What WA’s Muslim communities endured under Trump

(Crosscut) The election of Joe Biden is a sign that the majority of Americans reject Donald Trump’s xenophobic, Islamophobic and anti-immigrant administration. A Biden-Harris administration ushers in a new phase in which the call to repeal the “Muslim ban” will be heard, and our policy and advocacy work is poised to push the nation toward its ideals of liberty and justice for all.

The Trump presidency has been traumatic for many in the Muslim community. The travel ban, which bars travelers from Muslim-majority countries (and which later included multiple African countries) inaugurated a new era of anti-Muslim sentiment and policy making. It will take time to recover from the effects of the past four years. While the ban remains intact and must be dismantled, there is even more bleeding to be stopped. The Trump administration has used its political, fiscal and cultural power to promote divisions in America and to disenfranchise immigrants, causing lasting harm. The pandemic and economic recession, and Trump’s handling of these crises, have only intensified inequities that disproportionately affect immigrants, from health care access to education to workers’ rights. 

Trump’s 2016 victory may have come as a jolt to some in Washington state, but for the American Muslim community — who have fought for decades for basic civil rights, such as freedom of religion and freedom from unwarranted and invasive surveillance, discrimination and disenfranchisement — it was clearly the result of historic and ongoing policies, rhetoric and a culture based in white supremacy and xenophobia. There is a reason a man with no political experience, campaigning on a platform of unabashed hatred against Muslims, Black Americans and immigrants, was able to win over so many.

Since the “Muslim ban” went into effect in early 2017 and was upheld by the U.S. Supreme Court in a 5-4 ruling in January 2018, we have seen firsthand how Washington families are affected by restrictions on travel, asylum and immigration. While it’s true that the ban includes provisions for waivers, the process is vague, the waivers are difficult to obtain and, in effect, the provisions do not help people from the Muslim-majority countries of Iran, Libya, Somalia, Syria and Yemen (as well as people from North Korea and certain government officials from Venezuela), or their families. Eritrea, Kyrgyzstan, Myanmar, Nigeria, Sudan and Tanzania were added to the travel ban in February 2020. Of these, Kyrgyzstan, Sudan and Nigeria are majority Muslim, and Eritrea, Myanmar and Tanzania have significant Muslim minorities.