In one fell swoop, United States President Donald Trump has suspended the entry into the US people from seven predominantly Muslim countries—Iraq, Syria, Iran, Yemen, Libya, Sudan and Somalia—for 90 days, imposed a blanket ban on admission of refugees for 120 days and Syrian refugees indefinitely, and capped the intake of refugees into the US for this year at 50,000.
The move has alarmed US tech giants such as Google, Apple and Facebook, annoyed governments in Iran and elsewhere and antagonised a section of the American judiciary—with a federal judge in New York even ordering a temporary stay on the order.
In keeping with his government's practice of announcing one decision per day, Trump followed the Muslim immigration ban up by setting his defence and national security team a 30-day deadline for formulating a new strategy to defeat the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (IS). It flows from Trump's inauguration speech in which he spoke of reinforcing old alliances and forming new ones for eradicating radical Islamic terrorism. Whether this will translate into more American boots on the ground is not immediately known but already indications are that the US and Russia would be open for making coordinated efforts in Syria. And on Saturday, his government conducted its first counter-terrorism operation against suspected Al-Qaeda terrorists in Yemen, in which at least 14 members of the outfit were reported to be killed. One US army soldier perished in the attack.
The January 27 executive order, titled 'Protecting the nation from foreign terrorist entry into the United States', argues that while the visa-issuance process was reviewed and amended after the September 11, 2001 attacks in New York to better detect would-be terrorists from receiving visas, these measures did not stop attacks by foreign nationals who were admitted to the US.
Sundar Pichai, the India-born chief executive officer of Google, was among several American corporate leaders to express concern at the move. "We're upset about the impact of this order and any proposals that could impose restrictions on Googlers and their families, or that could create barriers to bringing great talent to the US," a section of the American media quoted Pichai as saying in an email sent to his staff.
The other executive orders or administrative actions that Trump has taken since his January 20 inauguration include securing the southern border of the US with Mexico by constructing a physical wall within 180 days, directing agencies concerned to begin preparing for the repeal of the Affordable Care Act (also known as Obamacare), and withdrawing from the Trans-Pacific Partnership.
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