Washington — President Donald Trump signed an executive order on Friday
making major changes to America's policies on refugees and immigration.
Here is
a look at what Trump ordered:
Syria
Trump's
order directs the State Department to stop issuing visas to Syrian nationals
and halts the processing of Syrian refugees. That will remain in effect until
Trump determines that enough security changes have been made to ensure that
would-be terrorists can't exploit weaknesses in the current vetting system.
Refugees
Trump
ordered a four-month suspension to America's broader refugee program. The
suspension is intended to provide time to review how refugees are vetted before
they are allowed to resettle in the United States.
Trump's
order also cuts the number of refugees the United States plans to accept this
budget year by more than half, to 50 000 people from around the world.
During
the last budget year the US accepted 84 995
refugees, including 12 587 people from Syria. President Barack Obama had set
the current refugee limit at 110 000.
The
temporary halt to refugee processing does include exceptions for people
claiming religious persecution, so long as their religion is a minority faith
in their country. That could apply to Christians from Muslim-majority countries.
Extreme vetting
Trump's
order did not spell out specifically what additional steps he wants to see the
Homeland Security and State departments to add to the country's vetting system
for refugees. Instead, he directed
officials to the review the refugee application and approval process to find
any other security measures that can be added to prevent people who pose a
threat from using the refugee program.
During
the Obama administration, vetting for
refugees included in-person interviews overseas, where they provided
biographical details about themselves, including their families, friendships,
social or political activities, employment, phone numbers, email accounts and
more. They also provided biometric information, including fingerprints. Syrians
were subject to additional, classified controls that administration officials
at the time declined to describe, and processing for that group routinely took
years to complete.
Other immigration
Trump's
executive order suspends all immigration from countries with terrorism concerns
for 90 days. The State Department said the three-month ban in the directive
applied to Iraq, Syria, Iran, Sudan, Libya, Somalia and Yemen — all
Muslim-majority nations. The order also calls for Homeland Security and State
Department officials, along with the director of national intelligence, to
review what information the government needs to fully vet would-be visitors and
come up with a list of countries that don't provide it. The order says the
government will give countries 60 days to start providing the information or
citizens from those countries will be barred from travelling to the United States.
Barring
any travel to the US from those seven countries, even temporarily, appears to
at least partially fulfil a campaign
promise Trump made to ban Muslims from coming to the United States until
assurances can be made that visitors are properly vetted.
