I've been reading and hearing Trump supporters (including the odious Jeffrey Lord) claiming that there was no popular uprising when Obama instituted a six-month ban on Iraqi refugees in 2011, arguing that current protests are hypocritical and simply a result of irrational hatred of Trump.
Click here for an article by Mikey Smith at the Mirror, entitled "No, Barack Obama and Jimmy Carter didn't do the same thing as Donald Trump's Muslim ban."
The article explains that Obama's six-month ban was as a result of U.S. authorities discovering that two al Qaeda operatives had used the refugee program to settle in Kentucky. The ban was not based on religion -- it was directed against all Iraqis of whatever faith -- and it was a response to a specific threat. The U.S. used the six-month period to review, research, and draw up new immigration guidelines for Iraqi refugees, after gathering information such as fingerprints on IEDs, etc.
A serious flaw was found in the refugee program, so the Obama administration opted to halt the program to examine the problem and come up with a solution. The refugee program was reinstated after the six-month period, with tighter regulations and more careful vetting -- a sensible way to deal with a newly discovered problem.
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