Many organizations reacted to the enactment of Executive Order 13769, titled "Protecting the Nation from Foreign Terrorist Entry into the United States", which was an executive order issued by United States President Donald Trump. Domestically, the order was criticized by Democratic and Republican members of Congress, universities, business leaders, major corporations, Catholic bishops, and Jewish organizations. Some 1,000 U.S. diplomats signed a dissent cable opposing the order, setting a record. Public opinion was divided, with initial national polls yielding inconsistent results. Protests against the order erupted in airports and cities.
Internationally, the order prompted broad condemnation, including from longstanding U.S. allies, although some leaders expressed support for it. The travel ban and suspension of refugee admissions was criticized by top United Nations officials and by a group of 40 Nobel laureates and thousands of other academics. Dozens of medical and scientific groups protested the order as well.
Official statements Donald Trump's speech just after signing the executive order on January 28, 2017, indicated its purpose was to keep "radical Islamic terrorists" from the U.S. and invoked the September 11 attacks. On January 29, 2017, Trump issued an official statement clarifying his stance on the executive order. Trump said that his policy is "similar to what President Obama did in 2011 when he banned visas for refugees from Iraq for six months" and stated that the executive order did not target religion, stating "there are over 40 different countries worldwide that are majority Muslim that are not affected by this order". Trump concluded, "I have tremendous feeling for the people involved in this horrific humanitarian crisis in Syria." Glenn Kessler of The Washington Post stated that Obama limited immigration for six months, but continued to admit refugees during all six months and did not ban all citizens (including green card holders) from traveling to the United States, although lawful permanent residents have since been exempted from Trump's executive order. Jonathan Chait of New York magazine said that the 2011 case involved a temporary response to specific intelligence regarding two suspicious Iraqi refugees living in Bowling Green, Kentucky and said that Trump's "sweeping halt in the absence of a reported breach" is not comparable.
The statement also said that the order applied to countries "previously identified by the Obama administration as sources of terror". The Trump administration's executive order relied on H.R.158 or the Visa Waiver Program Improvement and Terrorist Travel Prevention Act of 2015, which was passed by congress and signed into law by President Obama. The act, which was part of a necessary spending bill, the Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2016, removed the privilege of 90-day visa-free entry of dual nationals of 38 visa-waiver countries who had traveled to specific countries since 2011. Instead, these travelers could enter with a visa. These countries are Iraq, Syria, and countries on the State Sponsors of Terrorism list (Iran and Sudan), with Libya, Yemen, and Somalia added later by the Secretary of Homeland Security.
On January 30, White House press secretary, Sean Spicer, used the Quebec City mosque shooting as an illustration of the need for anti-terror policies saying, "It's a terrible reminder of why we must remain vigilant, and why the president is taking steps to be proactive, rather than reactive, when it comes to our nation's safety and security." However, as the Toronto Star pointed out, it was strange to use this example since the accused gunman was not a Muslim. The Independent in the UK also reported that Spicer's comments seemed to use the attack as a justification for the US president's own anti-terror policies but did not specify which policies he was referring to.
Spicer held a press briefing on January 31 where he said that it was incorrect to refer to the executive order as a "travel ban" and that only the media was using those words to describe the order. When pointed out by an NBC reporter that Trump himself used the word in his personal Twitter account, Spicer responded that it was because the media is using it. He also confronted the reporter that NBC news was part of the confusion for falsely reporting that Secretary of Homeland Security John Kelly had not been properly consulted before the executive order was signed.
On February 2, Kellyanne Conway cited a non-existent event, the Bowling Green massacre, during an interview with MSNBC's Chris Matthews as a reason to ban refugees. The Bowling Green massacre, according to Conway, took place when two Iraqi terrorists pretending to be refugees caused a "massacre." The event that Conway was intending to cite was the arrest of two Iraqi men in Bowling Green, Kentucky who were charged with federal terrorism for attempting to send money and weapons to Al Qaeda in Iraq. Conway apologized for her mistake.
Trump Twitter and Facebook posts
Trump has also defended his executive order through Twitter. On January 29, he tweeted: "Our country needs strong borders and extreme vetting, NOW. Look what is happening all over Europe and, indeed, the world – a horrible mess!" On Monday, he continued to tweet, where he "de-emphasized the number of travelers affected by the hasty implementation of the travel ban", according to Business Insider. It was also written in The Washington Post that his tweets were intended to minimize the impact the executive order had on travelers. In several other tweets on Monday, he blamed travel delays on a Delta Air Lines computer outage, "protesters and the tears of Senator Schumer". The computer outage Trump referred to actually occurred on Sunday January 29, two days after the order was signed. Trump defended the executive order on Twitter, stating that searching for terrorists is not about being "nice" and that "[i]f the ban were announced with a one week notice, the 'bad' would rush into our country during that week. A lot of bad 'dudes' out there!" On February 1, Trump tweeted, "Everybody is arguing whether or not it is a BAN. Call it what you want, it is about keeping bad people (with bad intentions) out of country!" On February 4, in response to James Robart's block of the Executive Order, Trump tweeted "What is our country coming to when a judge can halt a Homeland Security travel ban and anyone, even with bad intentions, can come into U.S.?" and later "Because the ban was lifted by a judge, many very bad and dangerous people may be pouring into our country. A terrible decision".
