House-Passed Visa Waiver Discrimination Is Trump Lite
Sunday, 13 December 2015 00:00 By Robert Naiman, Truthout | Op-Ed
The nationality-based discrimination of the House-passed visa waiver bill
is Trumpism applied to a smaller group of people. (Image: US Passport via
Shutterstock)
From time to time, people ask me where I'm from. "I'm from Arkansas," I say
brightly.
"You don't sound like you're from Arkansas," the people say suspiciously. (I
think this roughly translates as: "You speak English like a Chicago Jew.")
"No, really," I say. "You can check my birth certificate. I was born in
Fayetteville." (When I say "Fayetteville," I try to pronounce it in two
syllables, like my friend from Little Rock says it: Fayt-ville.)
The people don't buy it. "How old were you when you left Arkansas?" they ask
knowingly.
"Six months old," I confess. "And I haven't set foot in Arkansas since."
When I happened to be born, my mother happened to be a graduate student at
the University of Arkansas. I'm not "from Arkansas" at all. Every other
member of my immediate family was born in Illinois.
The world is full of people like me - people who were born in places that
they are not "from." My grandfather Max was born in Grodno, which is now in
Belarus, a country that didn't even exist when Max was born there. But he
wasn't from Grodno. He was from Chicago.
This is a basic fact about the world. You know it, I know it, and the
American people know it, as Bob Dole used to say.
But the bill to tighten the visa waiver program that passed the House of
Representatives doesn't acknowledge this reality. It treats people as being
"from" places that they are not "from," simply because they happen to carry
the nationality of that place, even if they have never set foot there. Under
the House-passed bill, a French citizen who was born in Paris, who never in
her whole life left France for any purpose, would be excluded from the visa
waiver program as "Syrian" if her father happened to be Syrian, would be
excluded as "Iranian" if her father happened to be Iranian. And since the
visa waiver program is reciprocal with France, if these provisions became US
law, France might do the same to US citizens - exclude them from the visa
waiver program by treating them as being "from" places that they are not
"from."
The word on the street has been that it is very likely that some version of
the visa waiver bill will be attached to the omnibus spending bill that must
pass Congress and be signed by the president in the next few days to stop
the federal government from shutting down. But there's no reason that the
visa waiver bill has to be attached in exactly the form in which it passed
the House. This language isn't set in stone. The Senate hasn't approved it.
The nationality-based blanket exclusions could be removed, leaving
uncontroversial reforms intact.
At the very least, the nationality-based blanket exclusions could be sunset,
so that they would eventually expire if they were not renewed. Even the
Patriot Act, passed in the wake of the September 11 attacks, had a sunset.
And every major Democratic proposal for an AUMF against ISIS, including
President Obama's proposed AUMF, including the bipartisan, bicameral
Flake-Kaine-Rigell-Welch AUMF, has a sunset. Why not a sunset for
nationality-based discrimination that is linked to the war?
People for whom the Enlightenment was not a wasted experiment in human
history are justly aghast at Donald Trump's proposal to exclude all Muslims
from entering the United States. But the nationality-based discrimination of
the House-passed visa waiver bill is Trump Lite: it's Trumpism applied to a
smaller group of people. You could say that's less bad, in the sense that
fewer people will be hit by it, but it's also harder to reverse, because
smaller groups of people have fewer friends and are therefore more
vulnerable, as Pastor Niemoller might have said.
And in an important way, the House-passed nationality discrimination is
worse than Trump: it has no time limit. Trump has said his proposal to ban
Muslims would be temporary; the House passed nationality-based
discrimination, if it became law in the form passed by the House, would be
permanent. Because it has no sunset, it would never expire. Secretary of
State Kerry has said that if the US and Russia follow through on their
November 14 Vienna agreement with a joint campaign against ISIS, the
campaign against ISIS could be wrapped up in a few months. But the
nationality-based discrimination of the visa waiver bill would still be on
the books. And once things are permanent law, they can be very hard to get
rid of. The 2002 Iraq AUMF is like Freddy. You can't kill it. Saddam Hussein
is dead, his government is long gone, but the 2002 Iraq AUMF is alive, still
being invoked as legal authority for what the US is doing in Iraq.
You can urge President Obama and Congress to sunset the discriminatory
provisions of the visa waiver bill here.
Copyright, Truthout. May not be reprinted without permission.
ROBERT NAIMAN
Robert Naiman is policy director at Just Foreign Policy and president of
Truthout's board of directors.
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House-Passed Visa Waiver Discrimination Is Trump Lite
Sunday, 13 December 2015 00:00 By Robert Naiman, Truthout | Op-Ed
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reference not valid.Error! Hyperlink reference not valid. Error! Hyperlink
reference not valid.
