Dozens if not hundreds of career foreign service officers are reportedly planning to oppose Steve Bannon and Donald Trump’s Muslim ban in what Lawfare describes as a “major bureaucratic uprising.” They’re planning a dissent memo, and the draft published at Lawfare hits hard on both the ineffectiveness and immorality of the ban:
A policy which closes our doors to over 200 million legitimate travelers in the hopes of preventing a small number of travelers who intend to harm Americans from using the visa system to enter the United States will not achieve its aim of making our country safer. Moreover, such a policy runs counter to core American values of nondiscrimination, fair play, and extending a warm welcome to foreign visitors and immigrants. Alternative solutions are available to address the risk of terror attacks which are both more effective and in line with Department of State and American values.
They argue that the ban will not keep Americans safer, since, “Despite the Executive Order’s focus on them, a vanishingly small number of terror attacks on U.S. soil have been committed by foreign nationals who recently entered the United States on an immigrant or nonimmigrant visa,” and in particular:
Given the near-absence of terror attacks committed in recent years by Syrian, Iraqi, Irani, Libyan, Somalia, Sudanese, and Yemeni citizens who are in the U.S. after entering on a visa, this ban will have little practical effect in improving public safety.
Not only that, it will “likely be counterproductive,” because it will “sour relations with these six countries, as well as much of the Muslim world,” “increase anti-American sentiment,” “have an immediate and clear humanitarian impact,” and “have a negative impact on the U.S. economy.” And not only that, but “we are better than this”: “This ban stands in opposition to the core American and constitutional values that we, as federal employees, took an oath to uphold.”
It’s brave of these foreign service officers to even discuss such an action challenging Trump’s Muslim ban. He doesn’t do so well with opposition. But the United States needs opposition to his attacks on our values and safety.