Lawmaker: US Visa Ban Discriminatory

A lawmaker denounced US President Donald Trump’s proposed temporary ban on most refugees and a suspension of visas for citizens of seven Muslim nations, including Iran, as evocative of discriminatory practices that characterized the Middle Ages.

“It is considered an attempt to revive racial, religious and ethnic discriminations common in medieval times, which will deal a blow to the US reputation,” Hossein Naqavi Hosseini, spokesman of Majlis National Security and Foreign Policy Commission, said in an interview with ISNA on Friday.

Visa applications from Iraq, Iran, Syria, Sudan, Libya, Somalia and Yemen are all expected to be stopped for a month under a draft executive order published in the Washington Post and New York Times. The draft order seeks to suspend the US refugee program for four months, as officials draw up a list of low risk countries.

Trump, who took the oath of office on Jan. 20, pledged on the campaign trail to tighten US immigration policies, including a complete ban on Muslim immigrants from entering the states.