As
Donald Trump's travel ban policy continues to stir serious controversy
around the world, Reuben Abati has weighed into the matter.
Donald Trump
I am not a fan of Donald Trump, the incumbent President of the
United States. I didn’t stand with him. I stood with her- Hillary
Clinton- in the last US Presidential election. No other election in
recent American history has been more international in terms of interest
and emotional involvement. Trump’s election even divided the Nigerian
middle class. Majority of Christians in Nigeria stood with Donald
Trump. They liked his anti-Muslim rhetoric, and in a country where
religion is such a volatile subject and the Christian community feels as
if it is under siege from radical Islamic extremism, it was easy for a
category of Nigerians to see Trump’s politics being in sync with their
own fears and expectations.
Pro-secessionist, Biafran and Christian protesters in the South
East also supported Trump. On his Inauguration Day, they organized a
rally, some of them were killed, in the process, by Nigerian security
agents. It is always so easy to read American politics into every other
politics globally because of America’s status as a superior power and
the global dominance of its culture. Many Nigerians who opposed Hillary
Clinton of the Democratic Party also did so, for example, for partisan
reasons, because they felt the Democratic administration of President
Barrack Obama was responsible in many ways for the outcome of the 2015
Presidential election in Nigeria. They wanted a pound of flesh – they
wanted the Democrats out of the White House, the same way the PDP exited
Aso Villa. The funny thing is that Nigerians who do not hold American
citizenship, were not in a position to vote in the US election, but this
didn’t deter us from weeping more than the Americans. In my case, I
opposed Trump because I consider him a vile, navel-gazing, crude,
child-like nativist, whose Presidency could pose a threat to the free
world.
I have been proven right. The United States is in trouble because
of Donald Trump. In less than two weeks in office, President Trump has
signed executive orders, which amount to an assault on the liberal
international order. America is great because it became the dreamland
and the symbol of freedom, prosperity and fulfillment for persons and
families across the world. It is great because it became the melting pot
for global genius, the preferred destination for generations of
talented persons in all fields of human endeavour. America is great
because its diversity and multiculturalism became pillars of its
exceptionalism.
Donald Trump, on twitter where he spends his waking hours, and on
the podium, where he rants, says his ambition is to “Make America Great
Again” (#MAGA), but it is beginning to look as if Trump will end up
making America small. The Executive Orders which he has signed so far,
are intended to upturn America’s foreign policy in the last 50 years,
isolate the country from the rest of the world and turn it into an
island. America appears destined to become a pariah state for the next
four years. With Trump, America now sees the rest of the world as an
ocean of enemies, with this persecution complex dressed up as national
interest.
The most pernicious of the Executive Orders is Trump’s suspension
of the US refugee programme for four months and the entry ban for 90
days imposed on nationals from Iran, Iraq, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria
and Yemen. Is the action legal? Section 212(f) of the US Immigration
and Nationality Act (INA) (1952) empowers the President to restrict
immigration access to the United States: “Whenever the President
finds that the entry of any aliens or of any class of aliens into the
United States would be detrimental to the interests of the United
States, he may by proclamation, and for such period as he shall deem
necessary suspend the entry of all aliens or any class of aliens as
immigrants and non-immigrants or impose on the entry of aliens any
restrictions he may deem to be appropriate.” The sentiment behind this legal provision is protectionism, which is ironic in a country of immigrants.
This is Donald Trump keeping his campaign promise to protect
America for Americans and review immigration policies. Is this new? No.
Over the years, America has always tried to control the influx of
immigrants. This was the case even under President Barack Obama. Trump
reminds us of the 1882 Chinese Exclusion Act which turned back the
Chinese, and a similar law in 1924, which targeted Asian and African
immigrants, both of which were corrected by the Immigration Act of 1965,
which forbids discrimination on the basis of national origin, ancestry
and race. The only problem is that Trump’s approach is crazy, a case of
policy mixed with bigotry and narcissism, and an unconstitutional
gambit which violates the First Amendment, hidden under the banner of
“protecting the nation from foreign terrorist entry.” Given the
contradictions between the 1952 and 1965 Acts and the First Amendment,
Trump’s actions are perhaps better tested in the court of law.
He wants to build a wall at the Mexican border. This has already
caused a rift with Mexico. He is also holding radical Islam responsible
for security breaches in the United States, and this is certainly
because foreign-born Muslims have been responsible for many acts of
terror in the US: the 9/11, the Boston bombing, the Nigerian underwear
bomber; across Europe, radical Islamic extremism has also proven to be a
problem. Trump’s solution is to demonize Muslim-majority countries and
arrive at the simple solution that the best way to protect America is
to shut out the Muslims. He insists that “This is not about religion –
this is about terror and keeping our country safe. There are 40
different countries worldwide that are majority Muslim that are not
affected by this order.” I don’t believe him.
