Indiana Advocacy Groups Denounce Trump's New Travel Ban

Several Indiana advocacy groups are denouncing President Donald Trump’s new executive order temporarily blocking visas from six Muslim-majority countries. The order Trump signed Monday replaces his previous travel ban and no longer includes Iraq.

ACLU of Indiana President Jane Henegar says the ban is still unconstitutional.

“This is religious discrimination,” Henegar says. “The president has packaged it as a concern about specific countries, but we believe that’s a thin veil.”

The Muslim Alliance of Indiana is also disappointed in the executive order.

“Our hope would be that the multi-level judicial knockdown of the last Muslim ban would have enlightened the administration as to how these bans are strongly unconstitutional and un-American,” says Executive Director Rami Khan Shahid. “We are disappointed that this has not been the case.”

The order goes into effect next week and bars all refugees for the next 120 days.

That could mean financial problems for Indianapolis-based Exodus Refugee Immigration, which planned to help resettle 945 refugees this year.

Executive Director Cole Varga says most of their funding comes from the federal government and is tied to resettlement.

“A lot of our money’s tied to arrivals and we’re not sure what our final arrival number will be for the year but I can tell you already we’ve had to take drastic measures to cut our staff about 40 percent,” Varga says.

Varga says Exodus expected to welcome just under 80 refugees per month this year. He anticipates they will only resettle 8 or 9 refugees this month.

From NPR: Full Text Of Trump’s New Executive Order On Travel, Annotated.