that narrowly addresses persuasive government interests. The US State Department and Homeland Security secretaries must provide notice to Congress prior to such travel restrictions and a briefing of 48 hours.
Without the restrictions of the prohibitions, the president will either voluntarily close the arboder or continue to abuse their power based on thinly veiled religious or racial hatred. Last year, then-President Joe Biden used the same INA 212(f) authority to close borders in a plausible violation of US immigration law. Trump evoked 212(f) when he closed the southern border in January. The prohibition laws constrain and present an alternative to hatred and racism that encourages such cruelty.
In a world filled with humanitarian disasters, our decisions today can mean the difference between life and death for a huge number of people. In 2017, there was no Muslim ban coalition formed from the movements that appeared at the airport, as people from all lives gathered to protest the ban on all Muslims. Today, lawmakers should also take a bold attitude for the highest aspirations of religious freedom and evacuation from tyrannical leaders and pass the prohibition law.
The views expressed in this article are the authors themselves and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeera's editorial stance.
