Today Donald Trump ordered that citizens of seven specified and predominantly Muslim nations, including those with green cards, be excluded from the United States for 90 days unless admitted on a case-by-case evaluation. Mr. Trump based his order on the belief that citizens of those nations are peculiarly prone to commit terrorist acts on American soil.
Setting aside the constitutional issues, in two swoops of his pen the president managed to fail both geography and history. The informing event of terrorism on United States soil was, as most of America recalls, the hijacking of four airplanes on September 11, 2001, three of which the terrorists steered into the World Trade Center towers and the Pentagon, killing more than 2000 people. The terrorists were all from predominantly Muslim countries: Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Lebanon, and the United Arab Emirates. None of those countries are among the banned. Coincidentally, the Trump Organization operates two golf courses in the United Arab Emirates.
The president's lapse is odd, because a year ago he was well aware that 9/11 was an operation planned and executed mainly by Saudi nationals. He even used that fact as a talking point against Jeb Bush, telling Fox News that if the immigration policies he was promoting had been in place in 2001, instead of those of George W. Bush, the 9/11 terrorists wouldn't have been allowed in the United States.
Now he's shown us his immigration policies. They wouldn't have stopped any of the 9/11 terrorists from entering the country. Sorry, Trump voters, but he sold you a bill of goods.