On February 5, President Trump shared a fake news story on his Facebook page, claiming that Kuwait also imposed a similar ban on immigrants from several Muslim countries, supposedly inspired by Trump's executive order. The comment attached to the shared story was "Smart!", and in the next 24 hours it received 250,000 likes and over 68,000 shares. After the story was picked up by the far right outlet Breitbart News, whose former executive chairman is Trump's advisor Steve Bannon, by the Russian propaganda outlet Sputnik News, and the fringe conspiracy website InfoWars, the government of Kuwait issued a statement "categorically denying" the existence of such a ban and stated that immigrants from the supposedly restricted countries "enjoy full rights" in Kuwait.
On February 8, after Trump's executive order was upheld at the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, Trump angrily tweeted "SEE YOU IN COURT, THE SECURITY OF OUR NATION IS AT STAKE!" Trump also told his press poll "it's a political decision and we'll see them in court...it is a decision that we will win in my opinion very easily." Trump described the decision as "disgraceful" in a tweet and quoted one line of an article by Benjamin Wittes (a Senior Fellow of the Brookings Institution), "Remarkably, in the entire [9th Circuit panel's] opinion, the panel did not bother even to cite this (the) statute." Wittes' article, however, supported the Ninth Circuit's decision. Trump's tweet came just minutes after the Wittes' article at Lawfare had been discussed on MSNBC's Morning Joe. The following day Wittes described as "disturbing" that Trump would cite something "with apparently no idea who the author was or what the publication was, and indeed without reading the rest of the article."
Domestic political reaction
Trump faced much criticism for the executive order. Democrats "were nearly united in their condemnation" of the policy, with Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer saying that "tears are running down the cheeks of the Statue of Liberty tonight as a grand tradition of America, welcoming immigrants, that has existed since America was founded, has been stomped upon". Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont said the order "plays into the hands of fanatics wishing to harm America". Senator Kamala Harris of California and the Council on American–Islamic Relations denounced the order and called it a Muslim ban. Trump's order was also criticized by former U.S. Secretaries of State Madeleine Albright and Hillary Clinton. Kevin Lewis, spokesperson to Trump's predecessor Barack Obama, also said (in apparent reference to the order) that the ex-president "fundamentally disagrees" with religious discrimination. SCOTUS judge Sonia Sotomayor wrote a dissent detailing the racially motivated bias she believes to be at play in the formation of this play, concluding that it was driven by "anti-Muslim animus, rather than by the Government's asserted national-security justifications".
Among Republicans, some praised the order, with Speaker of the House Paul Ryan saying that Trump was "right to make sure we are doing everything possible to know exactly who is entering our country" while noting that he supported the refugee resettlement program. Alabama governor Robert Bentley also supported the order. Republican Congressman Bob Goodlatte said that he was "pleased that President Trump is using the tools granted to him by Congress and the power granted by the Constitution to help keep America safe and ensure we know who is entering the United States". However, some top Republicans in Congress criticized the order. In a statement, Senators John McCain and Lindsey Graham cited the confusion that the order caused and the fact that the "order went into effect with little to no consultation with the Departments of State, Defense, Justice, and Homeland Security". McCain stated that the order would "probably, in some areas, give ISIS some more propaganda". Senator Susan Collins, who announced in August 2016 that she would not vote for Trump because she felt he was "unsuitable for office", also objected to the ban, calling it "overly broad" and saying that "implementing it will be immediately problematic". Several other Republican senators offered more muted criticism. In response to McCain and Graham's statement, Trump criticized them on Twitter January 29, questioning their stance on immigration and saying that they "should focus their energies on ISIS, illegal immigration and border security instead of always looking to start World War III".
Sixteen Democratic state attorneys general signed a joint statement condemning the order as unconstitutional, including those in California, Pennsylvania and New York. The statement said they intended to "use all of the tools of our offices to fight this unconstitutional order". Virginia Governor Terry McAuliffe and New York Governor Andrew Cuomo both pledged to have their states look into how they could aid refugees in state airports.