Visitors from seven Muslim nations are now barred from entry to the US, pending further measures.
During the suspensions of refugee and visa programs, new stringent rules will be devised to check applicants’ backgrounds.
The newly imposed measure suspends the entire US Refugee Admissions Program for three months and bans on all entry to the United States from countries associated with terrorism for the next two months.
The State Department said the ban applied to Iraq, Syria, Iran, Sudan, Libya, Somalia and Yemen. The order also specifically bars Syrian refugees from the US indefinitely.
Executive order “Protection of The Nation From Foreign Terrorist Entry Into The United States” notes that the steps taken by the US have not been able to deter terrorists from entering the country.
“Numerous foreign-born individuals have been convicted or implicated in terrorism-related crimes since 11 September 2001, including foreign nationals who entered the US after receiving the visitor, student, or employment visas, or who entered through the US refugee resettlement programme,” it said.
“We want to ensure that we are not admitting into our country the very threats our soldiers are fighting overseas,” Trump said . “We only want to admit those into our country who will support our country and love – deeply – our people.”
The temporary ban does not apply to religious Christian minorities from Muslim-majority countries claiming persecution, such as Syrian Christians. Christians from the ancient Christian town of Maaloula in Syria, for example, will be exempt from the ban.
In an interview with Christian Broadcast Network, Trump said: “They’ve been horribly treated. Do you know if you were a Christian in Syria it was impossible, at least very tough, to get into the United States?”
“If you were a Muslim you could come in, but if you were a Christian, it was almost impossible and the reason that was so unfair, everybody was persecuted in all fairness, but they were chopping off the heads of everybody but more so the Christians. And I thought it was very, very unfair,” Trump said.
Civil rights groups are hysterical about the “inhumane” executive order that Trump signed on Friday suspending refugee arrivals and imposing tough new controls on Muslim nations, branding it “unconstitutional” and a threat to “religious freedom”.
“‘Extreme vetting’ is just a euphemism for discriminating against Muslims,” said Anthony Romero, executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union, while Ahmed Rehab, director of the Chicago chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations, told AFP. He said his group would mount legal challenges to fight the order “tooth and nail”.
The State Department, which alongside the Department of Homeland Security will be implemening the measures, said it was ready to put them into immediate effect. Spokesman Mark Toner said: “We take seriously our responsibility to safeguard the American public while remaining committed to assisting the world’s most vulnerable people.”
