OPINION: Struggle against Muslim travel ban is exactly what it means to be American

By Hannah Shraim
GSS Libre Talks columnist

ROCKVILLE, Maryland — What’s the most uncomfortable feeling you’ve ever encountered? Is it when your socks get wet? Or when you’re in a new, unfamiliar place? Perhaps an embarrassing moment? PDA?

For me, the most uncomfortable feeling I’ve ever encountered — and continue to encounter — is feeling unwelcome in my own home. And thanks to the executive order on immigration and refugees that President Donald Trump signed last Friday, this painful feeling shows no sign of dissipating.

As a proud American Muslim, I can watch something like this and feel that I don’t have much to be proud of in Trumpland:

But that would be wrong.

My father came to this country from Kuwait, although his roots are Palestinian, at age 17 to pursue the American dream. He arrived on a student visa and later became a U.S. citizen. He soon met my mother, who is ethnically Palestinian and Armenian but emigrated to the United States from Lebanon as a young girl.

When the Gulf War hit in 1990, the rest of my father’s family fled persecution and joined him in what became his home, and what is now my home.

Here. The United States of America.

My father worked tirelessly to put himself through college with minimal financial means and while supporting his family because he believed in America’s promise.

An immigrant, he studied his way through the George Washington University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology to work with some of the most prominent institutions as an electrical engineer, including NASA. In fact, he helped create the database to launch the Mars Pathfinder’s Sojourner Rover, the first to land on Mars.

Imagine that: An immigrant helping America travel beyond its earthly borders to discover new realms in space.

The point of my father’s journey was to establish a better life for himself and for our family. A life where success sees no boundaries, where I am able to practice my religion — but just as important — to practice my citizenship as a proud American.

Yet today, I’m not seeing my father’s vision of America. I don’t feel how he felt when he first stepped foot in this country because this doesn’t feel like America. To be quite frank, I’m feeling tired.

Tired of constantly being glared at in the streets.

Tired of people assuming aspects of my identity before I speak.

Tired of questioning whether the scarf on my head impacts how I am treated.

Tired of having to prove my worth while others are guaranteed theirs.

But to be quite frank again: That struggle is exactly what it means to be American.

America is perseverance. Tenacity. Liberty. Diversity. Justice. Equality. Not for a single gender or race, but for everyone. America is winning against all odds. America is all of us.

My father’s story echoes that of green card holders, student visa holders, and refugees yearning to find a place of peace, prosperity, and hope. These same people, our brothers and sisters, are being denied entry into a nation that prides itself on being the most just, free, and fair country in the world. America can’t turn its back on that story.

Unfortunately, I don’t think Donald Trump understands – and I mean really, unequivocally understands – what true struggle — the kind my family went through —means in terms of our American identity.

If he did, he wouldn’t turn his back on the hundreds of families seeking refuge from war-torn countries. He wouldn’t falsely preach about “radical Islamic terrorism” in lieu of helping desperate people in need. He wouldn’t defy the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965 by discriminating against immigrants based on the country from which they are born.

It’s important to note that according to The Cato Institute, foreigners from the seven majority-Muslim nations listed in Trump’s travel ban “have killed zero Americans in terrorist attacks on U.S. soil between 1975 and the end of 2015.” So Donald Trump is not trying to make America safe. He is destroying America and painting it with racist, bigoted red stripes.

When did the United States of America — a nation founded on the basis of religious freedom — begin using religion as a means of screening people into the country? How can anyone justifiably say that the life of a Christian refugee trumps that of a Muslim refugee?

Developing tonight: JFK airport has turned into a protest hotbed after President Trump’s refugee ban https://t.co/p9QiVDCrIT pic.twitter.com/3CNp990frf

— BuzzFeed News (@BuzzFeedNews) January 29, 2017

As the protests at airports all over America are showing, this is a crucial time that will go down in our nation’s history. So it’s important to find common ground.

We can’t ban people from our country — like university students, green card holders and the family members of our citizens — and then expect unity within it. President Trump may claim to be unifying the American people, but he isn’t. He’s strengthening the deep-rooted divide between us.

To those reading this right now, know this:

I am writing to you as a citizen, as a believer in the American dream, as a fellow human being. I am writing to you to rise up and fight back by signing this petition, because America is better than this.

And as even Donald J. Trump should know, that’s something worth fighting for.

Featured photo: Protesters at San Francisco International Airport on Jan. 29 demonstrate against President Trump’s hold signs urging a rollback of President Trump’s executive order Jan. 27 halting travel by foreigners from seven Muslim-majority countries as well as the U.S. refugee resettlement program. Photo by Kenneth Lu at Flickr.com/Creative Commons 2.0. 

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