House Democrats ramped up their criticism of President Trump’s executive order curtailing travel to the U.S. from seven Muslim-majority countries, holding an unofficial hearing in the Capitol Thursday to bring attention to the order’s short-comings.
“The fabric of this nation is being torn apart before our eyes,” groaned Rep. Donald Payne Jr., D-N.J. “Are we supposed to take that off the Statue of Liberty now?” he asked about the inscription that beacons the world to bring America its huddled masses.
Today it is Muslims, “then who is next?” Payne asked.
House Minority Whip Steny Hoyer, D-Md., pointed out that no terrorist acts have been carried out by refugees living in the U.S. from any of the seven affected countries.
“Every American ought to understand that,” he said.
At the same time Democrats were holding their forum, House Speaker Paul Ryan, R-Wis., was defending Trump’s order.
“This is not a Muslim ban,” Ryan said. “If it were, I would be against it.”
Ryan said critics are misinterpreting what the order actually does.
“I do think that there is a perception issue, and I do think that this loose rhetoric that suggests that this is a religious test or Muslim ban is wrong because it furthers that perception. Because this is not that.”
Ryan said establishing preferences for certain groups of refugees — such as the Trump order’s ban on Syrian refugees and preference for Christians — is nothing new.
“Presidents always and often put preferences in refugee populations,” Ryan said, noting that President Obama carved out special status for refugees fleeing their homeland on the basis of persecution because of their sexual orientation.
“Religious minorities are being persecuted,” Ryan said. “There’s nothing wrong with preferring religious minorities” fleeing persecution for resettlement in the U.S. Ryan pointed to ISIS’s efforts to wipe out the Yazidis, or Shia-majority countries’ persecution of Sunnis and some countries ill-will toward Christians as examples of persecuted groups.
“So there’s nothing wrong with saying we are going to take into account minority religious persecution with our refugee situation,” Ryan said.
Rep. Zoe Lofgren, D-Calif., said the order has already hurt American allies in Iraq.
She pointed to Vian Dakhil, a member of the Iraqi Parliament, who now cannot travel to the U.S. as scheduled.
She was the only Yazidi woman in the Parliament when ISIS was trying to wipe out the sect in 2014 and publicly begged the world to help her people. She was supposed to come to Washington next week to receive the Lantos Human Rights Prize.
