Trumps
ban and not a ban
White
House fights back against calling Trump’s order on immigration a ‘Muslim ban’
National Correspondent
Yahoo News January 31, 2017
2,927 Comments
Rudy Giuliani and the Muslim ban that’s not a
ban
During a briefing
Tuesday, White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer disputed the notion that
President Trump’s executive order halting immigration from seven predominantly
Muslim countries constitutes a “ban.”
Yahoo News asked
Spicer about comments Mayor Rudy Giuliani made in a Fox News interview
last Saturday, in which he
suggested that the order evolved out of Trump’s campaign promise to impose a “Muslim
ban.” Spicer argued that the order does not constitute “a Muslim ban” or a
“travel ban.”
“I think the president
has talked about extreme vetting and the need to keep America safe for a very,
very long time. At the same time, he’s also made very clear that this is not a
Muslim ban. It’s not a travel ban. It’s a vetting system to keep America safe.
That’s it plain and simple, and all of the facts, and a reading of it, clearly
show that that’s what it is,” Spicer said.
Yahoo News pointed out
that Giuliani did not say the ban was based on religion, but instead suggested
that it arose as a result of a desire for a Muslim ban.
“Then you should ask
Mayor Giuliani,” Spicer replied. “That’s — that’s his opinion. I’m just telling
you what the president has said, and what the president has done has been to
focus on making sure that we keep the country safe and that the executive order
that was drafted does just that.”
The order, which Trump
signed last Friday afternoon, stopped people from Sudan, Syria, Yemen, Iran,
Iraq, Libya and Somalia from entering the United States for 90 days. It also
barred all refugees from entering the United States for 120 days and
indefinitely suspended the entry of refugees from Syria. The order caused some
people with current visas to be detained and led to widespread protests and legal challenges.
During his
presidential bid, Trump called for a “total and complete shutdown of Muslims”
entering the U.S. That proposal subsequently evolved into a vague promise to
impose “extreme vetting.” In his Fox News interview, Giuliani said Trump approached him to
find a legal way to implement a “Muslim ban.”
“I’ll tell you the
whole history of it: When he first announced it, he said ‘Muslim ban,'”
Giuliani said.
Giuliani went on to
claim that Trump had asked him to form a commission to discuss the policy.
“He called me up, he
said, ‘Put a commission together, show me the right way to do it legally,’”
said the mayor.
Giuliani said he had
assembled a group that “focused on, instead of religion, danger.” He stressed
that the policy it settled on was “not based on religion” and called it “perfectly
legal, perfectly sensible.”
“It’s based on places
where there are substantial evidence that people are sending terrorists into
our country,” he said.
Yahoo News followed
Spicer’s advice and reached out to a spokeswoman for Giuliani, Jo Ann Zafonte,
to ask about the mayor’s comments.
“I’m sorry, the mayor
is not available,” she said.
In the briefing,
Spicer stressed to Yahoo News that the seven countries affected by the order had already had restrictions placed on them during the administration of President Barack
Obama. Specifically, people traveling from those countries, or who had recently
visited them, were deemed ineligible for the “visa waiver” program, and had to
apply for a visa to enter the U.S. But they were not excluded altogether.
“It is … to make sure
and to ensure that people coming in from seven countries identified by the
Obama administration [where] we didn’t have the proper systems, to know who was
coming into our country,” Spicer said, later adding, “A 90-day period was also
granted to ensure that we knew how to further address vetting situations in the
future.”
Despite Spicer’s
contention that the order is not “a ban,” he and Trump have both used this
language in the past. Spicer referred to it as a
“90-day ban” in an appearance on ABC’s “This Week” on Sunday that
was subsequently touted in
a White House press release.
Trump himself described the order as
a “ban” in a tweet he sent on
Monday, in which he defended the fact that it was announced without warning, as
a necessary step to ensure “bad ‘dudes’” did not “rush into our country” before
it took effect.
During the briefing, NBC
News’ Kristen Welker read Trump’s tweet and asked Spicer how he could deny that
the order was a “ban” if the president was using that language to describe it. Spicer argued that Trump is “using the words
that the media is using,” which prompted an incredulous response from another
reporter in the briefing room.
“Those are his words!”
the reporter exclaimed.
Spicer went on to
argue that the U.S. is still admitting large numbers of visitors into the
country.
“It can’t be a ban if
you’re letting a million people in … that is by nature not a ban. It is extreme
vetting,” Spicer said.
In recent years, the total number of foreign visitors to the U.S., including those from Canada and Mexico, has
been around 6 million a month.
Spicer concluded by
repeating his claim that the media was responsible for the order being
described as a ban.
“I think that the words that are being used to
describe it derive from what the media is calling this. He has been very clear
that it is extreme vetting,” he said.
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