The Trump administration's immigration policies are "damning and damaging" to the US, Oscar Munoz, the chief executive of United Airlines, said.

Munoz, who is Mexican-American, made the comments during a wide-ranging interview with Business Insider last week.

He talked about Trump's plan to build a wall on the US's southern border as well as his executive order temporarily barring immigrants from seven majority-Muslim countries.



Munoz also discussed how the executive order has created unwelcome complications for his company.





This article is part of a longer conversation that Munoz, who has been CEO of the airline since September 2015, had with Business Insider at United's Global Leadership Conference in Chicago. Check back for more.

Trump's immigration order

Over the past few weeks, the Trump administration has moved swiftly on a laundry list of campaign promises through a wave of executive orders. Perhaps most controversial among them is the 90-day ban on immigration, including refugees, from seven countries.

"It was so sudden that you have people in the air, you have people out of the country, you have people connected back here that are just stranded," Munoz said. "So how do you tell somebody who lives in America … that they can’t come back.

"And so nobody thought through those things. I just wished and hoped that we could do it a little more thoughtfully."

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Munoz lamented the fact that his employees and others in the travel industry have been forced to deal with the day-to-day chaos created by the executive order.

From his perspective, it's an order whose efficacy is debatable.

"The retort is that, 'Well, you are going to let the bad guys in,'" Munoz said. "Well, there are a lot of facts that support that — of all the terrorist activities in this country since 9/11 — most have been caused by American citizens radicalized by policies implemented by [past] administrations."

On the business front, Munoz said he believes the uncertainty surrounding the administration's somewhat erratic behavior has had a direct effect on the airline in the form of reduced bookings to certain destinations.

"There’s no question that the uncertainty of what this administration says versus what they actually do ... can be clearly seen," the airline boss told us.

"People are not 'scared' — but maybe that is the word — to fly because they don’t know what’s going to happen when they (try to) come back."

"Uncertainty always creates doubt, and doubt creates fear. And if you do that, yes, people are just going to stay home," Munoz added.

Trump's wall

As the most prominent Mexican-American CEO in the US, Munoz is fundamentally opposed to the wall Mr. Trump has threatened to build along the Mexican border.

"Clearly, on a visceral human front, I oppose any wall, anywhere, between any people — period," he said. But on a more practical level Munoz questions whether a wall would actually make for a safer border.

"And then the efficacy and efficiency of something like that sounds good, but having traveled around there — the terrain — I don’t know how you are actually going to build any kind of barrier that makes sense across such an incredible length. I don’t know how that’s going to help," Munoz told us.

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