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Supreme Court Allows Trump Travel Ban to Take Effect

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by Aysha Qamar

This week, the Supreme Court issued a decision on Trump’s Third Travel Ban, referred to as the Muslim Ban 3.0, that allows it to take full effect. This is the first time a court has allowed the travel ban, affecting travelers from eight countries, six of them being Muslim-majority countries, in its entirety immediately. 

The original ban, which took effect only seven days after President Trump took office, was quickly declared unconstitutional by a District Court Judge in Seattle. That decision was later upheld by the Ninth Circuit. The Ban blocked entry of Muslim majority country travelers including those from Libya, Iran, Somalia, Syria, Sudan and Yemen- this resulted in it being referred to as the ‘Muslim Ban.’

When the administration revised and reissued a second ban in March, two federal judges declared it unconstitutional before the ban took effect. While the administration lost its initial appeals of those rulings at the Fourth and Ninth Circuits, the Supreme Court allowed a limited part of the second ban to go into effect pending resolution of the appeal in June.

The third travel ban no longer includes Sudan, but continues the restrictions on Libya, Iran, Somalia, Syria, and Yemen. It also bans individuals traveling from Chad, North Korea, and Venezuela.

According to a statement by the State Department, no visas would be revoked under the new vetting procedures and the restrictions are not intended to be permanent. They “may be lifted as countries work with the U.S. government to ensure the safety of Americans.”

Who does the Muslim Ban 3.0 effect?

Eight countries including: Chad, Iran, Libya, Syria, Somalia, Yemen, Venezuela and North Korea.

Chad, Libya, and Yemen: All immigrant visas and non-immigrant business (B-1), tourist (B-2), and business/tourist (B-1/B-2) visas are suspended from entering the U.S. 

Iran: Immigrant and nonimmigrant entry will be suspended for Iranian nationals except for individuals with a student visa (F Visa), exchange program visa (J Visa) or vocational visa (M Visa). Individuals with a F, J, or M visas will be subject to enhanced screening. 

Somalia: Immigrant visas are suspended for Somali nationals. Non-immigrant visas are permitted, but will be subjected to heightened screening.

Syria and North Korea: All immigrant and non-immigrant entry into the U.S. is suspended. 

Venezuela: Government officials and immediate family members of individuals involved in Venezuela’s screening and vetting procedures cannot enter on non immigrants business (B-1), tourist (B-2) and business/tourist (B-1/B-2) visas. Nationals of Venezuela who are visa holders are subject to additional measures.

Citizens and Green Card Holders are not impacted. Those with dual nationalities or two passports, if traveling using a passport from a country not included in the list are not impacted. Those granted asylum in the United States or refugees already admitted are also not effected by the travel ban.

Students Travel Nationally to Attend “Forever” Seminar in Dearborn

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by Noor H. Salem

An incredible seminar this weekend, Forever: the description of your soul’s journey after death, with Dr. Shaykh Waleed Basyouni brought people from across the nation to Dearborn, MI. Over 200 students gathered for the three-day Al-Maghrib seminar that was filled with laughter, emotional tears, and engaging material.

While students were sitting at the Henry Ford College of Dearborn, Michigan, Dr. Waleed Basyouni’s overpoweringly vivid description of the intensity of Hellfire, and the luscious tall trees, rivers, and fruits, of Paradise, made them feel like they are virtually experiencing that moment. There were 14 students who attended from out of state, ranging from Chicago all the way to New York; they were all incredibly touched by the hospitality of this Qabeelah.

Qabeelah Ittihaad Michigan, Al-Maghrib’s chapter of Southeast Michigan, was founded in 2005. Respect, integrity, manners, optimism, and helpfulness are all qualities of Qabeelah Ittihaad volunteers. As of today, the Qabeelah has hosted more than 67 seminars and one-day seminars. Their mission is to help their communities by providing them with opportunities to seek Islamic knowledge in a fun, engaging, and extraordinary way. It’s more than just sitting in a classroom and taking notes- bonds are built, memories are made, and seeds of friendship are planted. They’ve had more than four students complete the Al-Maghrib degree audit to its entirety, two of which are now Al-Maghrib instructors themselves.

The Qabeelah hosts seminars on various topics, covering Qur’anic Tafseer, pillars of faith, beautiful patience, Fiqh of marriage, modesty and clothing, ethics and manners in Islam, history, and many more heart-warming courses. Other than hosting seminars several times a year, Qabeelah Ittihaad’s volunteers get together to put their knowledge into action: they give back to their community. Of the many projects conducted, they’ve made almost 300 personal hygiene packages, brought hot food to a homeless shelter, helped pack clothing for the needy, and much more. They work as a team, strive as a team, and experience the incredible fruit of their efforts as a team, alike.

