A mere seven days into his presidency, Donald Trump signed an executive order banning immigration and travel from seven majority-Muslim countries: Iran, Iraq, Libya, Syria, Somalia, Sudan and Yemen. Although the executive order is currently being contested in court, it is still on the books and is continuing to affect the lives of those seeking refuge and immigration. Trump claims this executive order was intended to protect the nation, but it would likely hurt Americans overall. The graph on the left shows the effect of an immigration ban on these same countries had it been implemented in 2000, before the September 11th attacks. This immigration ban would have blocked three terrorism events which injured a total of thirty people and killed zero. It would have also blocked immigration for over 5000 doctors, each one of whom does 17 times more to improve the lives of Americans every year than all the terrorists cost put together! For a comparison, this is like trying to stop your teenage neighbor from setting off a single M80 firework by hitting him with not one, but two Tomahawk cruise missiles!
Data on the Rocks 