Immigration refresh

We hope the strange turn of events will prompt populations and governments to again reflect on the many self-contractions wrought by a blanket ban on categories of persons defined by nationality, religion or association .

Yorke, a former TT football captain and Manchester United striker holding iconic status not only in his home, but soccer worldwide, on Friday last in Qatar was debarred from boarding a flight to the United States to travel to TT for Carnival because his passport bears an Iranian immigration stamp. He will instead travel via London .

While he had spent 24 hours in Iran in 2015 for a charity football match, this stamp led to him being lumped in a class of persons somehow associated however tenuously and erroneously to terrorism .

What sin have I done to be treated like a criminal, Yorke asked himself .

The incident provoked a public outcry that largely but erroneously blamed United States President Donald Trump’s blanket immigrant ban that had in fact been struck down by a federal court, even though an irate Trump has vowed to soon bring a revised version .

However, Yorke’s denial was not based on Trump’s failed executive order, but on an Act of Congress passed last year ironically under former president Barrack Obama .

Under the Visa Waiver Program Improvement and Terrorist Travel Prevention Act of 2015 citizens of nations exempt from needing a US visa must in fact apply in the event they had ever visited any of the seven nations, of Iran, Iraq, Syria, Libya, Yemen, Sudan and Somalia .

This is not a total ban but a requirement to first apply for and obtain a US visa .

One can only speculate whether heightened paranoia at guarding the US border, now under President Trump, has led to more scrutiny and stringency in enforcing Obama’s 2015 Act. Meanwhile we ask how could the inconvenience and embarrassment meted out to Yorke have been averted? Attorney General Faris Al-Rawi said that Yorke should have a TT diplomatic passport. Yet such a document is an accolade from the issuing nation but is no guarantor of respect or compliance by other nations .

One would also reason that the airport authorities in both Qatar and the United States would surely be aware of who Yorke is. Even failing that, Yorke could have supplied many telephone numbers of character-witnesses to attest to his identity and his bona fides, and so allow him to continue on his journey to his intended transit hub of Miami, Florida .

Such discretion for individuals could also be argued for all persons affected by both Obama’s Act and Trump’s executive order .

However, the Yorke case perfectly illustrates the loathsome crudeness of a blanket ban on targeted populations, a cudgel to do the job of a scalpel .

Of course, we recall the whole illogic of citing those particular seven nations for a travel ban and/ or a visa requirement when in fact no citizen of any of those countries has ever committed a terrorist act on US soil, unlike the case of Saudi Arabia whose citizens are can freely enter the US despite Saudi nationals perpetrating the infamous 9/11 terrorist attack on the World Trade Centre .

The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) said the 2015 Act will “broadly scapegoat groups based on nationality and fan the flames of discriminatory exclusion” .

A bipartisan cohort of congressmen moved the Equal Protection in Travel Bill 2016, backed by the ACLU, to moderate this Act but it failed .

As of now, if the US continues such heavy-handedness it can backfire, if foreign businessmen, professionals, artistes and sportsmen avoid such US isolationism by instead practising their expertise in more welcoming climes. In the end it is the US that will be isolated .