What makes Muslim ban 3.0 so dangerous

Two years ago this December, Donald Trump issued his now infamous statement: “Donald J Trump is calling for a total and complete shutdown of Muslims entering the United States until our country’s representatives can figure out what the hell is going on.”

Nearly a year into his presidency, Trump has sought to put three different Muslim bans into place, with the last now making its way through the courts.

In a December 4 ruling, the Supreme Court decided to allow Muslim ban 3.0 to be implemented while challenges to its constitutionality make their way through the lower courts. In this, the Supreme Court overturned appellate courts’ earlier decisions to halt its implementation during the appeal process.

To be clear, this decision was not based on the merits of the case or the ban’s constitutionality. Nonetheless, for many Muslims, it indicates that institutionalized Islamophobia isn’t going anywhere anytime soon. In the context of a president and administration that has repeatedly stoked anti-Muslim sentiments, this latest act of state violence is depressingly unsurprising.

Unlike earlier versions of the ban, which initially imposed three-month restrictions on six or seven Muslim-majority countries, version 3.0 indefinitely targets nationals from eight countries. Syrian and Somali nationals are being banned altogether, while nationals from Iran, Libya, Yemen and Chad face a range of restrictions and barriers to entry.

North Korea and Venezuela are also included in the latest ban, as a fig leaf to cover Trump’s expressed intention to target Muslims’ entry to the United States in arguments before the courts.
READ MORE

We don't care about US travel ban, says North Korea officials

Washington's ban on US citizens travelling to North Korea will have no effect on the country's tourism industry and Pyongyang does not care about it "at all", a senior development official insisted today.

The measure is due to be enacted this week and once it goes into force US passports will no longer be valid for travel to the isolated country, which is subject to multiple sets of United Nations sanctions over its nuclear and missile programmes.

Around 5,000 Western tourists visit the North each year, tour companies say, with about 20 percent of them Americans. Standard one-week trips cost about USD 2,000.

But Han Chol-Su, vice-director of the Wonsan Zone Development Corporation, denied the loss of business would have any impact.

"If the US government says Americans cannot come to this country, we don't care a bit," he told AFP in Pyongyang.

Washington announced the move after the death of Otto Warmbier, the University of Virginia student who was sentenced to 15 years' hard labour in the North for trying to steal a propaganda poster.

Warmbier was sent home in a mysterious coma last month -- Pyongyang said he had contracted botulism -- and died soon afterwards, prompting US President Donald Trump to denounce the "brutal regime".

READ MORE

Trump's travel ban takes effect, doesn't consider grandparents as close family

The Trump administration is all set to partially implement its travel ban against people coming from six Muslim majority nations.

Being enforced from tonight 8 pm (5:30 am IST), officials said the travel ban is being rolled out across the country as part of its effort to prevent people from Iran, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria, and Yemen from entering the US.

The move comes after the US Supreme Court unanimously ruled that the vast majority of the US President's March 6 'Executive Order Protecting the Nation from Foreign Terrorist Entry into the United States' could go into effect.

"As recent events have shown, we are living in a very dangerous time, and the US government needs every available tool to prevent terrorists from entering the country and committing acts of bloodshed and violence. And as the President reiterated following Monday's ruling, his number one responsibility as Commander-in-Chief is to keep the American people safe," said a senior administration official.

Ahead of its implementation, officials hoped to have business as usual at the airports.

"We expect business as usual at the ports of entry starting at 8:00 pm tonight. There have been reports of people who have already indicated that they would like to be there to either cause chaos or to protest. Lawyers have indicated they would like to be at the ports of entry to assist people," a senior administration official said.
READ MORE