The chosen seven countries that have been shut out have not in any
way been responsible for most of the acts of terror in the US in recent
times. Trump leaves out Egypt, Pakistan and Saudi Arabia, and other
Muslim-majority countries, but the kind of chaos that has been generated
makes every Muslim going to the United States vulnerable. You don’t
have to be from the seven targeted countries, once you bear a Muslim
name, you could be subjected to greater scrutiny by Customs and Border
Protection Officers. Some of the people who have been harassed at the
borders since last Friday when the Executive Order was passed are
American citizens with dual nationality.
While Donald Trump is proposing greater vetting and scrutiny of the
influx of Muslims, and refugees, he is nevertheless willing to allow
more Christians into the United States. This is the message that comes
across: Christians are welcome. Muslims should be carefully scrutinized
before they are allowed in. In other words, Christians are better than
Muslims. This may sound like an over-simplification, but that is just
how it is. President Trump is likely to make the United States more
unpopular in the Muslim world, damage established friendships and
promote a culture of hate that has proven a threat to American foreign
relations in parts of the world.
American liberals are justifiably upset and angry. President
Trump’s policy moves and rhetoric depart from the America they have
known for the past 50 years. But right now, America is so divided,
nobody can comfortably sit on the fence, and that is why public opinion
is so viciously divided too. Trump addresses the fears of those
Americans who, like him, don’t want more immigrants and asylum seekers.
This is the ultimate rise of American xenophobia and an attempt to turn
that country into “a camp of saints.” But there are limits to nativism
as seen in Jean Raspail’s novel, The Camp of the Saints (1973) and The
Slums of Aspen: Immigrants vs. The Environment (2011) by Lisa Park and
David Pellow.
But no matter the tone of global outrage, Donald Trump obviously
doesn’t give a damn. Mexico has cancelled a meeting with Trump, a
protest calling for signatures to prevent his proposed state visit to
the UK has attracted over a million signatures, Iran is threatening
reciprocal action, the entire Muslim world is outraged and inside
America, California is threatening to secede because of Trump! And
Trump? He wants to be President of the United States, not President of
the world. He wants to serve the American people who voted him into
power, not some immigrants coming from the slums of Africa, Asia, Latin
America and the Middle East. Across the world, there are millions who
look up to the United States as the land of freedom. Trump is saying
America is no longer ready to be the world’s Atlas nation. It is not
just immigration that will be affected: trade, aid, military relations
as well. This has created a regime of fear among many who depend on the
United States.
There are millions of Africans living in the United States,
particularly Nigerians. They don’t all have the papers granting them
the right of stay. There are asylum seekers, refugees and many who are
still processing their residency papers. An American for Americans only
policy is likely to place them at the risk of rejection and eventual
deportation. When you talk to some of them, you can actually sense
panic, fear, despair. They panic because America has become their
adopted home. It is their place of work, their source of hope, and the
best place in the world where they are happiest.
They panic because their original homeland offers them little hope.
They don’t want to return to a Nigeria where there is no regular power
supply, employment opportunities, good roads, communications or
transportation system. Living in America confers a special status on
them among friends, family members and the community at home. There are
others who are already naturalized Americans, and who may have nothing
to fear, and there are those Nigerians who have helped to build America
with their talents and intellect, and who don’t really care on what side
of the bed Donald Trump is likely to wake up tomorrow morning.
Then you have the big crowd of I-must-go-to-America-by-force set of
Nigerians who are daily trooping to the American embassy in search of
visa. Since the Executive Order by President Trump, that crowd has not
been smiling at all. I know many of our compatriots who have suddenly
become experts in analyzing American immigration rules. Nigeria is not
one of the seven countries on the Trump list and the review and
restriction are supposed to last for 120 days, but long-time US visa
applicants in Nigeria believe that what a typical American immigration
officer has actually been looking for is a President like Trump. An
inconsolable applicant tells me he is no longer sure he will ever get a
visa to the United States.
I assured him that the world will always need America and America
will always need the world. Isolationism discounts the ideal of an
interconnected global order. President Donald Trump’s success will be
determined in the long run not by the arrows he shoots in the
international arena from North Korea, to China, to Mexico and Somalia,
but how well he fulfills the promise to make America greater than he met
it. If they don’t want you to stay in America, come home, please. Stay
at home, e go better… or go to Canada or Taiwan.
******
Written by Reuben Abati
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