. The nationality-based discrimination of the House-passed visa
waiver bill is Trumpism applied to a smaller group of people. (Image: US
Passport via Shutterstock)
. From time to time, people ask me where I'm from. "I'm from
Arkansas," I say brightly.
"You don't sound like you're from Arkansas," the people say suspiciously. (I
think this roughly translates as: "You speak English like a Chicago Jew.")
"No, really," I say. "You can check my birth certificate. I was born in
Fayetteville." (When I say "Fayetteville," I try to pronounce it in two
syllables, like my friend from Little Rock says it: Fayt-ville.)
The people don't buy it. "How old were you when you left Arkansas?" they ask
knowingly.
"Six months old," I confess. "And I haven't set foot in Arkansas since."
When I happened to be born, my mother happened to be a graduate student at
the University of Arkansas. I'm not "from Arkansas" at all. Every other
member of my immediate family was born in Illinois.
The world is full of people like me - people who were born in places that
they are not "from." My grandfather Max was born in Grodno, which is now in
Belarus, a country that didn't even exist when Max was born there. But he
wasn't from Grodno. He was from Chicago.
This is a basic fact about the world. You know it, I know it, and the
American people know it, as Bob Dole used to say.
But the bill to tighten the visa waiver program that passed the House of
Representatives doesn't acknowledge this reality. It treats people as being
"from" places that they are not "from," simply because they happen to carry
the nationality of that place, even if they have never set foot there. Under
the House-passed bill, a French citizen who was born in Paris, who never in
her whole life left France for any purpose, would be excluded from the visa
waiver program as "Syrian" if her father happened to be Syrian, would be
excluded as "Iranian" if her father happened to be Iranian. And since the
visa waiver program is reciprocal with France, if these provisions became US
law, France might do the same to US citizens - exclude them from the visa
waiver program by treating them as being "from" places that they are not
"from."
The word on the street has been that it is very likely that some version of
the visa waiver bill will be attached to the omnibus spending bill that must
pass Congress and be signed by the president in the next few days to stop
the federal government from shutting down. But there's no reason that the
visa waiver bill has to be attached in exactly the form in which it passed
the House. This language isn't set in stone. The Senate hasn't approved it.
The nationality-based blanket exclusions could be removed, leaving
uncontroversial reforms intact.
At the very least, the nationality-based blanket exclusions could be sunset,
so that they would eventually expire if they were not renewed. Even the
Patriot Act, passed in the wake of the September 11 attacks, had a sunset.
And every major Democratic proposal for an AUMF against ISIS, including
President Obama's proposed AUMF, including the bipartisan, bicameral
Flake-Kaine-Rigell-Welch AUMF, has a sunset. Why not a sunset for
nationality-based discrimination that is linked to the war?
People for whom the Enlightenment was not a wasted experiment in human
history are justly aghast at Donald Trump's proposal to exclude all Muslims
from entering the United States. But the nationality-based discrimination of
the House-passed visa waiver bill is Trump Lite: it's Trumpism applied to a
smaller group of people. You could say that's less bad, in the sense that
fewer people will be hit by it, but it's also harder to reverse, because
smaller groups of people have fewer friends and are therefore more
vulnerable, as Pastor Niemoller might have said.
And in an important way, the House-passed nationality discrimination is
worse than Trump: it has no time limit. Trump has said his proposal to ban
Muslims would be temporary; the House passed nationality-based
discrimination, if it became law in the form passed by the House, would be
permanent. Because it has no sunset, it would never expire. Secretary of
State Kerry has said that if the US and Russia follow through on their
November 14 Vienna agreement with a joint campaign against ISIS, the
campaign against ISIS could be wrapped up in a few months. But the
nationality-based discrimination of the visa waiver bill would still be on
the books. And once things are permanent law, they can be very hard to get
rid of. The 2002 Iraq AUMF is like Freddy. You can't kill it. Saddam Hussein
is dead, his government is long gone, but the 2002 Iraq AUMF is alive, still
being invoked as legal authority for what the US is doing in Iraq.
You can urge President Obama and Congress to sunset the discriminatory
provisions of the visa waiver bill here.
Copyright, Truthout. May not be reprinted without permission.
Robert Naiman
Robert Naiman is policy director at Just Foreign Policy and president of
Truthout's board of directors.
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Discriminatory Indefinite Detention Increases in Kashmir
By Sana Altaf, Truthout | ReportMisleading Poll Used to Justify Donald
Trump's Call to Ban Muslims From US
By Zachary Pleat, Media Matters | News Analysis
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