As part of a new series, Sounding Board, The Daily Gamecock's Opinion section sent out a columnist on campus to talk to USC students and find out what they have to say about current hot-button issues. We interviewed ten students about their reactions to the executive order signed into law on Friday, Jan. 27, that put a halt to refugee resettlement from seven majority-Muslim countries for 90 days. It also restricted entry to the U.S. for citizens of those countries, and resulted in the detainment of hundreds of people in airports, although it affected up to 90,000 people. Protests were held in airports around the country over the weekend as a result, including a protest at the Statehouse in Columbia on Jan. 31.
The 10 students interviewed were Eboni Belton, a second-year history student; a fourth-year English student who wished to remain anonymous because she holds a leadership role on campus and wishes to remain accessible to students with all views; Steven Tapia, a third-year visual communications student; Eduan Jordaan, a fifth-year international student studying law; McKenzie, a third-year finance student who wanted her last name to remain anonymous; Mike Miller, a fourth-year history and political science student; Savannah Barclay, a fourth-year journalism student; Josh Turowski, a first-year pre-pharmacy student; Jessica Lefkowitz, a first-year exercise science student; and Ian Reeve, a fourth-year early childhood education student. Their views and the questions they were asked have been presented below unedited.
Have you been following the news in the last week?
EBONI: Not as much as I should be, honestly.
ANONYMOUS: I mostly get my news from Facebook.
STEVEN: Yep.
EDUAN: Bits and pieces, yeah.
MCKENZIE: I haven't been following it closely. Just what pops up on Facebook and stuff.
MIKE: Yes, I have.
SAVANNAH: Yeah, you kind of have to follow the news, because it's everywhere.
JOSH: I started once I saw what Trump had posted.
JESSICA: I've seen some things, not everything. I'm in class, so I try to keep up as much as I can.
IAN: Yes.
How do you feel about President Trump's executive order on immigration?
EBONI: Well, first of all, it's wrong. He says it's not a Muslim ban, but it is a Muslim ban because you're directing these seven countries that are — of course not all, but mostly — Muslim, you're just outing those people. You could have Christians over there, but they can't come over here. Why are you worried about a religion? The terrorists you're worried about aren't even following that religion correctly. My thing is, it's OK to be scared of something, but you can't just out a whole country just because of one group of people.
ANONYMOUS: A lot of people are upset with it. If they really disagree and want to make it happen, then they will. Personally, I think it's kind of so-so, but I understand why they did it. There were so many people affected who don't need to be. I see both sides.
STEVEN: As an immigrant myself, it's absolutely terrifying. I don't know if the word I want to use is terrifying, but it's extremely shocking, I guess. I'm from Ecuador.
EDUAN: He's a bit of an idiot.
MCKENZIE: I thought that it was a little harsh. There do need to be changes, of course, we're too lenient, but I feel that — I read that article about the Clemson student who wasn't allowed back in, who has a PhD or something from there, and I thought that that was ridiculous. But I guess the only way that you can justify it is that sometimes things have to get worse before they can get better. I'm hoping that's what's happening, that's the only hope I have for that: That it'll get worse before it gets better. But I definitely don't completely agree with it.
MIKE: I think it's pretty bad. I think it flies in the face of the rule of law: it's an arbitrary list of seven countries and then within those seven countries he said he's going to review applications on a case-by-case basis, which kind of flies in the face of the rule of law because it's arbitrary and not across the board. It's also illegal because it deals with immigrants, because we've already passed laws saying you can't discriminate who gets to come here as an immigrant based on their country of origin or something. I mean, the refugee thing is legal technically, but I think the immigrant part is where he overstepped a little.
SAVANNAH: I think it's ridiculous. I don't understand why they picked the countries that they picked, and I don't understand why people with green cards aren't being allowed back in.
JOSH: The way I see it, I understand why he's doing it, but then again I think it's extreme. The way he's doing it, to me, seems like it's too far. He's banning who knows how many millions or thousands of people from coming into the country that either have already lived here, have family here — or are just wanting to come and experience the American Dream. He's basically taking that away.
JESSICA: I think he's trying to do something to make a change, and he did something very drastic that a lot of people are going to be upset about. I don't really have a one-sided take. I think yeah, there are terrorists coming into our country from those countries, but not everybody, because they're from those countries, is a terrorist. Especially that one Clemson teacher who's stuck there — that's not OK. She has a life here that she needs to get back to.
