US President Donald Trump has signed an executive order banning refugees and people from some Muslim-majority countries.
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A major exception to the refugee bans was for Syrian Christians, who Trump said are persecuted in their homeland.
“Everybody is disappointed”, Hameed Murshed, a Yemeni shopkeeper who lives in Hamtramck, said on Friday when rumors of the order loomed. “That’s all we want to do”.
The United Nations refugee agency and the International Organization for Migration called on the Trump administration to continue offering asylum to people fleeing war and persecution, saying its resettlement programme was vital.
She added: “It contradicts the basic concept of global help for refugees and worldwide cooperation”. “But to say all Muslims should not come, or to stop all Syrian refugees, is very wrong”.
So on Holocaust Remembrance Day, this is essentially the Muslim ban/religious test while Trump prioritizes Christians.
“For decades, the United States has been a global leader in refugee protection, a tradition rooted in the tolerance and generosity of the American people”, the UN’s statement read. Christians comprised less than 1 percent of the total.
“Terrorists can say, ‘See, their aim is not terror but Muslims, ‘” said Ilter Turan, a professor of global relations at Bilgi University in Istanbul.
The official, like others, requested anonymity to discuss Trump’s order. “I hate to say it”.
“I thought it was very, very unfair. But that’s not what it says”. “When two-thirds or three-quarters of the CEOs in Silicon Valley are from South Asia or from Asia, I think”.
The interfaith press conference was attended by almost two dozen representatives from various faith groups, including Cardinal Donald Wuerl, archbishop of Washington. The U.S. Refugee Admissions program has been suspended for 120 days and will be reinstated “only for nationals of countries for whom” Trump’s administration and Cabinet determine can be “extremely vetted”.
“The bottom line”, he said “is the centrality and dignity of the human person, where you can not favor “us” and ‘them, ‘ citizens over others”. “This includes Christians, as well as Yazidis and Shia Muslims from Syria, Rohingyas from Burma, and other religious minorities”. They’re also people who are fleeing the exact terrorists that we’re talking about targeting. Lawmakers, including some from Trump’s Republican Party, denounced the decision as discriminatory and counterproductive for national security. Syrian refugees are banned indefinitely. Bob Goodlatte, chairman of the House of Representatives Judiciary Committee, said Trump “is using the tools granted to him by Congress and the power granted by the Constitution to help keep America safe and ensure we know who is entering the United States”.
And Labour’s Emily Thornberry said Mr Trump was “heading down a very risky slope”, in reference to images showing Ms May holding the President’s hand as they walked down a gradient at the White House last week.
Gary Bauer, founder of the Campaign for Working Families, said he is bewildered by the lack of support for Mr. Trump’s order from the faith community.
“The United States is a nation of immigrants, and we should be proud of that.” he noted.
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And the UK only gets close to the figure of 50,000 over the last half century by including the unprecedented movement of Ugandan Asians in the early 1970s – a population that had the right of abode in the UK until legislative amendments a few years earlier and that the UK government of the day tried its hardest to ship elsewhere.
