“Give me your tired, your poor, Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, The wretched refuse of your teeming shore. Send these, the homeless, tempest-tossed to me, I lift my lamp beside the golden door” is the quote by Emma Lazarus engraved on a plaque on the Statue of Liberty. For years the Statue of Liberty has been a symbol of welcome for anyone coming to the United States to escape hardships or find new opportunities. Friday, however that all changed as Donald Trump signed an executive order banning refugees and immigrants from 7 muslim majority countries from entering the U.S. The executive order blocks citizens from Iran, Iraq, Syria, Yemen, Sudan and Libya for 90 days and blocks Syrian refugees indefinitely.

The people from these countries are facing situations that most of us can’t imagine. They live in cities ravaged by civil war and have to worry about things like bombings every day. This whole executive order is no longer a Republican or Democrat issue, it’s an issue of morality and human values, an issue of right and wrong. It is wrong to ban people from entering the country because of their religion, their race, their country of origin.

America already has an extreme vetting process. Jane Mason, a senior adviser to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees said that “Of all the categories of persons entering the U.S., these refugees are the single most highly screened and vetted”. The process to gain admission into the states takes and average of 18 to 24 months. The process consists of rigorous interviews, covering everything from a refugees hobbies, family life to relationships. There are 9 intense steps for refugees before they can gain admittance into the states. According to a Time magazine article half of the admitted refugees are children, only 2% are single males of age to perform combat. Since 9/11 750,000 refugees have been admitted into the United States and only 2 have been arrested for having connection to terrorist groups.

With a process as intense as that it doesn’t exactly make sense to simply ban people from entering the country when it already takes 2 years to get into the country. Violence does not go away because you try to keep people out. San Bernardino, NYC, Orlando, Ohio State and Ft. Lauderdale have been the biggest terrorist attacks over the past 2 years and all of them except the Ohio State Attack and the New York City apartment bombing attacker and the wife of the San Bernardino attacker were born in the United States. Further proving the point that terrorism is not exclusive to those countries that now have refugee bans on them. Besides that none of the countries that now have bans on them have had people commit terrorist attacks in the United States.

To any refugees that are trying to escape their countries because they are in danger and want to provide a better life for their families, please know that my president does not speak for me personally. This is America and anybody that is trying to make their lives better is welcome. It’s 2017, it’s time to get rid of the discrimination and racism and hate.

Source: Time Magazine