IAN: I was at the protest at the Statehouse last night.
How do you feel about the rollout and implementation of the executive order?
EBONI: I was really surprised about how fast it went about. I saw something on Facebook, I don't know if it's true or not: Some officer in his cabinet, some security person, they were going over these orders beforehand to see, you know, what should we do about it, and they were on the way back to D.C. on a plane and saw it on TV and they were like, "He's already put this into action and he pretty much didn't listen to what we had to say." You have people in place and you're not even willing to listen to what they say? What's the point of even — even though you're the President, you still need to take opinions because you can't just go based off how you feel. You have to think about the country, not just one person, one group.
ANONYMOUS: (no answer given)
STEVEN: I think it was very aggressive on his part, and all his rhetoric throughout has been toxic. I don't think it helps the U.S. and our foreign relations to call out other countries or ban cultures. Yes, the Middle East is going through its tough times right now. Yes, there are extremist Islamic organizations, like ISIS and other organizations, but we can't just generalize an entire population as a result. Most importantly, we're denying refugees that are fleeing their countries, partly because of reasons that we caused. The whole destabilization of the Middle East — it's not just Trump, it's Obama, and before Obama, it was Bush. It's sad. It's coming back around to us. We are partially responsible for what's going on in the Middle East, and they're trying to leave that mess, and we're saying no. If I remember reading correctly, people were going to the airports to pick up relatives, and then just ... I mean, that's heartbreaking. Picture yourself going to pick up one of your loved ones, and then U.S. immigration telling you "No. Sorry." I think it's extremely cold. It's downright militant, almost.
EDUAN: (no answer given)
MCKENZIE: I'm not exactly sure how that happened. I read an article that was explaining what happened, but I'm not exactly sure how it happened from the very beginning, how it was rolled out. I definitely think there should have been a little bit of warning, because like, with the Clemson student — if she would have known she would have come back before that happened. Which I know might not be possible, I'm not sure if that's possible. But I think there should have been a little warning for people who had been living here for seven or eight years, so they could come back.
MIKE: I mean, executive orders have a place, but I think they're personally bad. I think a lot of conservatives would normally not support an executive order if it was Obama or someone else passing it, so I think we should stay on that track and not support the executive order just because it's coming from the other side. It was done in a way that works. Executive orders come from the executive, and you can do that. I guess technically it was done OK. I don't agree with it, but it wasn't illegally approved, if that's what you're asking.
SAVANNAH: (no answer given)
JOSH: That's one of the worst parts. I was watching a video, and these two girls in college, their mom was flying in from one of the countries that got banned, and she was mid-flight from one of the countries that got banned when he signed it, so when the mom landed at JFK, she wasn't allowed to do anything, and she had no idea when she left. The manner, the way it's being brought about and carried out is part of the reason why it's so over-the-top.
JESSICA: I think it was very, very drastic. They pulled her off the plane. Two hours after the executive order had happened. I get that you need to follow it, this is the law now, but, I mean, it was very drastic the way they took things, like in airports, and with all the protests now at airports. Travel's a little bit more on edge.
IAN: I think it's clear from public opinion, from outcry, that they didn't come into it with a clear message. They rolled it out very quickly, which they themselves defended by saying how if they'd told anybody about it a week in advance, all the bad people — the "bad dudes," I think Trump said — would come into the U.S. in that time. And yet, you look at the countries that were banned, versus the countries that were not, which ones hold Trump's business interests, which one had the 9/11 hijackers, which were not banned. You look at green card holders. It's been unfairly criticized that Obama did the thing with Cubans, OK, but all that was doing was setting it equal with other vetting processes, which is largely ignored. He also did a ban that excluded green cards and visas and things, which Trump's did not. I believe, personally, though this is inconclusive, that it is actually Steve Bannon who is writing most of these executive orders and Trump is just signing them. I am very critical of the Trump administration.
What do you think was the purpose of the executive order?
EBONI: From what he's saying, it's to keep terrorists out. That's his main thing. But I don't understand that, because whoever bombed us for 9/11, their country's not even included on this ban, so he's just picking at random. "Oh, well, these countries are Muslim-majority, so we're just going to pick this, this, and this." You don't even have the right people. I thought it was really pointless.
ANONYMOUS: Trump doesn't want anyone coming in.
