Press Releases

Washington, DC – Today, Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA), the Ranking Member of the House Permanent Select Committee, released the following statement:

“Apart from the removal of Iraq, the new travel ban is essentially the same as the old travel ban, and has the same fundamental flaws -- its choice of countries is arbitrary, its effect will be counter-productive, and its real goal is not improved security but meeting a campaign commitment to ban Muslims. 

"We know that country of origin is a poor predictor of a propensity to commit acts of terror. If it were, Pakistan has been a far more problematic source of attack planning and would be at the top of the President's list, but that country merits not even a mention in the order. 

"Moreover, however the Administration dresses this up, the rest of the world -- particularly the Muslim world -- views the order as a ban on a particular faith. This will make it far more difficult to obtain cooperation from our Muslim allies. Undoubtedly, this accounts for Iraq dropping off the list, but much of the damage to our standing in Iraq has already been done and the damage with our other Muslim allies now continues. 

“The United States already performs thorough and secure background checks for refugees entering our country, a process that takes up to two years from start to finish. So there is a vetting process for refugees that is in fact more ‘extreme’ than what we have for anyone else entering the country. Most European citizens, by contrast, can come to the U.S. with no visa at all, and there are thousands of Europeans who have returned home to their native countries after fighting in Syria and Iraq. 

"The unanimous 9th Circuit Court of Appeals panel who upheld a stay of the first Muslim ban order based their ruling in large measure on the public statements of the President and his closest advisors about the intent of the order, and no repackaging can take back the record of bigoted statements made in support of it. In fact, Stephen Miller has already publicly declared that this 'new' order has only 'minor and technical' differences. I expect judges will once again take him and President Trump at their word."