On Jan. 27, President Donald J. Trump implemented an “immigration ban” that effectively blocks all refugees and most immigrants from seven Muslim-majority countries (Iran, Iraq, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria, and Yemen) from entering the United States. This was an almost overnight order which left many airports confused about how to implement or enforce it. The sheer quantity of U.S. citizens and Green Card holders detained from just coming back from a visit convinced a U.S. federal judge to issue a mandate to prevent the detention of legal citizens. Protests and outbursts have erupted all over the country; clearly many people are dissatisfied with this clumsily executed order. In the midst of all this chaos, one question comes to mind: is this just an anti-Muslim act?

According to Vox, in a public statement, Trump said that his ban “is not a Muslim ban, as the media is falsely reporting.” While it’s true that the ban does not affect all Muslims, as there are over 40 primarily-Muslim countries not affected by this order (many say Trump deliberately left off countries he has business dealing with), the order does give preference to Christians from the affected countries throughout the arduous 20-step vetting process to arrive in the United States. This combined with Trump’s targeted anti-Muslim rhetoric used throughout the election (as well as his public criticism of a Muslim Gold Star family) has led me and countless others to believe that this is a result of cultural prejudice on the part of our president.  

Although Trump expressed that this is a targeted order to prevent terrorism (even though it doesn’t cover any countries from which radical Muslims have killed Americans since 9/11, including Saudi Arabia, where Trump has business dealings, according to NPR), the ban actually does the opposite. From CNN, experts say that alienating Muslims in Western countries just creates more young recruits for ISIS. As anti-Muslim sentiments rise, more and more Muslims will be willing to join ISIS’s cause. This, in fact, is their whole plan in a nutshell: turn people against their Muslim neighbors, forcing them to move to Muslim lands as areas where Muslims can freely practice their religion in the West diminish. Trump’s grand anti-terror plan is actually helping the Jihadist cause — even ISIS says so in its magazine.

Even though these countries were originally labelled as “Countries of Concern” by the Obama administration, Barack Obama never placed a ban on citizens of these countries, only restrictions to filter out freedom fighters, says CNN. A temporary ban on one country was implemented only after ISIS issued a specific warning.

Many people have spoken out against this order, including Obama (who originally promised to not speak out against Trump’s policy for a while), Miley Cyrus, and Nicki Minaj. On top of this, mounting protests at major airports across the country show the public’s obvious dislike for the order. For now, though, we’ll just need to see whether or not our elected officials listen to the public outcry, and if this chaos over the president’s priorities and legitimacy dies down.