Apparently, President Donald Trump ‘s executive order temporarily barring immigrants from countries with ties to terrorism has blown up into a major headache. Immigration officials are interpreting the order very broadly, prohibiting legal residents of the United States who hold green cards from reentering the United States and people whose entry into the United States have already been approved. One case involves an Iraqi soldier who served as an interpreter for American forces and was being sponsored by members of his old unit. The New York Times is describing stories of people being detained at the airport, being barred from boarding flights, and even in at least one case being pulled off a plane that they had already boarded.
Lives are being disrupted, and the president has the proverbial egg on his face.
Trump and his team likely did not mean for the order to include people who are already residents of the United States or have been already approved for entry. So why the chaos?
One theory is that the order was not as carefully worded as it might have been and therefore the Homeland Security bureaucracy is being forced to interpret it broadly, albeit unreasonably. But the barring of legal residents from reentering the United States may be a violation of federal law.
Another theory is that many in Homeland, common to many people in the bureaucracy of the United States federal government, do not like President Trump and are seeking to undermine him by behaving unreasonably, claiming all the while that they were just following orders.
That being the case, Secretary of Homeland Security Kelly has some house cleaning to do.
The third theory, as unlikely as it may be, that things are proceeding as Trump intended since chaos is being sown and he thrives on it. This interpretation of events seems very unlikely just on the principle of Cui bono.
In any case, Trump would be well advised to issue a new executive order clarifying the old executive and thus allowing people to come into the United States who have a legal right to do so. Then he needs to launch an investigation to uncover the reason why the situation arose and take measures to make sure such never happen again.
