Biden's End Of Muslim Ban Is The End Of The Islamophobic Tenor Of Donald Trump’s America
By Rafia Zakaria
January 27,
2021
ON Jan 20,
2021, an elderly man sat down at a desk in the Oval Office in Washington, D.C.
With a stroke of his pen, America’s new (but old) president did away with what
was effectively a ‘Muslim ban’. With the signing of the executive order titled
‘Proclamation on Ending Discriminatory Bans on Entry to the United States’,
citizens from countries like Iran and Yemen could now travel to the United
States if they possessed valid visas.
The
stupidity of the ban as an alleged effort to keep Muslim terrorists from
showing up in the United States to harm Americans was always obvious, and now
with the end of the ban it was especially so. Weeks earlier, decidedly
home-grown American terrorists had stormed the United States Capitol. The era
of Muslim bans thus was, once and for all, over.
The end of
the Muslim ban does not mean the opening of America. Even as this ban was
lifted, a new kind of ban, one that had been unthinkable a few years ago, was
introduced. People from South Africa who were not US citizens were banned
altogether. New restrictions (which were in place until the Trump
administration suddenly removed them in its last days) on travellers from the
UK, Brazil and various other countries were re-implemented.
The content
of these restrictions all suggested the shape of immigration restrictions to
come; countries with inadequate vaccinations or safeguards against Covid-19,
and countries with virulent variants that may or may not be stopped by the
current vaccines, are all likely to face bans in the future. Even as vaccines
become widely available, their quality and the extent of the spread of the
virus in the home country are likely to become huge hurdles to travelling in a
way that they never were before.
In another
early move, the Biden administration sent out a sweeping new immigration bill
to Congress. The priorities in this immigration bill reveal the same hesitation
against incentivising labour from abroad. The Trump administration, for
instance, did not appreciate the large number of H-1Bs that certain tech
companies were importing. To counter this, the Trump administration installed
various procedural obstacles, banning the issuance at one time and then
reinstating it at another. The thorny question of whether workers from abroad
could take jobs that middle-class Americans should have remains just as
problematic as it was for the Trump administration.
Perhaps
because of this, the entire focus of the Biden immigration policy seems to be
focused on legalising the 11 million undocumented individuals in the US. As
promised, the Biden administration will provide amnesty and a pathway to
citizenship to all of them and also provide some permanent solution to those
who were brought illegally into the US as children. The restrictions that the
Trump administration placed on asylum claims at the border and the detention of
children separated from their parents are no longer the law.
Biden’s
America is not going to be one that once again throws open visas so that the
world’s best and brightest can easily immigrate and eventually get citizenship.
The two huge challenges facing the US currently are the pandemic and the
economic downturn it has brought in its wake. The travel restrictions based on
where the virus is and what it is doing are one way to thwart new pandemic
challenges and retain some control over the health challenges posed by
unrestricted borders.
Similarly,
the jobs crisis means that it will be difficult to justify jobs and immigrant
visas for foreigners. With the amnesty for the undocumented producing millions
of new American citizens, the waiting time for immigrant visas will increase,
likely punishing those who chose to file the legal way rather than simply get
to America and then overstay their visas.
The Biden
administration has rejoined the World Health Organisation and the Paris Climate
Agreement. These and the moves to legalise the undocumented and to end the
travel bans are all examples that aim to reintroduce the US to the liberal
global order. However, a closer look at the other policies introduced by the
Biden administration, from new travel bans to untouched restrictions on visas for
foreign workers, all reveal an America that may never be as open to the best
and the brightest from around the world than it was.
The end of
the Muslim ban is undoubtedly welcome news, as is the end to the Islamophobic
tenor of Donald Trump’s America. At the same time, Joe Biden’s America may not
be as different in effect as it is in ideology. The changed circumstances of
the world, notably a pandemic that has shrunk the world, means that there is no
normal, no past that can be restored. The boundaries and limits of this new
world are, it seems, even more stringent than they were before.
With the
virtual world providing cheap and easy access to other people without provoking
disease or the use of resources, it is likely that much intellectual labour
will be done via this medium. This means a markedly different world with far
fewer opportunities to migrate based on one’s intelligence and skills.
Pakistan
needs to prepare for this world where ideas move virtually and people stay put.
With Covid-based travel restrictions here to stay, even as terrorism-related
restrictions such as the Muslim ban in the US fade, the country will no longer
be able to remain a remittances- based economy. To offset this change, heralded
by new travel policies in the Gulf as well as the US, Pakistan needs to develop
capacities or remote work such that the engineers and computer scientists that
were once exported to Gulf countries and the Western world at large can work
remotely without the hassle of restrictions and visas.
The world is
at the cusp of transformative change, the pre-Covid world is forever gone and
whoever adapts the fastest is likely to benefit the most from the new order
that will take its place.
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Rafia Zakaria is an attorney teaching
constitutional law and political philosophy.
Original Headline: Biden’s world
Source: The Dawn, Pakistan
URL: https://newageislam.com/islam-west/biden-end-muslim-ban-end/d/124152
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