Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer labeled President Trump’s revised travel ban executive order a “watered-down” version of the original that makes Americans “less safe, not more” and called for its repeal.
The New York Democrat also said the order remains “mean-spirited” and “un-American” and predicted it would face stiff resistance in the courts.
“A watered-down ban is still a ban,” Schumer said in a statement Monday. “Despite the administration’s changes, this dangerous executive order makes us less safe, not more, it is mean-spirited, and un-American. It must be repealed.”
But Speaker Paul Ryan, R-Wis., commended the administration for its work.
“This revised executive order advances our shared goal of protecting the homeland,” Ryan said in a statement. “I commend the administration and Secretary Kelly in particular for their hard work on this measure to improve our vetting standards. We will continue to work with President Trump to keep our country safe.”
Schumer also asserted that delaying the roll-out of the revised travel ban’s order until after Trump’s joint address to Congress was a strategic decision meant to distract from criticism that the order will not help bolster national security by preventing would-be terrorists or actual ones from entering the country.
“Delaying its announcement so the President could bask in the aftermath of his joint address is all the proof Americans need to know that this has absolutely nothing to do with national security,” Schumer said. “Despite their best efforts, I fully expect this executive order to have the same uphill climb in the courts that the previous version had.”
House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi deemed the revised order a “repackaging” that has “done nothing to change the immoral, unconstitutional and dangerous goals of [Trump’s] Muslim and refugee ban.”
“This is the same ban, with the same purpose, driven by the same dangerous discrimination that weakens our ability to fight terror,” she said.
The California Democrat, a longtime member of the House Intelligence Committee, also referred to Trump’s “conduct over the weekend,” in which he tweeted that Trump tower was wiretapped without stating any evidence, as proof of “how little regard he has for reality.”
In addition, she referred to news of leaked internal Homeland Security reports that claim that the travel and immigration order would not help combat terrorism or prevent attacks on U.S. soil.
“As the leaked reports from Homeland Security exposed, the White House has desperately sought to invent an after-the-fact justification for its baldly prejudiced and unconstitutional Muslim and refugee ban,” she said. “Protecting the American people requires us to be strong and smart, not reckless and rash.”
Trump signed the new executive order Monday morning. It excludes Iraqi citizens, permanent legal residents and existing visa holders from the list of foreign nationals prohibited from entering the U.S. for the next 90 days, beginning on March 16.
