There is panic at the airport. Some of the stories, after President Donald Trump issued his executive order targeting Muslim immigrants, remind me of what I saw in the Middle East. No one has been killed, of course. But when an Iraqi who risked his life an interpreter for the Army arrives in New York only to be denied entry, it has the hallmarks of a different world, one he probably thought he had left behind: the fear of not knowing; the manipulation of law; the capriciousness of strongmen in midflight; and families divided in the name of politics.
The executive order may, in fact, be illegal, causing considerable confusion over what it means for the hundreds of thousands of legal U.S. residents from the seven Muslim countries listed. The legal debate and challenges will probably be with us for some time, maybe for the long remainder of Trump's tenure. The president's decree, though, is just as frightening — perhaps even more so — for what it tells us about a young presidency and how the office intends to use its power in its flurry of seemingly manic energy and activity.
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