Dr. Waleed Basyouni has a Master’s in Theology, World Religions and Modern Religious Sects, and a PhD in Theology. He serves as the current Imam of Clear Lake Islamic Center, and is the Director of the Texas Da‘wah Convention. He gives fatwah as a member of the American Muslim Jurists Association (AMJA), and moreover, answers fiqh questions on Twitter. He enjoys extreme sports like scuba diving, and has been to numerous exotic places across the globe.

His pet peeves were made clear prior to class starting, such as sleeping in class or surfing your phone. His most famous quote is, “The optimist is the one who sees opportunities in their difficulties, and the pessimist is the one who sees difficulties in their opportunities.” Undoubtedly, he did a farfetched job planting seeds of optimism for Paradise in the hearts of the students.

Clearly, his teachings of the seminar, Forever, has touched the lives of students-forever. His incredible amount of knowledge of the topics, along with his unique sense of humor made the experience one to remember. Students testified to have cried, laughed, and felt a sense of anticipation for Paradise. The seminar touched base on the afterlife with a profound description of Hellfire and Paradise in an easy-to-follow, story-format. The way Dr. Waleed Basyouni described the beautiful pleasures and scenery of Paradise painted a vivid picture for his students.

The seminar only lasted three days, describing the eternal life, but inspired students with infinite hope for Paradise, and its gardens, luxuries, and endless pleasures.

As one volunteer put it, “I wish the class went on Forever.”

Hajj: The Journey of A Lifetime

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by Sofia Begg Latif

Hajj has truly been the journey of a lifetime. It was a lesson in recognizing our own insignificance- our bodies physically exhausted and weakened- the perspective of being one among millions under the harsh heat of the Arabian sun, our hearts beating, hands lifted seeking His Mercy.  

Together, we all prayed and cried for our families, for a stop to war and discord, for protection from every type of sickness, sadness and worldly trial.  We prayed for Salvation. We stood in front of God, dusty and disheveled, bowed our heads, and poured out our hearts, begged for forgiveness, entrusted all our fears and worries to Him, and sought His Help for our innermost needs and hopes.  

We removed ourselves momentarily from our worldly affairs, even as the storms of the world continued to swirl, as news of Harvey and Irma, of the Rohingya in Burma, of the pain of Dreamers and DACA and news of deaths of loved ones back home reached us. We surrendered to our Lord, our hearts reliant completely on Him. We circled the Ka’aba, counter clockwise, as if to turn back the ages of time, to shed our past and to seek His Guidance for our individual and collective future, recommitting ourselves to be servants in this world.  

Hajj was humbling, but at every step of the journey, we were also deeply aware of our privilege.  The world’s people were represented in Mecca, young and old, black, white, and every color in between. Humanity is beautiful, but the vast majority do not live like we do. Our moments of hunger, exhaustion, discomfort, sickness, even fear, were all relative. We would catch ourselves uttering a complaint and immediately become silent with just a glance around, our eyes wide open to the suffering of others around us, and their patience, strength, steadfastness, resilience in the face of struggles far greater than our own.

How could we not be only grateful?  

Our feelings of gratitude only deepened upon arriving in Madinah, the city of the Prophet Muhammad (PBUH). We entered the city with everyone on our bus singing in joy and praise of a man whose life of devotion and sacrifice has given us the best of examples. The peace and calm that is felt in Madinah is without comparison.

So, while we return home now eager to see our daughter, our parents and loved ones and to be back in the comforts of our home, we  pray that God accepts our devotions- and we hope to keep these lessons with us: of reliance on God, of gratitude, of patience and of feeling ever more acutely and urgently the call to serve.

Christian Comedian Captures Heart of the Pakistani Community

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by Amina Khan

“Read a lot of anti-Pakistan comments today online because of Independence Day. One of them said that if you’re a Christian and go to Pakistan they’ll immediately kill you. It was weird reading that while eating mangoes with a mix of Muslims and Christians with both a mosque and a church next door,” Comedian Jeremy McLellan said.

If I am being completely honest, I was not a huge fan of the idea of a white person going to a foreign country to “tell their story”, as it touches on the white savior narrative on eradicating the stereotypes of said country. In this case, it was comedian Jeremy McLellan doing a tour in my country of heritage, Pakistan. However, like Americans have misconceptions of Pakistan, I had my misconceptions of the comical McLellan’s trip abroad.

