(RNS) — In 2017, President Donald Trump’s chaotic attempt to exclude Muslims from immigrating to the United States by restricting arrivals from several Muslim-majority countries was met with no uncertain response. At Dulles International Airport outside Washington, Los Angeles International Airport, George Bush Intercontinental Airport in Houston and elsewhere, scores of lawyers, faith leaders and concerned lay people formed circles around Muslims as they paused in protest in airport hallways to perform their congregational prayers.
As challenging as that was for refugees and travelers from the affected countries, two new executive orders in Trump’s second term are proving of equal concern to civil rights organizations and Muslims Americans, especially Palestinian and Arab Americans, particularly when it comes to foreign students studying in the U.S.
Trump’s first attempted ban, which targeted refugees and travelers holding visas from seven majority-Muslim countries, was immediately hit with numerous legal challenges and widespread condemnation. Eventually a third version of the executive order was upheld by the Supreme Court in June of 2018.
Four years later, the president began his second term with a flurry of executive orders, including two that many see as precursors to another “Muslim ban,” but more sinister and problematic. The first order goes beyond the 2017 travel ban by introducing language to deny people visas or entries into the U.S. if they “bear hostile attitudes toward its citizens, culture, government, institutions, or founding principles.” It also sets up processes for the potential removal of those granted visas since January of 2021.
Second, it sets up a 60-day window for the State and Justice Departments, as well as Homeland Security and other intelligence officials, to pinpoint countries, arguably those without a consulate or U.S. embassy, whose “vetting and screening processes are so deficient as to warrant a partial or full suspension on the admission of nationals from those countries.”
These steps have several civil rights organizations, particularly those advocating for Muslim, Arab and Palestinian American communities, worried. “The danger is that it’s not (targeting) Muslims per se. It’s for anyone who holds any public discourse or discussion that could be linked to criticizing the country of Israel,” said Dawud Walid, executive director of the Council on American Islamic Relations-Michigan.
“There could be discussions on university campuses, (or students) could participate (in anything) from encampments to social media posts, and that could constitute, in this ambiguous language, views that are hostile to the United States,” Walid told me.
A sign regarding the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement is posted on the window of a corner store on the day of President Trump’s Inauguration, Monday, Jan. 20, 2025, in the predominantly Latino Little Village neighborhood of Chicago. (AP Photo/Erin Hooley)
Abed Ayoub, executive director of the Arab-American Anti-Discrimination Committee (ADC), agreed. “The ideological exclusion is the more difficult part. They can use it to go after people in the U.S. It can be used for people who have a visa and are here as well as people who are applying for a visa,” Ayoub said. “It’s an attack on the freedom of expression, and it’s going to target our communities.”
Since Trump was elected, American neighborhoods where immigrants tend to live have been papered with lists of documents to keep on hand and advice on how to help the detained. It’s less clear what to tell those who have put their visas at risk due to what they’ve said. “It’s really difficult to put a ‘know your rights’ thing out there when we don’t know how they’re going to enforce it,” said Ayoub. “At the same time we don’t want our communities to be silent.”
The other executive order, issued Jan. 29, aims to combat antisemitism by taking “immediate action” to prosecute “terrorist threats, arson, vandalism, and violence against American Jews” and use federal resources to fight “the explosion of antisemitism on our campuses and streets” since Oct. 7 of 2023.
There has been no mention, of course, of violence against Muslims, Arabs and Palestinians.
The implications of these bans for universities and their foreign students in particular are unsettling to say the least. Coupled with the targeting of DEI programs across federal and state government, public universities and in the private sector, the threats to minority communities are very real.
All this comes, as Stanford Law Professor Shirin Sinnar wrote in The Stanford Daily, after a “year of congressional investigations attacking student protestors and academic freedom have left many universities desperate to avoid the limelight.”
Sinnar went on to say that many in academia are “choosing the course of least resistance,” citing Harvard University’s settling of a lawsuit by adopting a broad antisemitism definition, which includes criticizing Zionism and other speech critical of Israel as subject to possible disciplinary action.
“Colleges and universities, like other institutions, seem to be hoping that their muted responses — and affirmative acquiescence (like ending or changing DEI initiatives) — will spare them,” Sinnar argued. “This sort of acquiescence will not only fail to protect institutions, but will expose all of us to further repression.”
But there is a difference between being cautious and being alarmist. “Alarmist is basically saying ‘I am not going to partake in anything. I’m going to hide in my dorm room and shut down my social media accounts,’” said Ayoub. “Being vigilant is, ‘Ok I’m going to take part in these protests, but I’m not going to try and get arrested. I’m not going to engage in acts of civil disobedience.’” In short, he advised, “Don’t go around shutting down traffic.”
As the executive orders rain down in these early weeks, “We have to focus on the real threats versus what is rhetoric,” Ayoub added.
But the orders, leaving so much open to interpretation, make it difficult for Muslim, Arab, Palestinian and other minority communities to discern what is smoke and mirrors and what is meant to deflect from something else. Their vagueness is in some ways more threatening and more limiting than firm lines.
How do we focus on what is real in this environment? “As of now we are being more cautious and are observing very attentively,” said CAIR-Michigan’s Walid.
For now one thing is certain: It’s going to be a long four years.
(Dilshad D. Ali is a freelance journalist. The views expressed in this commentary do not necessarily reflect those of Religion News Service.)