This gravely harms the permanent residents with no benefit for other Americans. In fact, it harms the United States citizens who are their spouses, family members, friends, and employers. And it harms those of us who are ashamed of how our country betrayed them.

America’s behavior here is egregiously unfair. Republican politicians ought to be objecting.

Instead, most are silent, as the GOP becomes an anti-legal-immigrant party. They are silent even as the order shows the Trump administration to be incompetent or malevolent.

Rudy Giuliani told Fox News that the order sprang from a committee he formed for the purpose of constructing a Muslim ban in a way that would pass legal muster. He added that the ban eventually came to focus on countries where there was “substantial evidence that people were sending terrorists into our country.” Yet the order does not affect numerous Muslim-majority countries, including Saudi Arabia, home to 15 of the 19 September 11 hijackers; the United Arab Emirates or Egypt, home to other 9/11 hijackers; or Pakistan, where Osama bin Laden was hidden. In this sense, the order manages to be prejudicial and politically correct at the same time.

“The Trump White House has incurred all the odium of an anti-Muslim religious test, without any attendant real-world benefit,” my colleague David Frum argued.

“This document is the implementation of a campaign promise to keep out Muslims,” Ben Wittes wrote, “moderated only by the fact that certain allied Muslim countries are left out because the diplomatic repercussions of including them would be too detrimental.” This assault on legal immigrants from numerous majority-Muslim countries was carried out by an administration where this man is the vice-president:

Calls to ban Muslims from entering the U.S. are offensive and unconstitutional. — Governor Mike Pence (@GovPenceIN) December 8, 2015

It was carried out in a country where Republicans control both the House and the Senate, and could take immediate action to protect legal immigrants if they wanted to do so. Senator Jeff Flake and Representative Justin Amash are among the exceptions who spoke out.

Democrats were more reliably vocal in opposition.

Many of the people doing the utmost to advocate for those harmed by the executive order were volunteer lawyers flocking to international airports on their day off, and protesters in liberal cities like Los Angeles, where hundreds gathered at LAX Saturday to sing the Star Spangled Banner and voice their support for the values that Trump is assaulting:

Star Spangled Banner at LAX protest, 1/28/2017 from Conor Friedersdorf on Vimeo.

That gathering was on the departures level.

I met Siavosh Naji-Talakar downstairs at international arrivals. The United States citizen, a medical school student in Phoenix, Arizona, had flown to LAX that day to pick up his Iranian grandmother, who has a Green Card, for her regular visit to the United States. “She's very old. She had a triple bypass and other health problems. And I'm just worried about her health if they send her back,” he said. “It's a two day journey for her. I don't know if she can make it back for two days if they don't let her in here.”