After taking office on 20th January 2017, the US President Donald J Trump signed two major and shocking executive orders to build a wall across the US-Mexico border, and temporary banning the arrival of refugees and immigrants from seven major Muslim countries for 120 days. He is also going to present a bill changing the laws for H1-B and L1 visa applicants to promote his campaign “America First.” But there remain many unanswered questions arising from these orders that have created dilemma and fear among the world.
There are particular words and statement by the president, which are very unclear such as “deporting more people;” “crack-down for sanctuary cities;” “extreme vetting;” “minimum wages for H1B and L1 visa holders to be 130,000$;” “total ban on Muslims from the United States;” and so on. Trump’s orders have raised many questions that in the present situation no one can answer or find answers to.
I have tried to mention some of the unanswered questions and why they have been raised:
1. How much is building the wall going to cost and from where will this money come?
The order not only includes building a wall across the border but also hiring more than 15,000 officers and building more detention centers. Department of Homeland Security has already placed a request for 7 billion dollars to hire the officers.
So, how much more is this order going to cost? And from where will this money come from? Trump plans to shift funds among all the departments, but at last, there would need to raise more funds at a point. He has also proposed to use the money gained by increasing import taxes for Mexico by 20 percent.
2. What about the present undocumented refugees and immigrants in the country?
Trump had mentioned during his campaign that he would discontinue the refugee’s program that is today holding more than 750,000 refugees and the supporting programs which would snatch away their rights to stay in the states. What would happen to them in still unanswered?
3. How will his orders lead to ‘Crack-down’ of sanctuary cities?
As Trump plans to deport undocumented immigrants and refugees, these sanctuary cities have refused to help him by giving out any data. They say that “they are committed to protecting any undocumented immigrant or refugees residing within their city.” Trump has planned to cut the federal funding in cases where cities deny cooperating with them.
4. Will these bans even apply to the ones who already obtained the visas?
It remains unclear that whether the ban to the seven major Muslim countries will also be applicable for the immigrants who have already obtained their visas or who are ready to land at the airports.
5. What does he mean by “Extreme Vetting?”
To eliminate the potential security threat to the nation and prevent a terrorist attack, Trump intends to temporary ban the arrival of immigrants for at least 90 days and afterward, would be allowed only after ‘extreme vetting.’ Well, this only the frontier to remove Muslims from the entire state.
The order states that the immigrants whose religion is minor in any of the banned countries would be allowed to enter the United States. Also, the term ‘extreme vetting’ is still undefined. The immigrant officers have already been vetting, and conduct background checks on the immigrants arriving within US borders.
What would be his course of action to vet every immigrant entering the country and on what basis would he be declared them as ‘potential threat?’
6. Will the proposed changes in H1-B and L1 visas affect the current working holders?
Trump is going to propose a bill stating increase of minimum wages from 60,000$ to 130,000$ for H1-B and L1 visa holders. It is clear that any new applicant or the visa holders those who are currently not working would need a job offering them a minimum of 130,000$ per annum.
But this still remains one of the unanswered questions whether it will apply to current visa holders and working within the United States.
The president’s signed executive order and proposed plans have left the world in a dilemma. They have caused a small quake within the world causing many problems, changes in stock markets and even millions of life on a stack. It is a great need to answer these unanswered questions as soon as possible. If you too have some questions other than the above mentioned, do post them along with your reviews below.