Donald Trump gets tough on refugees

By J.A. | WASHINGTON, DC

IT BECAME fashionable during the election campaign to say Donald Trump should be taken “seriously not literally”. Try telling that to the hundreds of mostly Muslim refugees, students, researchers and businessmen currently detained at American entry ports or being slung off long-planned flights to America. They and thousands of other law-abiding and deserving people, including green-card holders with homes and families in America, have been barred from entering or returning to America by the executive order Mr Trump signed on January 27th.

The order, named “Protecting the nation from foreign terrorist entry into the United States”, has suspended America’s refugees programme for four months and barred Syrian refugees indefinitely. It also denies entry, for at least 90 days, to anyone from seven mainly Muslim countries: Iran, Iraq, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria and Yemen.