The White House corrected an early mistake and issued a narrower and much improved executive order curbing visas from terrorist hotbeds. The order itself is better, the process of making it was better and the rollout of the order was far better.
Now we hope the Departments of State, Justice and Homeland Security get busy crafting a new vetting process for refugees and other visitors from places where terrorism thrives, so that they can move beyond this blunt, temporary order.
Trump’s Jan. 27 executive order was poorly considered, highly disruptive and sloppily executed. We editorialized right away that Trump should scrap it. It hadn’t gone through the proper channels and lacked expert input and some basic lawyering. Substantively, it revoked visas and even barred green-card holders from returning home to America.
Trump’s new order avoids these pitfalls. It explicitly does not apply to current visa holders. This is important as a matter of justice and of political and legal vulnerability. Plaintiffs against the original order had legal standing because many of the affected people already lived here, or had been granted the right to travel here. The new rule applies only to foreigners who are not yet based or headed here, making it harder for them to claim legal standing.
Cooperation among relevant agencies was made visible Monday, when Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, Attorney General Jeff Sessions and Homeland Security Secretary John Kelly announced the order.
The simple step of announcing and explaining the order was a big, necessary step. The order is more detailed and it contains a thorough legal justification, and the administration also released a fact sheet helping to clarify it yet further. The Cabinet secretaries on Monday laid out the framework and some of the reasoning.
DOJ attorneys even sent a letter to the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals, which had blocked the first order, explaining the differences in the new order, and how it avoids some of the legal problems of the first one.
While vastly better than the previous order and fine for a temporary rule, this order barring entrants from six countries of special concern is not the same thing as a permanent counterterrorism policy. It is at once overbroad and too narrow for that. Ideally, we can keep out terrorists and extremists while we admit people fleeing from evil regimes or from terrorists who have overrun dysfunctional countries.
Anti-terrorism border policy also needs to include many more countries. Consider that no Sept. 11, 2001, or San Bernardino terrorist came from the six countries covered by Trump’s orders.
The president’s new order instructs DHS to come up with a new, better system for vetting those entering our country. “Extreme vetting” was an odd choice of words by Trump, but the idea behind it is sound.
As Sessions put it on Monday: “Like every nation, the United States has a right to control who enters our country, and to keep out those who would do us harm.”
The single best place to carry out counter-terrorism efforts is at our border. Not all terrorists come here from other countries, but all of the 9/11 hijackers and one of the San Bernardino attackers were foreigners whom our State Department granted visas. Of all the places to pry into people’s backgrounds, and comings and goings, the port of entry is the most valid. Rigorous vetting at the door is more justifiable and infringes less on appropriate rights than mass surveillance, gun control or other anti-terrorism methods our government has carried out within our borders in the past.
The administration may find it has all the legal authority and access to all the resources it needs to craft an improved vetting system. Where it needs help, it should turn to Congress and lawmakers should respond quickly.
The administration seems to have learned lessons since the first order created chaos. We applaud the new order, and look forward to its permanent replacement.