STEVEN: It's under the umbrella of keeping everybody safe. And I understand that you want to keep America safe from any foreign radicalized extremism coming into the country, but I think this is only going to spark more hatred towards the U.S.. Yeah, it might be a good temporary stop, but now you've pissed the Middle East off even more. It's already inflamed and you're adding fuel to the fire. So I think it's extremely short-sighted.
EDUAN: Well, he's just a racist.
MCKENZIE: I think that, like I said earlier, terrorism attacks are happening elsewhere, and they're probably going to happen again here, so I really think he's trying to keep us safe and sometimes there's no good way to do it. So I don't know, that's a hard question.
MIKE: I don't know, that's hard to say. I don't want to put words in anyone's mouth, but I assume it's to try to keep terrorists out of the country.
SAVANNAH: I understand what he thinks he's trying to do — keeping us safe from terrorists, but that's not the issue that we have with safety. I get that they're trying to make it safer.
JOSH: I think it was part of his campaign. Part of it is he's proving to people that what he said during his campaign is what he's actually going to try to do. And what I also think is that there are terrorists and there is a problem in the United States, so he's trying to prove to Americans and to other countries that we're done messing around. We're done being taken advantage of. He's trying to lay the law down.
JESSICA: To put a stop on immigration for three months and try to figure things out. Something needed to be done, but maybe that wasn't the best option.
IAN: Divisiveness. Xenophobia. There has to be some sort of financial interest involved, people don't do anything in the government unless they're getting paid to, so I couldn't speak to who it's benefiting, but it's benefiting someone who's not the American people. It's not for safety. That's just a smokescreen.
Do you think it fulfilled that purpose?
EBONI: No, because it's people now that weren't involved in any of that. They can't get over to the U.S.. There's a graduate student from Clemson — she lives here. She's been here for seven years. She has a house, a job, a pet, and she can't even come home because of that. So now she has to figure out, from all the way across, in another hemisphere, what she's going to do. Her life is here.
ANONYMOUS: No, because I don't see how necessary it is because terrorism can happen anywhere.
STEVEN: No. I think it's only adding more inflammation to an already messy situation.
EDUAN: Not really, no. Because even when you get Muslim terrorists in America, some of them have been born here and raised here for thirty years and become extremists, so picking out refugees isn't going to do anything.
MCKENZIE: I'm not sure. I haven't followed if it's actually worked, but I think it could have been implemented in a slightly better way, a better process, like, with exceptions with people who do live here. Maybe for people who've just never been here before.
MIKE: But I don't think it's going to prevent terrorism, because we've seen from those countries that none of them have ever attacked us on U.S. soil anyway. Evil's going to find a way.
SAVANNAH: I don't think it'll be effective. No.
JOSH: I do, but I also think the cons outweigh the pros. For the few amount of terrorists who are trying to attack the United States, there are far more innocent people who just want to come or spend time with their family or something.
JESSICA: I think it's a Band-Aid fix for what's going on right now. It's not permanent, it's not what should have been done — but it's a Band-Aid, it'll cover the wound for a few minutes.
IAN: Absolutely not. If it was truly intended for safety, it wouldn't be a 90-day limit. What does that do? "Oh, we have to wait for 90 days." If it was to block people from coming here, what about the ones who were already here? What about the ones who still plan to come here after 90 days. That's just smoke and mirrors. It's just illusory. I don't agree or believe that's the cause.
If you could change anything about the executive order, what would you change?
EBONI: (no answer given)
ANONYMOUS: (no answer given)
STEVEN: I think they start a new vetting process. I think they need to get to the real issue. How do we stabilize the Middle East? How do we allow them to prosper in their own country? It's the same with immigration. We're focusing on building walls. It's a temporary, short-sighted approach too. Why don't we deal with their issues back home, like the "War on Drugs?" It's short-sighted to think that just by militarizing police and stopping people at home and putting people in jail for marijuana is going to help the bigger picture, which is that it's coming from abroad because it's illegal. It's a short example of how we just try to, lately, in America, patch things up and not get to the real issue. Treating symptoms, but not the problem. Easier said than done, but I don't like the way he's approached this.
EDUAN: I'd get rid of it. Because he's an idiot.
MCKENZIE: Exceptions for people who've lived here for a long time. Because I know there could be a terrorist who's lived here for fifteen years and they're just waiting, but you could put them on a separate list or put somebody on them and still let them in, I feel, if they pass the tests.
