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Unsurprisingly, criticism of President Donald Trump�s executive order temporarily banning immigrants from seven Muslim-majority countries from entering the United States has been swift and harsh.

There�s enough in the ban to criticize: From the void of American values of defending the marginalized �huddled masses yearning to breathe free� to the legally questionable practice of targeting and discrimination of a single religious group. It may be billed as a tool against terrorism, but the danger in its text serves more as a fan to inflame radical-Islamic enemies.

Critics � as well as thousands of protestors across the country, including here in Austin � aren�t standing idly by.

The New York Times, just one of many editorial boards across the nation quick to call out Trump on the order, calls the ban a �bigoted, cowardly, self-defeating policy.�

And then points out that the �breathtaking in scope and inflammatory in tone� order issued on Holocaust Remembrance Day, no less, lacks any logic. �It invokes the attacks of Sept. 11 as a rationale, while exempting the countries of origin of all the hijackers who carried out that plot and also, perhaps not coincidentally, several countries where the Trump family does business.�

Civil rights activist and Baptist preacher Jesse Jackson makes similar comments and adds that Trump�s policy will make it more dangerous for American Muslims here in the U.S. while it also makes for excellent ISIS recruitment material.

�The real problem is that the unintended consequences are likely to be far more dangerous than doing nothing. For ISIS and al-Qaida, the order is a gift. It feeds their argument that the Muslim world is facing a war on Islam led by the Great Satan (the U.S.) intent on persecuting Muslims.

�The anger and hatred generated will make it more difficult for moderate Muslim leaders to cooperate with the U.S. At home, a Muslim community under siege � and faced with rising hate crimes � is likely to become more closed, not less, and less cooperative, not more. If we will not respect their rights and security, they will be less likely to be concerned for ours,� Jackson wrote.

Not everyone, however, is a critic.

Jack Hunter, of the conservative-libertarian Rare.us, points out the hypocrisy in some of Trump�s critics regarding the ban.

�Why is this kind of outrage seemingly now just limited to Donald Trump?�

He says, for example, �The Los Angeles Times featured a story on Sunday about Alexander Gutierrez Garcia, who fled an oppressive dictatorship to seek refugee status in the United States, but unfortunately for him America�s president issued an executive order that denied him entry.

�That order came from President Barack Obama.�

Hunter continues: �So many of those outraged right now � and rightly � generally liked Obama. They trusted him. Now, similarly, Trump supporters will defend this president�s actions, no matter how much harm he causes, because they like and trust him too.

�But shouldn�t other people�s pain come before partisanship? �Shouldn�t lending our moral support or outrage be based on something more than merely what presidents we like?�

Plenty of others have and will weigh in on the issue. And no doubt, some of those opinions will make it onto our Viewpoint pages. But right now, we want to know what YOU think of all of this by taking our single-question poll (above and below).

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