Responding to reports that the Trump administration is expanding what has become known as the Muslim ban, which President Trump signed during his first week in office, Margaret Huang, Amnesty International USA’s executive director, said:

“This chaos has become the new normal. The policies this administration has enacted towards people seeking safety have been cruel, inhumane, bigoted. Once again, we reject these policies and stand in support of all people this administration seeks to exclude because of their identity. Reviving this ban, and the anti-Muslim sentiment in which it originated, is a violation of the values of human rights and human dignity, and it must be overturned.

“The Trump administration’s efforts to expand the ban are offensive and actually harmful to our national security. Our research has demonstrated how every version of this ban has shown itself to be deadly, dangerous, and disastrous. This policy is rooted in hate, white supremacy, and racism.

“Since the ban was first implemented three years ago, we have seen families torn apart, a rise in anxiety in Muslim communities, and anti-Muslim hate crimes, and people who were supposed to be welcomed to safety have been stuck in limbo by a government that abandoned its own commitments. The ban has become a catastrophe, especially for all those to whom it is a question of life and death.

"One particular country jumps out from the list compiled – as Muslims and other ethnic minorities flee persecution in Myanmar, after being subjected to one atrocious crime after another with devastating results, including mass killings, rapes, and the burning of entire villages, the US makes the unconscionable decision to deny them welcome."