Election leaves Muslim students feeling unsure, unsafe: A Follow Up

Ever since President Trump’s recent travel ban, people all over have been speaking out about the Islamophobia it conveys. For Muslim students at Westside, this executive order is something that affects them and their families personally. Immediately following the election Neha Khalid and Yousra Abdulrazig were concerned by the president’s previous comments on Islam and almost two months following the inauguration, they are both surprised and shocked by Trump turning a blind eye, yet again.

“There was obviously talk about a Muslim Ban during the election but I didn’t think that was actually going to happen. I didn’t really want to believe it,” Abdulrazig said. “It was really surprising in the beginning and then it really hit me that this is how it’s going to be for four years.”

The White House Executive Order states, “Among other actions, Executive Order 13769 suspended for 90 days the entry of certain aliens from seven countries:  Iran, Iraq, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria, and Yemen. These are countries that had already been identified as presenting heightened concerns about terrorism and travel to the United States.” With parts of Abdulrazig’s family being from Sudan, the order hits close to home. Even though Abdulrazig and her family are all citizens, she is still influenced by the Islamophobia that this brings to light. While she recognizes the overall goal to reduce Radical Islamic terrorism, she believes that people go off of what the media tells them about the religion of Islam and thinks that if people were more educated it would have been done differently.

For Khalid, the biggest thing for her family was not knowing if Pakistan would soon be added to the list of countries. Both her father and mother grew up in Pakistan and had hoped to make pilgrimage to Saudi Arabia but are now afraid of the chance that they might not be able to be allowed back into the country even though they both have citizenship.

“There’s still that fear that with this whole Islamophobia going around, people might not treat us right and there’s just a whole lot of uncertainty,” Khalid said.

Khalid also believes that this executive order portrays Muslims as animals that need to be caged. Her fears from before the election have been validated.
“I just want to say that at school I haven’t had any serious encounters with it [Islamophobia], but you definitely see it when you go out and stares linger. It kind of makes you feel self conscious.”