McLellan is a comedian based from Charleston, South Carolina whose jokes interweave with politics and social issues which have attracted the Muslim and Pakistani community. According to an interview with Vice, McLellan never set out to appease Desi’s and Muslims- he just made jokes about what he saw in the news and fate brought him to a huge fanbase.

Through his posts on Facebook and the opportunity I had to conduct an interview with him, I was able to see how much McLellan adores Pakistan- almost as much as Pakistani’s adore him.

AMINA: What was your most memorable part of Pakistan?

JEREMY: There was a moment when we drove around on August 14, Independence day, on top of an SUV which was live streaming on Facebook and we had a lot of fun. Everything was a lot of fun including riding on dirt bikes in Baddomalhi and hanging out with the people. Besides getting sick at one point, I had a lot of fun the entire trip.

A: Were there any stereotypes of Pakistan/Pakistani’s that became a reality?

J: The hospitality was overwhelming and also the lack of personal space. It was like every day was a family reunion and compared to my own culture, our families don’t see each other that often as we’re much closer to our friends. Being over there, it was like a family reunion every day which was great. It was interesting because I knew what to expect as I know so many Pakistani’s so it wasn’t as big of a culture shock as if someone would have just gone with no knowledge. It was funny seeing all my friends asking me what was going to happen to me in Pakistan. One week before I went to Pakistan, I was in Montreal performing and people asked where I was going next, and I said I was going to Pakistan to do a tour. People were asking, “Oh, are you performing for the troops?” And I was just thinking that are there even troops there like what are you talking about and they were just very confused. Actually, there was one lady from LA, a Hollywood agent, and she asked like dead serious, when I go over and perform in Pakistan, how am I going to be able to tell the woman are laughing? And I remember thinking – What in the world do these people think Pakistan is? You know they just assumed that every woman wore a burqa or something. Their seeing and perception of Pakistan are off. I actually have a separate news app on my phone for Pakistani news. It’s very different from what we see in the news here, the news in the US just states that “Oh there was a bomb today”. People know about Pakistan from watching Homeland, which is a universally hated show in Pakistan. They’re like “Pakistan is not like Homeland” and I didn’t know a TV show could be that hated.

A: Where does your inspiration come from for your jokes?

J: It comes from anything that happens to me in any interactions, anything I hear about.  I get a lot of material by interacting with people online – people talk and send messages hence some interaction comes out.

A: What words have you learned in Urdu?

J: *Laughs* It was weird when I got there, it took several days before I realized what “Kaise Ho” meant. Whenever I met people in Pakistan, I thought they were saying “guess who”. Like after saying, Salaam, I was wondering why they were saying “guess who”. It was 5 days before I asked – what are you talking about? *Laughs* Other words I learned were ‘shukriyah, theek hai, accha’ – very basic stuff. It was weird being there when people were talking in Urdu they would slip in some English words and I was trying to figure out what they were saying. It would just be like ‘blah blah blah Jeremy blah blah blah’ and I was just like uhh what’s going on? But I am trying to learn Urdu. I have to as everyone’s talking in Urdu in my comments and I don’t know if they’re angry or what.

A: What do you think are misconceptions people have of Muslims/Pakistan?

J: I mean like with Pakistani’s the biggest misconception people have is that it’s all tribal areas. Their perception is from Homeland – that it’s full of violence and if you’re Christian they’ll kill me. The blasphemy laws are weaponized like someone hates you so they accuse you of blasphemy and try to get you into trouble – mostly in rival businesses. I talked to lots of Christians and it’s fine, they like it. Misconceptions people have about Muslims in the US is that no one seems to understand how diverse the community is. They don’t understand what Muslims are like and assume that two Muslims just argue about religion. They are overall extremely diverse, ideologically and racially, and people don’t realize that.

A: Did you feel safe in Pakistan?

J: I felt safe the whole time except drinking the unfiltered water from the hotel. We had everything we were supposed to have like having locals take us around everywhere and not overdue on security because it would draw too much attention so we didn’t have a caravan take us places. As far as maintaining security we didn’t tell anyone where we were going to be – simple stuff that I do even in the US you know, I have my own security to feel safe. The state department actually told us to not go out on Independence day but we went out anyways.  

Okay, friends. Here it is. The hotel we stayed at in Islamabad was the Hotel Margala on Kashmir Highway. Our entire…

Posted by Jeremy McLellan Comedy on Saturday, August 12, 2017

A: Because some of your jokes are politically driven – do you get hate?

