Sen. Rob Portman (R-Ohio) says President Donald Trump’s executive order on refugees is flawed. He spoke with CNN’s Jake Tapper on Sunday.
One, it is not a ban. However, it was not properly vetted. So you have an extreme vetting proposal that didn’t get the vetting it should’ve had, and as a result, in the implementation, we’ve seen some problems.
The Executive Order, issued Friday, barred people from seven Muslim-majority nations from entering the U.S. for at least the next 90 days, with the ban on Syrians beings indefinite. The US Refugee Admissions Program was suspended for at least the next 120 days as well. The idea is to keep terrorist operatives off American soil. But this order affected people who already had visas to enter the states, and at least one instance, had worked with U.S. armed forces. A federal judge in Brooklyn issued a partial stay of the order on Saturday night: people who are already in transit and have visas can come in. Two federal judges in Boston issued a similar ruling on Sunday.
The president responded to the ruling with a tweet.
[Screengrab via CNN]