Trump’s Travel Ban Is Security Theater: New at Reason

Donald Trump is starting to sound like a critic of his own administration. “The Justice Dept. should have stayed with the original Travel Ban, not the watered down, politically correct version they submitted to S.C.,” he tweeted on Monday, referring to the executive order currently before the Supreme Court. But it was Trump, not the Justice Department, who decided to issue that revised order, based on the reasonable expectation that it would be easier to defend in court.

And contrary to Trump’s claim that his “smart, vigilant and tough” policy provides “an extra level of safety,” there is little reason to think either version of the travel ban would reduce the average American’s already tiny risk of being killed by a terrorist, writes Jacob Sullum. Rather, the travel ban is security theater, designed to look tough on terrorism without doing much about it. Trump confuses political incorrectness with seriousness.

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