The Travel Ban: An Assault on Islam?

http://www.nytimes.com/2017/03/07/opinion/the-travel-ban-an-assault-on-islam.html

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To the Editor:

Re “Trump’s New Ban Halts Travelers From 6 Nations” (front page, March 7):

The Trump administration does not have a leg to stand on here. It cannot believe that the ban is truly necessary to protect the United States from a terrorist attack; otherwise it would not have delayed the announcement of the revised ban to allow positive press from the address to Congress to sit for a few days. This ban cannot be about public safety either. Study after study shows that the immigrants commit crimes at a lower rate than native-born Americans.

To see this order as anything other than a Muslim ban is willful blindness. This is just another tragic example of this astonishing lack of empathy for anyone the administration believes is different.

STEVEN RASHIN, NEW YORK

To the Editor:

While there can be reasoned objections to President Trump’s revised executive order excluding six heavily Muslim countries from entry into the United States, the Op-Ed essay by Farhana Khera and Johnathan Smith (“Don’t Be Fooled, Trump’s New Muslim Ban Is Still Illegal,” nytimes.com, March 6) degenerates into an emotionally charged denunciation of the order as an “all-out assault on Islam and Muslims.” They lose all credibility with that indictment of Mr. Trump.

Among the countries not included in the ban are Indonesia, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Malaysia, Egypt, Saudi Arabia and Turkey. All of them are predominantly Muslim states, and Saudi Arabia in particular is an avowedly Islamic theocracy with a very strict brand of Sunni Islam at the core of its official identity. So how, pray, is President Trump’s visa ban an assault on Islam and Muslims as such?

VIPAN CHANDRA, ATTLEBORO, MASS.

To the Editor:

Regardless of one’s position on illegal immigration (and regardless of whom you voted for in the election), it must be acknowledged that separating children from their parents is nothing short of terrorizing to the child.

IRA MOSES, NEW YORK

To the Editor:

“Migrants Confront Judgment Day Over Old Deportation Orders” (front page, March 5) provides heart-wrenching anecdotes of immigrants’ lives under threat. I am ashamed that my country is creating such fear and terror among people who, aside from immigrating without proper papers, are law-abiding. This is inhumane!

For those Americans whose hearts are somehow numb to the inhumanity of these practices, can we appeal to the fiscal conservative side of their brains? The time and energy spent on immigration and law enforcement tracking down these immigrants could be better used tracking down actual criminals. The diversion of these resources is wasteful and makes all of us less safe.

Strike fear and misery in the hearts and souls of millions of harmless people while spending more of our tax dollars on deportations: Is this President Trump’s immigration policy?

RUTH KATZ, IRVINGTON, N.Y.