President Trump’s executive action regarding immigration is frustrating for those who, like myself, believe in a sweeping sense that the Obama administration did not take threats to national security seriously enough, but in no way desired the ill-conceived reaction of Donald Trump. To discuss this piece of legislation with any degree of intellectual honesty, one ought to acknowledge that this is not a “Muslim ban” per se. It makes it much more difficult for Muslims to enter the country and Syrian asylum seekers are indefinitely suspended, though even under Barack Obama, the United States accepted very few Syrian refugees. While it’s entirely disingenuous to call it a “Muslim ban,” an ex post facto side effect of the law is inevitably affective of Muslims seeking refuge, so I will address it as such.
My first thought is from a Catholic perspective. Our Pope and ecclesiastical authority have reminded the faithful that we have a moral obligation to harbor those truly in need. Pictures of children fleeing the gargantuan violence of the Islamic State is horrifying and heart-wrenching. The faces of ravaged people of all ages cry out for mercy from those who can so provide it. This move by Trump not only departs from that general sense of charity, but it is moreover boorish and overly broad beyond its optical unpalatability.
So often with Trump, he has his finger on the pulse of things that are real issues, but his remedy for those problems is often wildly blunt or imprudent. In this case, he is entirely correct that the Islamic world has a large and particular problem with radicalization and anti-Western sentiment right now to a degree that warrants discussing it as a real and credible threat by name. The solution he then jumps to is to indiscriminately bar admissions from several Islamic countries, even calling into question the legitimacy of visa holders. This is, on its face, remarkably unfair and imprecise.
What concerns me and other conservatives who find the optics of the Trump decision uncouth, is that the mostly justified criticisms of this addenda are essentially going to legitimize the view that there is no problem of Islamic radicalism and it is only “Islamophobia” that is the tacit problem. This was the position of the Obama administration — in the wake of mass violence on behalf of radical jihadists, the former president felt it more important to lecture America about Islamophobia rather than to assuage the victims’ families that the gubernatorial forces that be are unified in a fight against radical Islamism. Similarly, the moral posturing of people like Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, posting photos of himself with refugees saying “diversity is our strength” is the type of virtue signaling that made people vote for Trump in the first place. When Trudeau says “diversity is our strength,” it is eminently clear by his past actions that what he means is that Canadians have no national culture and that they, as a collective, will adapt themselves to the incoming immigrants and their values. I have no problem with “diversity,” but there must be an implicit understanding that those seeking Western shores adapt their values to the liberal values of Western civilization, no ifs, ands, or buts.
If incoming immigrants think that the honor killings of women are sometimes justified, or that the proper punishment for apostasy is death (both of which a highly significant plurality of even so-called moderate Muslims believe according to Pew polls), the West shouldn’t “tolerate” such beliefs. This acceptance should not be allowed just so we can post “woke” Instagram photos saying “diversity is our strength” or some other incontinent spew of verbal diarrhea. If asylum seekers come, they ought to adapt to the West, not the other way around.
Despite the visceral loutishness of the suggestion, I’d echo the refrain of pundit Ben Shapiro and others Republicans who call for the Islamic world to do a bit more in harboring these asylum seekers. There are 57 Muslim majority countries on the globe and apart from Turkey, it has been primordially Europe and the West taking these refugees in. Europe, because of this influx of people with different conceptions of “civilization,” has seen an insurgent culture war. It would be ideal if some Islamic countries could step up to the plate and take in some refugees just like Israel has taken in overwhelming numbers of Jewish asylum seekers throughout its history. The relative inaction of majority Muslim countries, albeit their own issues in regards to ISIS, has created this sort of asylum shopping among refugees.
Ultimately, I think the move is dumb and boorish. But I’m concerned that the criticism of this legislation is not only outraged with the prescription for solving the problem but a basic denial of the problem itself.
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