This is an archived article that was published on sltrib.com in 2017, and information in the article may be outdated. It is provided only for personal research purposes and may not be reprinted.
The travel ban executive order is but one more failure of this administration to do its job. Not because it has been turned back because of the courts, but rather, because nothing has been done regarding its initial purpose. The Trump administration denied that the ban was religious discrimination, but rather a hold of 90 days to put in place more secure procedures for vetting of the immigrants. This was later changed to be a temporary ban of 120 days with some tweaks to the language.
The executive order was put in place in January of this year. A full six months has passed (twice the initial 90-day period) and nothing that the ban was supposed to deal with has been accomplished. If they had been allowed to proceed unimpeded with their plan, the so-called vetting would have been put in place and the ban lifted three months ago.
The court decisions have never said that they couldn't proceed with their plans to "beef up" the system, something that has not happened. This speaks volumes to me, saying that it wasn't about improving our immigration system at all, but was indeed a plan to discriminate against Muslims. If Trump would just spend more time doing his job instead of this incessant absurd tweeting, maybe this country could move forward.
Wayne Belka
Midvale