International airlines allowing nationals of 7 banned Muslim countries to board US-bound flights

By any reading, Donald Trump’s executive order suspending the US refugee program and arrivals from seven mainly Muslim countries has been a disaster. Grandmothers and Iraqis who served alongside American soldiers have been detained. Not good for PR.

The White House has had to drop green card holders from the ban and more than one judge has ordered parts of the program be dropped. The State Department has reversed the cancellation of visas provisionally revoked after Trump’s executive order — so long as those visas were not stamped or marked as canceled.

Many international airlines are again allowing nationals of seven Muslim-majority countries hit with President Donald Trump’s travel ban to board US-bound flights after a federal judge blocked the controversial ban nationwide. US Customs and Border Protection informed major American airlines on a conference call that it was “back to business as usual,” an airline executive told CNN.

It has exposed rifts in the administration, with key players saying they were not properly consulted, and divisions among Republicans, who say such barriers are un-American or that they detect a religious test in the decision to give Christians preferential treatment.

It wasn’t supposed to be like this: Throughout a topsy-turvy campaign, Trump managed to offer a consistent messianic message amid the noise. “Nobody knows the system better than me, which is why I alone can fix it,” he said at the Republican National Convention in Cleveland. “It’s going to be beautiful,” he bragged. “It will be so easy,” he boasted.

[CNN]

This entry was posted in International Cooperation, Uncategorized by Grant Montgomery.