STREAM EXCLUSIVE ORIGINALS

Donald Trump Privately Signed a Revised Immigration Executive Order Removing Iraq From Travel Ban List

Details on the changes made to the indefinite banning of Syrian refugees.

According to a White House aide, President Donald Trump on Monday signed a revised travel ban executive order with several changes made from his prior order.  The new order will effectively exempt existing visa holders from the ban and it will no longer include Iraq on the list of Muslim-majority countries barred from entering the U.S. — taking the number of countries of the list from 7 to 6.

Additionally, citizens from the Syrian refugee program will no longer be indefinitely suspended from the country. The new order puts a 90-day hold on visa issuance to people from Iran, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria and Yemen. The order will also bar worldwide refugee admissions for 120 days, according to Politico.

Other revisions to the order include removing language which suggests the order is directly targeting Muslims. In the previous order, certain sentences gave the impression that Christians from predominantly Muslim countries would be given priority.  

Unlike previous orders signed by Trump, this revised order was privately signed without the presence of cameras and supporters. This meant that Donald Trump’s signature move of holding up his newest order in fanfare was not performed. 

Previously, many criticized Trump’s administration for ordering a travel ban with no evidence of terror threats from the people targeted in the ban. However, in the new order, there is a claim that the FBI is investigating 300 terrorism-related incidents of individuals admitted to the U.S. as refugees.

“That is not a small number,” the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) official added. “That’s a tremendous administrative burden of manpower and resources.”

However, it is not clear how many — if any — of those 300 individuals come from the six countries listed on the order.

“The salient fact is that there are 300 individuals who were admitted and welcomed to the United States through our refugee admissions program who either infiltrated with hostile intent or radicalized after their admission to the United States,” the DHS official said. “Both factors are very problematic.”

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