Ah. Here we go again. President Trump has recently signed a revised version of his executive order that prohibited all immigration to the United States from six Muslim-majority countries. Many of these countries have continued their banning of all American citizens from entering their respective countries as well, which has been in place ever since the original travel ban.

My opinions remain largely the same. I still feel that this ban is a hateful, Muslim-targeting ban without question, no matter how much President Trump says otherwise. My two seemingly distinct identities, my Arabic-Muslim heritage and my American identity, still remain mutually exclusive. These two identities will seemingly never be one, as fear and hatred has become the driving force for American policies.

This revised travel ban will still serve as a severe form of unconstitutional discrimination, as well as serving as yet another sign that Islamophobia will only continue to grow with America in our modern age. As a Muslim-American, it just is beginning to seem hopeless. Discrimination is becoming more prevalent and more violent as time goes by, with people being shot all across the country for their religion. Many non-Muslims have been killed as well, such as the two Indian men who were shot in a bar for the fact that they had been misidentified as Arabs, as well as the many Sikhs who are killed for the same misidentification. It seems that having brown skin automatically prompts you to suspicion, which just saddens me to no end.

However, hope is still not lost. Recently, two separate federal courts have issued rulings suspending President Trump’s revised executive order which would temporarily ban citizens of six majority-Muslim countries from entering the United States. One of these courts is in Hawaii and the other one is in Maryland, and they have both done this on grounds that the revised travel ban is likely unconstitutional because it discriminates against Muslims and is motivated by hostility towards them, even though it does not explicitly mention them in the text. Rather, these two federal courts have relied on the extensive statements by Trump and his advisers in order back up their claim. Another issue that these two courts address is that while the new order does contain some important changes relative to the original one, many of these reduce its vulnerability to due process challenges. It also does virtually nothing to protect it on the religious discrimination front.

Hopefully, these court challenges may flourish, and they truly show that many Americans agree that these travel bans do go against American ideals. This is a beautiful sight because I truly feel that people are on our side. Yet, I have a lingering fear that President Trump will have his way in some manner. Our country is on the verge of something extremely important, so we, as a whole, have to make sure that we keep everything that makes America already great. Our country is beautiful, but we cannot allow hate to flourish within it, which would only leave it as just a hollow shell of its former self.