Donald Trump’s second attempt at a Muslim ban appears to be headed for the same fate as his first after two different federal judges issued temporary restraining orders against the ban just hours before it was supposed to go into effect. The differences between the two bans were minor, with Iraq having been removed from the list of seven Muslim-majority countries from the first ban and Trump deciding not to apply it to those who already hold valid green cards or visas. Any cosmetic changes in Trump’s second executive order were not enough to disguise the undisputed fact that the US president is operating from a position of anti-Muslim animus. Indeed, it was the open and proud Islamophobia of the Trump campaign that came back to bite it. In their restraining orders, the judges specifically cited comments made by Trump and his officials to prove that the bans were inspired by antagonism against Islam. The judges’ orders quoted Trump saying: “I think Islam hates us” in a TV interview and campaign surrogate Rudy Giuliani and policy adviser Stephen Miller specifically saying the executive orders were meant to be Muslim bans and that there was little difference between the two bans.
For those who are horrified by the damage Trump is likely to cause – both to the US and the rest of the world – over the next four years, the fight back from the judiciary is encouraging. Both on the streets and in the courts, there will be resistance to the hateful agenda of Trump. Still, it is equally true that Islamophobia was already common in the US long before Trump. He is making explicit what was already routine practice. Even his Muslim ban is not entirely new. Citizens from the seven countries on the original list already found it near impossible to travel to the US because of additional security measures introduced by Obama. What Trump has done is that he has empowered even more extreme voices and made it even more acceptable to publicly proclaim racist views against Muslims, blacks and Hispanics. There is a chance that this hatred cannot be put back in the bottle once it has been released. Judicial orders are a defensive measure but the man in the White House has the ability a new, even more hateful, front at any time.