J: Yeah sure I get a lot of that, even from people misunderstanding my jokes. If you’re a politician you want most people to like you and that’s how most people think. If there is one person who hates me then that’s a big danger and I think that’s how God made us you know with evolution. Even throughout history if someone hated you they could kill you, our brains are wired to pay attention to that so you don’t get injured. As an artist you’re not trying to get 51 percent of people to like you – you want people to love you and you really just want a fan base. If 99 percent of America hated me and 1 percent loved me, it’s enough if that 1 percent sent me 10 dollars a year and I would be a multimillionaire. You’re not trying to please everyone, as long as you’re being true to yourself and speak your mind. The trick is finding an audience that receives well and with social media, you can find that audience. You don’t have to try and reach just a local audience with comedy. If you’re trying to appease social media you can reach who likes you and it becomes like a shortcut.

A: What city in Pakistan do you still want to see?

J: Karachi, obviously! I went with my friend Sultan to do medical mission trips in Islamabad and that was basically the center of my trip. I was just doing charity work with Sultan and his family is from Lahore so we went there before and after the trip to Islamabad and set up shows throughout. Everyone in Karachi was angry, telling me I didn’t get good biryani and got fed donkey in Lahore. But yeah, I would also like to see the northern areas and hopefully take my wife next time.

Here's my friend Sultan's write up about the charitable part of our trip to Pakistan! Please read and share!

Posted by Jeremy McLellan Comedy on Thursday, August 24, 2017

We, at TMO, would like to thank Jeremy for taking the time to chat with us!

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Trump Proposes Immigration Cuts in New Bill

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by Aysha Qamar

“It’s great to be here today to unveil legislation that would represent the most significant reform to our immigration system in a half a century,” President Donald Trump said at a White House event.

Trump has proposed a bill -called the RAISE Act, Reforming American Immigration for Strong Employment– that would cut legal immigration in half with a merit-based entry system that rewards applicants who have job skills, education and the ability to speak English.

According to the White House, 1 million immigrants come into the country and get Green Cards granting them permanent legal status every year.

“The RAISE Act,” he said, “will reduce poverty, increase wages, and save taxpayers billions and billions of dollars.”

“This legislation will not only restore our competitive edge in the 21st century, but it will restore the sacred bonds of trust between America and its citizens,” Trump said. “This legislation demonstrates our compassion for struggling American families who deserve an immigration system that puts their needs first and that puts America first.”

This proposed act would enable the most dramatic changes to the current system of legal immigration and represents the president’s latest effort to better control the flow of immigrants to the United States. Since taking office, Trump has limited visitors from select Muslim-majority countries, increased immigration arrests and encouraged the building of a wall on the southern border.

Introduced by two Republican senators, Tom Cotton of Arkansas and David Perdue of Georgia, the bill was formulated to protect American workers from competition from low-skilled foreign workers. The proposal would limit the total number of green cards issues mainly affecting family-based immigration. It also proposes a cap on the number of refugees admitted every year and eliminates a program that provides green cards via lottery to people from countries that send few immigrants to the United States.

Only one out of every 15 immigrants to the US comes here because of their skills, according to the administration. This legislation would restrict the number of immigrants flooding into the United States with few skills and a need for government aid or health care, Trump said.

While the bill will not reduce employment-based green cards, it would change how the recipients are selected by putting in place a points-based system that rewards people who speak English and have higher degrees or work experience.

“This competitive application process will favor applicants who can speak English, financially support themselves and their families and demonstrate skills that will contribute to our economy,” Trump said.

Legislators from both parties have criticized the proposal, which depicts itself as a way to protect American workers. Many have spoken out against the proposal, with some even saying it will never pass.

“Instead of catching criminals, Trump wants to tear apart communities and punish immigrant families that are making valuable contributions to our economy,” said Tom Perez, the chairman of the Democratic National Committee. “That’s not what America stands for.”

Under the current system, American citizens can sponsor spouses, parents and minor children for an unrestricted number of visas, while siblings and adult children are given preferences for a limited number of visas available to them. Legal permanent residents holding green cards can also sponsor spouses and children.

The legislation’s merit system would still allow for spouses and minor children of Americans and legal residents to come into the country, but would eliminate preferences for other relatives, like siblings and adult children.

“It’s pro-American immigration reform that the American people want, that the American people deserve, and that puts the needs of the working class ahead of the investor class,” Stephen Miller, Trump’s top policy aid said.