These rogue State Department staffers are speaking out against Trump's anti-Muslim order

By Katherine Krueger  |  January 30, 2017 | 4:02pm
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President Donald Trump’s temporary ban on refugees and immigrants from seven predominantly Muslim countries entering the U.S. won’t keep Americans safe but will “alienate entire societies” and spark renewed anti-American sentiment abroad, according to a new memo from State Department diplomats.

CNN reports that the memo, which was written by career diplomats and sent using the “dissent channel,” a means for State Department employees to voice their alternative views on foreign policy issues without fear of reprisal, had been circulating the agency for days.

The ban “will not achieve its stated aim of to protect the American people from terrorist attacks by foreign nationals admitted to the United States,” a draft of the memo, first published in full by the law and international relations blog Lawfare, reads.

The memo also points out that “Given the near-absence of terror attacks committed in recent years” by visa-holding citizens of Syria, Iraq, Yemen, Somalia, Iran, Libya, or Sudan, “this ban will have little practical effect in improving public safety.”

Far from keeping Americans safe, the diplomats wrote that Trump’s wildly unpopular executive order will “immediately sour relations” with much of the Muslim world and irrevocably shape the future leaders’ perceptions of the U.S., possibly even acting as a “tipping point towards radicalization.”

As protests against the ban raged across the country over the weekend, multiple news organizations reminded us that, as it stands, the ban would not have stopped any of the perpetrators of recent domestic terror attacks from reaching the country.

You can read the full memo here.

 
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