MIKE: I would make sure it goes through Congress. If Congress wants to pass a law pertaining to this, that's fine, but it needs to go through Congress. It shouldn't be an executive order. And it shouldn't be with immigrants, it should only be with refugees or non-legal people.
SAVANNAH: I would get rid of it.
JOSH: I think it's over the top that he's just banning people from the seven countries. He should ban people from the seven countries, but there has to be a reason. Where they're from is not a valid reason. He should do background checks, or terrorism watch, or something like that.
JESSICA: It should have been not "this is what's happening, this is when it's happening." It should have allowed people with legal visas to come back to the country so that they aren't stuck and their lives aren't put on pause.
IAN: I'd impeach Trump. Like some of the tweets from Pence, in the past, where he said these kinds of bans were unconstitutional. They go against the founding principles of this nation. It's against the quote at the bottom of the Statue of Liberty. It's disturbing. I believe this is setting trends for the future, in the same way that the administration is trying to make the general public question the media, and view the media as something negative. In the same way that they're trying to put forward unfounded arguments of 3 million illegal voters. All of these things are meant to make us question our institutions. Questioning our institutions can lead to weakening of the institutions, something akin to what government structure exists in Russia. With his obvious ties to Putin, where dissent is eliminated. You heard about the spy who helped with the dossier? He was found dead in his car. I wonder how that happened. It seems like a playbook. You've got Bannon, being recently promoted to outranking, effectively, our top intelligence officials, who have been dismissed, effectively, from intelligence briefings. This is not someone who's there on merit: this is someone who's there for political ideologies that are dangerous. While I myself don't have much to fear — I'm white, I'm male, presumably upon looking at me I'm Christian, presumably upon looking I'm heterosexual — so I don't have much to fear from these kinds of things, but other minority groups have a lot to fear. I think the biggest challenge is that some things can be fixed immediately upon Trump's dismissal from office, OK, fix some of these executive orders with just new executive orders. What is more troubling is continuing threats against ethnicities, and religions, as well as LGBT groups that are incoming. That's going to be profound. That's going to take years to undo that damage. I see this whole administration as a knee-jerk to what has been a surge of progressive policies in the last couple decades, happening faster, I think, than society can really cope. Even I struggle to comprehend some issues, like transgender children. That's difficult for me, but it's even harder for less educated, more conservative philosophies. I picture our political landscape as some posts with a big rubber band attached, and you can pull it in the direction of left-wing policies, right-wing policies, and what's happened is that it's been pulled so far with progressive policies over such a short span that the posts have been dragged forward. They are otherwise immovable, but now we have to snapback, going all the way back to these ultraconservative, alt-right, Neo-Nazi ideologies, evangelism and such, that is trying to counteract that pull but ultimately can't be. It can't be undone. This "Make America Great Again"? You can't do it. You can't turn back time. We've tasted it, we've seen it. The economy flourished. We're not going back to less.
What do you think about the protests at the airport this weekend, and the protests at the Statehouse yesterday?
EBONI: I saw some flashes on CNN and things like that, but I haven't seen much about that.
ANONYMOUS: Did it really help?
STEVEN: I'm glad people are getting out and protesting. For example, the Women's March was extremely powerful. People need to show that they're not going to tolerate everything that he does and that he can't just start signing executive orders and not expect outrage. So let's hope more people get behind it and more people start getting more hands-on. I hope at USC we can start protesting, start doing our share. I don't see a lot of movements, at least as far as I'm concerned. We didn't have any kind of march. I just feel like USC is a little disconnected at times. I'd like to see more student organizing.
EDUAN: I know people have been protesting, with signs and stuff. I think they're right. They're not changing anything, but showing that you're not agreeing with policy is the best way to do it, I guess. All you can really do is protest, unless you want to overthrow the government, which isn't a good idea.
MCKENZIE: I saw the ones at the Statehouse. I didn't see a whole article about it, I just saw it on my MyStory, but I'm pretty sure it was peaceful, right? So I think that's OK to do that.
MIKE: I'm all for it. I think people should protest. If you disagree with something, that's your constitutional right, to protest. I really like the pictures of the lawyers sitting on the floor of the airport filing for habeas corpus petitions.
SAVANNAH: I think it's great. Because, I don't know, they're standing up for it, and the refugees that are being detained at the airport. I think it's great.
