Banning Immigrants is Wrong

I can't believe I had to write that title.  In the 21st century, no less.
Did the sitting President, his aides, and his supporters forget that the United States of America is a country of immigrants?

Obviously, like all countries, we have a legal framework to immigrate into the country.  But to deny the legal immigration of any person from a handful of countries who do not profess your preferred faith, is morally reprehensible and fundamentally against the values of this nation.

President Trump's executive order banning immigrants from 7 predominantly Muslim nations is not just reprehensible, though, it is indefensible.

Nora Ellingsen, who provided case assistance for international terrorism investigations for 5 years at the FBI, recently analyzed the public terrorism cases and arrived at this damning conclusion:

Since January 2015, the FBI has also arrested more anti-immigrant American citizens plotting violent attacks on Muslims within the U.S. than it has refugees, or former refugees, from any banned country. As we wrote about here, here and here, in October 2016, three white men from Kansas were charged with conspiring to use a weapon of mass destruction. According to the graphic complaint, the anti-Muslim and anti-immigrant men planned to attack a mosque in the area. The men progressed quickly with their plot, amassing firearms and explosives. The targets were people from Somalia, who ironically, would now be covered by Trump’s order.

...if the purpose of the Executive Order is to keep Americans safe by keeping foreigners from certain countries out, it surely bears emphasis that the empirical data indicate that foreign nationals simply aren’t plotting attacks within U.S. borders at the same rate as U.S. citizens. Indeed, the rates aren’t anywhere close to comparable. 

President Trump's order is hateful and only fans the flames of animosity that divide us and inspire terrorism in all of its forms.