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Tell the Trump administration you are AGAINST their proposed Backdoor Muslim Ban!

A few months ago, the Trump administration pushed through a temporary backdoor Muslim Ban in the form of discriminatory “extreme visa vetting.” They are now trying to make the Backdoor Ban permanent, but before they can do that, they are required to let the public submit comments about the idea. Please join Asian Americans Advancing Justice (AAAJ), the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), and NIAC Action in sending a clear, overwhelming message that we stand united against this administration’s anti-Muslim, anti-Arab, anti-Iranian, and anti-immigrant proposal!

What You Can Do

Make your voice heard! Use the comment portal below to easily send a message to the Trump Administration telling them you oppose this idea. The deadline to do so is Monday, October 2nd at 8:59 p.m. PST (or 11:59 p.m. EST).

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Background

Donald Trump’s illegal Muslim Ban Executive Orders have been knocked down by the courts twice. Now he is trying another way to implement his discriminatory agenda: new “extreme vetting” requirements in visa applications.

If approved, this policy would be devastating for our communities. It would let the Trump Administration gather huge amounts of personal data about visa applicants, including their social media history for the past five years and their travel history for the past fifteen years. The Trump Administration would then be able to use this vast amount of information to reject visas; if they wrongly reject someone’s visa application, it is very hard to fight that decision.

Collecting this social media information is particularly frightening. We have already seen cases where visas were denied because U.S. government officials misunderstood innocent social media posts. Collecting this information on such a vast scale is sure to lead to widespread rejection of visas for inappropriate reasons, and the language about who can be targeted for this information collection is so broad that it can encompass huge groups of people. Given this administration’s unchecked xenophobia and Islamophobia, this policy is sure to be used very heavily against Iranians and other individuals from countries targeted by Trump's Muslim Ban Executive Order.

The Trump Administration is once again trying to push a Muslim Ban, this time by calling it “extreme vetting.” We should not be fooled. Take action today to protect our communities from this Backdoor Ban!

This campaign is a partnership between Asian Americans Advancing Justice and NIAC Action.

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Please enter your own comment, or use the sample comment below. If you use the sample comment, please customize it by adding in some of your own language; this will make your comment stand out more and will help ensure it is not lumped together with other comments.

Your comment will be emailed to the Department of State (to PRA_BurdenComments@state.gov) immediately.

Department of State

Subject: Comment re DS Form Number DS-5535, OMB Control Number 1405-0226, “Supplemental Questions for Visa Applicants”

Message:

Dear Official:

Dear Official, I am very opposed to this information collection for many reasons. First, this policy will result in racial and religious profiling. Government employees who issue visas would have essentially unfettered discretion in choosing who to target for “extreme vetting.” Even in the best of times, unfettered discretion and a lack of protection lead to increased racial profiling. In times such as these where the President and many top government officials have expressed clear hostility toward Muslims, proposals such as this are especially prone to lead to unconstitutional and immoral treatment. The social media collection is particularly troubling. Social media is very language-, culture-, and context-specific, and State officials are bound to make mistakes when interpreting people’s social media posts, and those mistakes can have devastating consequences for visa applicants. It is also particularly dangerous for human rights defenders and democracy activists who live in repressive regimes. They rely on anonymous online identities to further their activism while maintaining at least some small amount of safety from government reprisals; destroying that anonymity by forcing them to link their online presence to their official identities while they are abroad in the country they fear reprisals from is a cruel condition to set for obtaining a visa. The travel history requirement is absurdly burdensome; I would ask Department of State officials to try to figure out their travel history for the last fifteen years, and include every source of income used for each of those travels. Most of us cannot even begin to remember which friends we shared travel costs with, or which trips our family members may have contributed some small amount of money to. If most of us would be unable to collect this information, why are we demanding it of visa applicants, especially when the consequences of not giving complete or accurate information could be as severe as a visa denial that could separate family and friends? The proposal will end up hurting—not helping—U.S. security interests. The information you are asking for is invasive and irrelevant. There is no evidence that the collection of this personal information and social media handles will lead to more security. For these reasons and many, many more, I oppose this proposal.

Remaining:

Regards, First Name Last Name

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