By Lester Kyle Macardo, Courier Staff Writer
This past weekend, President Donald Trump issued a revision of his controversial travel ban. The original travel ban was set to take effect late in January of this year. The revision features a couple of changes, the biggest one being that Iraq is no longer included in the list of countries banned, probably because the Iraqi government has been exceptionally cooperative with the American government.
The ban now explicitly exempts citizens of the six banned countries who are legal US permanent residents or have valid visas to enter the US. Even the people who had their visas revoked during the original implementation of the ban are included. The revised order will also block citizens of Libya, Somalia Syria, Iran, Sudan and Yemen from getting visas for at least 90 days and it suspends admission of refugees into the US for at least 120 days.
The most notable differences from the old one are as follows. Green card holders are exempt, but religious minorities are no longer exempt from the ban. There is somewhat good news, because the revision states that Syrians are to be treated as all the other refugees.
There are an immense amount of people against the travel ban. Two senators, McCain and Graham (both Republicans) publicly criticized President Trump’s revision, causing the POTUS to call them out on Twitter. The president said that their views on foreign policy have always been weak and that they need to step up. The House and Senate Democrats are outraged, and they deem the travel ban to be unconstitutional.