ESU responds to executive order by President Trump

President Donald Trump signed an executive order Jan. 27 that banned immigrants from seven “terror-prone” countries from entering the United States. The countries impacted by the ban are Iran, Iraq, Syria, Sudan, Libya, Yemen and Somalia.

“You can’t be asked to change your way of life, or change your way of dress or change your way of worship just because a loud minority around you takes offense at it,” said Mel Storm, professor of English, modern language and journalism. “A government and its policies do not define the human beings that are Americans.”

As a result, universities and colleges across the country have issued responses to inform and assure their students that they have the support of their university or college. ESU’s President Allison Garrett sent out an email last Monday to address the issue.

“Emporia State is a university that welcomes a broad range of ideas and of people,” Garrett said in her email. “Universities serve to bring people from around the world to study and to explore ideas and to research and we want to continue to make Emporia State a welcoming place for anyone.”

It is believed that the reason Trump made such an order was to keep on his campaign promises, according to Michael Smith, chair of the social sciences department.

“The thing about Trump is...he’s trying to keep his campaign promises,” Michael Smith said. “The flip side is his critics, like me, don’t think he should have made those campaign promises in the first place. When he was running for office he said he was going to ban Muslims from entering the United States. I think even he has figured out that is not possible...so this is what he did instead.”

According to Michael Smith, there is controversy on whether the order really is an order or not.

“An executive order is a direction to federal agencies to do something and there’s been a lot of controversy,” Michael Smith said. “George W. Bush and Barack Obama used more executive orders than their predecessors had and critics argued that they were using executive orders to do things that should have been done by legislation passed by Congress.”

The Office of International Education has offered itself as resource for students who are concerned about the ban, according to Rozita Smith, director of the OIE.

“The Office of International Education is full of people who are monitoring the situation very closely and will be able to help advise students on their travel plans,” Garrett said. “I think any faculty or staff member would be willing to meet with students to reassure them, because Emporia State is a wonderful community of people from all over the world and this is a very supportive community.”

ESU has seven international students from the designated countries. Four students are from Syria and three are from Iraq. Four are graduate students and three are undergraduate students, according to Rozita Smith.

“Right now I have a graduate student who is in Iraq trying to finish his degree,” Storm said. “In his case, he doesn’t have to come back because he finished what he needed to do here and he is finishing everything at a distance. I have another Iraqi student who is here and I have not talked with her so I don’t know how this will affect her. She is seeking asylum.”

Storm believes the order will cause other countries to look badly at the U.S and see Americans traveling as the “ugly Americans.”

“Most people separate the citizen from the government,” Storm said. “I remember one conversation when I was in Egypt, I think, where they said ‘we hate your government but have nothing against you as a person.’”

No one believes that the ban will last the 90 days given, but it depends on how Congress reacts, according to Michael Smith.

“My sense is that they don’t support the executive order and that they are looking for a more workable alternative then a memotorian and something that singles out seven countries,” Michael Smith said. “My guess is that Congress will pass legislation that will beef up the vetting process of people that are wanting to come into the United States. The only problem is that was already done after September 11th and I don’t believe there have been any terrorist acts by people in the United States on green cards.”

Michael Smith believes that the situation could have been handled better by scrutinizing the vetting process and seeing what loopholes people are getting through and issue executive orders or legislation depending on what the reports yield.

“We got to review the current procedure and look for any gaps or loopholes,” Michael Smith said. “On September 11 there was a report by a street level FBI agent about some of the people that would be the September 11 terrorist taking flight lessons and behaving strangely and the flight school people reported it. In particular they (the people) didn’t care about landing or taking off. Through the management it was blocked so it never got to the president.”

As of now ESU has no extra plans should the situation develop. A resolution sponsored by Dan Colson, assistant professor of English, modern languages and journalism, and Michael Behrens, assistant professor of English, modern languages and journalism, was introduced in Faculty Senate Tuesday.