JOSH: I watched a video about it. Like everything, it has its pros and cons. Cons are it's slowing everything down. You know, people who aren't affected, they care but they have to get where they're going, or have to get where they're going, but I also think that protesting on such a large platform as an airport, millions of people every day, I think it's a good idea. Just not to prevent daily life from happening. Because not everyone's affected by this and people have to live their lives.
JESSICA: They're showing Trump this is not OK and that something else should be done about it — maybe higher background checks, that way people can still come into the country, but it's more of a process to come in. Something along those lines should be done.
IAN: I'm happy that there have been protests every single day of this administration. I'd like to see protests in some city, somewhere, every day he's in office. Airports, like JFK, have had a much larger turnout than what we saw at the Statehouse, but I think that's understandable. We're in the Bible Belt, we're in central South Carolina, even though USC is a mostly liberal campus, or at least progressive — I think we had a pretty good turnout. I'm happy to see the number of people. It was nice to have the support of people who were honking their horns. I got flicked off, that was funny. I didn't like that as much, he was a dude-bro. Seeing these demonstrations, that's the thing that gets under Trump's skin the most. That's why he harped on about the inauguration crowds for so long, wouldn't let go of it. That's visible, empirical, undeniable proof that he wasn't as liked as he wants to believe he is. Everything else is just alternative facts to him, but when you have pictures, you have video, you see these crowds, these protests? That gets to him. That gets under his skin the most, and that's what needs to continue to happen. I went to it just on a whim. Some friends of mine were going and they asked me if I wanted to come, and I said, "Yeah, sure. I don't have anything better to do."
Has the executive order affected you personally, or has it affected anyone you know?
EBONI: I don't have anybody that I really know. All of my friends, they were born in America. However, they do have parents that are immigrants, so I'm thinking you're going to start splitting families up now. Because you have immigrated parents with visas, but they have children who were born here and have American rights, and you're going to be splitting up families. I guess there was some family trying to come to the U.S., there was a 6-year-old girl who was handcuffed. His team was like, "Well, we can't overlook 5-year-olds, because they could be dangerous too." I'm like, what is this? Did we really put this man into office? These people behind him, nothing you all are saying is even morally, humanly right. How do you go through with something like this? If it were the other way around, you'd be ready to flip the table over if somebody was trying to send your people back. Honestly, we're all immigrants, and if we're not immigrants we were brought here on ships. The only people who really belong here technically are Native Americans, and we already pushed them into their own little areas, and now we're trying to push them off of that, like with the Dakota pipeline situation. It's really crazy.
ANONYMOUS: Not personally, but I have a lot of friends whose families are immigrants.
STEVEN: I don't have any family in the Middle East. Most of my family is in South America. But it's affected me because it's called into question what the U.S. is, what it stands for. Why are we treating immigrants so harshly in a land of immigrants, made up of immigrants? I try to put myself in their situation, like, when I was 9 years old, coming here from Ecuador and all that. It's already stressful. Picture yourself being a Syrian refugee, coming here from a war zone, leaving your own home and having to leave everything behind, finally something good has happened and you're here in the U.S. — and the door is shut right in front of you.
EDUAN: Nah, but I don't think I'll be able to come back to America as easily next time, because they also changed the visa requirements for Australians, so. To be a student here you have to fly down to an embassy and then have an in-person interview which is basically just paying your fee in person — otherwise you can come on a holiday and you can just do it online. But there's only embassies in major cities. There's only two or three, so you have to fly down to the embassy. So I'll probably go to Europe next time. I don't like Trump.
MCKENZIE: No, I think the closest thing is the girl at Clemson that I saw, just because all my friends who go to Clemson posted the article.
MIKE: No, not personally.
SAVANNAH: No, not me or anyone that I know personally, but I've heard other people's stories.
JOSH: No, thankfully not, no.
JESSICA: It has not. The only person I've heard about — and the real reason it's national news — is that Clemson teacher that got stuck.
IAN: No one that I know personally. I'd say that the closest this has come to affecting me personally is that I have friends who are LGBT and they are very fearful. They are honestly terrified of what's to come. This presidency has just started. It's been what, 12 days? And until he gets impeached or until four years are up and he gets replaced, we have nothing but these fearful, authoritative, and damaging executive orders to look forward to. Trying to brace yourselves for it, protesting can only get you so far if you're not getting out there and actually voting out those people who allowed this to happen. We had low turnout. Nowhere close to 2008. People weren't interested. They didn't like the candidates. That has got to change.