What Trump's Executive Order on Immigration Does—and Doesn't Do
Updated on Monday, January 30, at 1:01 p.m.
President Trump signed on Friday an executive order that severely restricts immigration from seven Muslim countries, suspends all refugee admission for 120 days, and bars all Syrian refugees indefinitely. The order has been widely criticized and praised—but it led to massive protests at several airports across the country where people with valid documentation were detained. Legal challenges against those detentions were successful. The administration’s response Sunday only made the situation more unclear, but by Monday there was more clarity.
Here’s what the executive order does and doesn’t do, the challenges to it, and how the Trump administration responded.
Who is not affected?
The executive order applies only to non-U.S. citizens, so anyone with U.S. citizenship—whether that person in natural-born or naturalized—is not affected. But on Sunday, Reince Preibus, the White House chief of staff, on NBC’s that Customs and Border even before Friday’s executive order.
