Following the 9/11 terrorist attacks in 2001, former President George W. Bush’s administration implemented a registry system to track visitors from Muslim countries. But, after becoming a dormant program for several years, President Barack Obama decided to dismantle the National Security Entry-Exit Registration System or NSEERS.
The move by Obama to take down NSEERS may have been spurred by Donald Trump’s victory in the election. Throughout his campaign, Trump has lobbied for implementing an immigration ban on those coming from Muslim countries. Aside from this, he also wants to implement a national system to keep track of all the Muslims in the country.
Trump firmly believed that these would improve the country’s national security and prevent terrorist attacks from happening. If the president-elect decides to implement these programs, then he would likely do so through NSEERS, since it already has an existing registry system.
However, just weeks before Trump’s inauguration, Obama stated that his administration will dismantle NSEERS. The move to nix the program did not come as a surprise especially since Obama and other powerful members of the liberal movement have been very vocal against the implementation of a Muslim ban in the country, despite that fact that majority of the recent terrorist attacks in different parts of the world were orchestrated by the Islamic State or ISIS.
As noted by New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman, Obama’s decision to scrap NSEERS is a way for the Democratic Party to prevent Trump from implementing his Muslim ban policy.
“We can’t risk giving President-elect Trump the tools to create an unconstitutional religious registry,” he said according to The Hill.
“We can never allow our nation to return to the dark days of Japanese internment,” he added. “By finally dismantling the NSEERS program now, President Obama can make a repeat of that horror significantly more difficult.”
What Schneiderman and the rest of the Democratic Party fail to realize is that Trump’s proposals are meant to ensure the safety of the American people. Right now, ordinary citizens are constantly exposed to lone wolf attacks by members or supporters of radical Islamic groups. Through a registry system and an immigration ban, the government will be able to significantly decrease or even totally prevent the chances of these attacks from happening.
