NE NEWS SERVICE
NEW DELHI, JAN 21
Muslim groups in the United States have welcomed the decision of US President Joe Biden to lift ban on entry of people from several Muslim majority countries as also immigrants from several non-Muslim countries.
The ban was imposed by former President Donald Trump in January 2017 which was extended several times to include citizens of several other countries. The ban order was upheld by US Supreme Court in 2018.
According to ban order, citizens from Iran, Libya, Somalia, Syria, Yemen-all predominantly Muslim countries – as also Venezuela and North Korea, both non-Muslim countries – were not to be given even entry visa in the US.
Earlier, Chad was also in the list of banned Muslim countries but later on, taken off after Chad agreed to provide information to the US agencies for examination of its citizens coming to US.
The ban was further expanded in 2019 under which citizens of Myanmar, Eritrea, Kyrgyzstan, Nigeria, Sudan, and Tanzania could visit the US, but were prevented from settling permanently in the US.
Biden’s White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki told media persons on Wednesday that the President has rescinded “Muslim ban-a policy that was rooted in religious hostility and xenophobia”. Ending the Muslim ban was one of the several top electoral promises of Biden.
Tune in for the first press briefing of the Biden-Harris Administration with Press Secretary Jen Psaki. https://t.co/psa19eCLQa
— The White House (@WhiteHouse) January 20, 2021
Welcoming the rescinding of the ban by Biden, the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) described the decision as “an important first step toward undoing the anti-Muslim and anti-immigrant policies of the previous administration”.
“It is an important fulfilment of a campaign pledge to the Muslim community and its allies,” CAIR’s Executive Director Nihad Awad said in a statement.
Kursheed Mallick, Chairman of Justice for All, a US-based advocacy group, thanked President Biden for “shutting down the Muslim ban”.
“This is a perfect beginning”, Mallick, who is of Indian origin, said in a letter to President Biden.
“We prayed for a new era of hope for all Americans, end of discrimination against all people and standing up for human rights at home and abroad”, Mallick’s letter said.
Mina Mahdavi of Iranian origin and affiliated to CAIR’s San Francisco Bay Area chapter hopes that his 67-year-old mother currently living in Iran can now reunite with him in the US.
Zahra Billoo, Executive Director of CAIR’s San Francisco Bay Area chapter said that rescinding the Muslim ban by President Biden immediately after taking oath proved that he would keep his poll promises and American Muslims would be heard.
Welcoming the repeal of the Trump’s Muslim travel ban executive order, Zainab Chaudhary, director of CAIR’s Maryland office, said that imposing ban on Muslim entry in the US was the first executive order of Trump when had become US President four years ago. This was in violation of religious freedom enshrined in US Constitution. She said that the ban, which came into effect on January 27, 2017, resulted in chaos and many immigrants were detained at airports and denied entry. Many residents of the banned countries, who either studied or worked in US but were abroad at the time of imposing of the ban, remained stranded abroad due to Trump’s ban policy.
She said that Trump had “codified bigotry into law-signaling to his base and the world that the blanket scapegoating, profiling and dehumanizing of Muslim countries was permissible and warranted”.
“Trump’s animus toward Muslims manifested far beyond this executive order and included approval of surveilling U.S. mosques and establishing a Muslim registry”, Chaudhary said in a statement.
Soon after Biden had won the Presidential elections, a group of more than four dozen advocacy groups had written a joint letter to him seeking repeal of the ban on entry of immigrants in US.
