The Trump administration on Monday issued a revised travel ban with some notable changes from the controversial order blocked by a federal court last month. Here are the highlights of how the new executive order differs from the first:
- The new order will not go into effect until March 16. It’s a slower rollout and will be given with a ten-day notice instead of the immediate application of the original ban. The president tweeted in January that such a notice would give "the 'bad'" a chance to rush into the country, but the abrupt implementation of the first order led to confusion and chaos in some American airports.
- Monday's directive removes the original ban’s preference for “religious minorities,” which opponents pointed to as an example of religious discrimination that favored Christians over Muslims. The new order said the previous “allowed for prioritization of refugee claims from members of persecuted religious minority groups, that priority applied to refugees from every nation, including those in which Islam is a minority religion."
- Green card legal residents are exempt from the new order, which was an issue in legal challenges to the original ban.
- Iraq will be removed from the list of countries impacted by the ban. Travelers from six other predominantly-Muslim countries will still face a 90-day ban on travel to the U.S. The other countries on the list are the same as included in the original order: Iran, Somalia, Sudan, Yemen, Syria and Libya. However, Monday’s order includes an explanation why each of those were chosen.
- Syrian refugees, which originally faced an indefinite ban, will now be treated like other refugees attempting to enter the country.
- The new order rescinds the previous one.
