Travel troubles
President Trump’s travel ban impacts Liberty students
Liberty University’s international students received an email Feb. 2 advising them to be cautious in making any decisions to travel back to their home country because of President Donald Trump’s travel ban.
The current travel ban set by Trump bars citizens from Syria, Iraq, Yemen, Sudan, Iran, Somalia and Libya from entering the U.S. for three months.
It also prohibits all refugees from entering America for the next 120 days and bans Syrian refugees indefinitely.
This policy change will result in current resettlement agencies receiving 50,000 refugees a year, which is less than half of the previous yearly total.
Consequently, funding for these agencies will decrease as well, according
to NPR.
This cutback in resources concretely impacted organizations like World
Relief, which Christianity Today reported as recently closing five offices and laying off 140 staff members.
After multiple U.S. courts halted the implementation of the ban following backlash of the order, Trump said he will soon unveil and updated version that is expected to revive the executive order.
Homeland Security Secretary John F. Kelly said Feb. 21 the revised executive order would allow travelers who were already on route to the U.S. stay in the country but would continue to bar those who have yet to start their trip.
With how the ban stands now, there is a risk for international students at college if they go home over break because they might not be able to return to finish their degree.
“No matter what, I’m going back for summer break, I’m not worried though because I know God wants me here at Liberty,” Liberty freshman Lydia Yohannes said.
Yohannes is a citizen of Ethiopia but explained that many people in her country are expecting to be added to the ban list since it is directly bordered by Sudan and Somalia with Yemen close by as well.
“A guy in my English class knows a girl going to school here from Yemen who cannot go back home for breaks anymore,” Yohannes said.
“Even to get to America was very hard, and then to finally be here but not get to go back, … it is very hard.”
Seth Grutz, a former Liberty Center for Global Engagement employee, said although Lynchburg does not have resettlement programs like some other Virginia cities for refugees and immigrants, it has a unique advantage for assisting refugees that
most cities lack.
“Something Lynchburg does have that Roanoke, Charlottesville and Richmond don’t have is five churches on every street corner and the world’s largest Christian university,” Grutz said.
“There’s really no excuse and no good reason why Lynchburg doesn’t have something in terms of ministry to refugees.”
Grutz said to fix the problem he is partnering with other Lynchburg residents to pray and discuss beginning some type of refugee resettlement organization or ministry.
Grutz said it is not the lack of resources that is hard to overcome but rather it is people being underexposed to the ongoing refugee crisis and how to solve it.
Trump and many of his supporters have said his rationale for the ban is to stop the flow of Middle Easterners from coming in and out of America and to be able to assess who exactly is in our country and whether or not they should be here.
However, groups — including 500 evangelical pastors who took out an ad in the Washington Post to denounce the order — say there are more aspects to consider.
“At some point doing the right thing is not going to match up one for one with safety,” Grutz said.
Grutz and the group of evangelical pastors are not alone in their beliefs.
Many within Liberty and Lynchburg are torn about whether the ban will be successful in ensuring
America’s safety and are trying to predict possible consequences of the
executive order.
“I am really torn on how I feel about the ban,” Liberty Shepherd for Student Mentors Wes Franklin, said.
“I recognize the dangerous potential of someone using the avenue of getting to America to cause harm, but I also feel that refugees are not actually the problem because of the intense vetting process they go through.”
Yohannes said girls have also been posting on one of Liberty’s Facebook pages offering places to stay to international students who could not go back to their homes over breaks.
“It can be scary to think of what could happen to so many of us,” Yohannes said.
“My English 101 class is all international students, and every class my professor makes the time for us to all pray together for the situation.”
Franklin said he brought up the subject of the travel ban to many Christians to delve into the topic on how the Church should react to Trump’s ban.
“For many years in the history of Christianity in America there has been no urgency in our hearts to reach people from the Middle East with the Gospel, and I think the Lord is actually extending us grace by bringing them (Middle Easterners) to us,” Franklin said.
“One of the reasons people do not travel to the Middle East to teach them about Jesus is safety, and the reason people do not want them to come to America is also safety, but safety for me is being perfectly in the will of God.”
Laughlin is a news reporter. & price is a news reporter.