Washington: A senior Democratic lawmaker has said she will introduce two bills in the US Senate seeking to immediately rescind President Donald Trump’s “discriminatory” executive order imposing a travel ban on people from seven Muslim-majority nations and to ensure additional Congressional oversight on his authority.
Senator Dianne Feinstein, Ranking Member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, said she will introduce the bills in response to Trump’s discriminatory executive order barring immigrants from Muslim-majority countries and suspending the US refugee programme.
Feinstein’s first bill would seek to rescind the executive order. The second would call for amending the Immigration and Nationality Act to ensure additional Congressional oversight on the president’s authority to bar classes of people from entering the United States.
As per the bill, the US president would be required to provide 30 days’ notice to the Congress, rationale for taking such an action and an analysis of the potential effects, including social, economic and demographic. The president would also be required to respond to members’ questions about the proposed rationale to bar classes of immigrants.
“The president’s blatantly discriminatory executive order should be rescinded immediately. The consequences of this order will be far-reaching and were obviously not carefully considered. People all around the world will be affected, including Americans,” Feinstein said.
Feinstein said there is no legitimate national security reason to ban refugees — the vast majority of whom are women and children who have experienced the worst of humanity. In a dear colleague letter, Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi said Trump’s “unconstitutional” executive order betrays everything the Statue of Liberty and the US stand for.
“The president’s action is not only unconstitutional but immoral. As Pope Francis said, ‘It’s hypocrisy to call yourself a Christian and chase away a refugee or someone seeking help,’” she said.
“We have been moved and inspired by the scenes of Americans, including Members of our Caucus, rallying to airports across the nation to demand justice for the men, women and children detained and/or deported under the president’s order,” she said.
Democratic National Committee interim chair Donna said Trump’s Muslim ban is illegal, a pretext for religious discrimination and it only makes America less safe.
“Experts agree that this policy is a gift to radical terrorist recruiters everywhere – experts like former CIA Director and four-star General David Petraeus, who said a Muslim ban was ‘totally counterproductive,’ Trump’s own current Secretary of Homeland Security Retired Marine General John Kelly, and his predecessor, Republican former Secretary of Homeland Security Tom Ridge, who said a Muslim ban would ‘feed into the ISIS narrative’,” she said.
PTI