Five years ago, a lawsuit was filed against former US President Donald Trump over the Muslim ban, an executive order that banned immigration and travel to the United States from 7 Muslim-majority countries.

Although it is impossible to know how many lives have been hurt and dispersed by the stroke of President Trump's pen, at least 41,000 people - 3 professors specializing in immigration and ethnicity from American and Canadian universities say in an article in Newsweek - have been denied entry visas based on On their nationality only, an overwhelming majority estimated at 94% of the population of Iran, Syria and Yemen.

The researchers - Nada Maqbool of the University of Toronto, Rene Flores of the University of Chicago and Arbela Schachter of Washington University in St. Louis - pointed to President Joe Biden's declaration - like other critics of the ban - that those affected "were the first to feel Trump's assault on blacks and people of color."

However, the researchers drew attention to a lawsuit since 1944 in which a Muslim Arab man succeeded in saying that he was white in order to become a naturalized citizen, and then considered people from the Middle East and North Africa region, which includes Iran, Syria and Yemen, as white as a result.

identity frame

They stated that unlike other minorities, about 3 million Americans from the Middle East and North Africa do not have a framework that distinguishes their identities in the census or in most surveys.

When these Americans are hidden under the white category, the day-to-day disparities at the group and individual levels they encounter become invisible, making it clear that adding the MENA framework to the US census is very important to that group.

To understand how others view the Middle East and North Africa, researchers presented white MENA people with random profiles of fictitious individuals varying by name, religion, class, skin color, and family lineage.

They then asked respondents to classify the fictitious individuals as black, white, or from the MENA region.

Skin color and family lineage are among the strongest signals that lead someone to classify another person as being from the Middle East and North Africa region

They found that most respondents clearly distinguished between profiles with references to the MENA region and those of blacks and whites outside the region.

They also found that skin color and family lineage are among the strongest cues for someone to classify another person as being from the Middle East and North Africa region.

The importance of skin color underscores how ordinary people “see” the MENA region as a distinct group with a non-white physical appearance.

The authors conclude that most exploratory research indicates that Americans from the Middle East and North Africa are more likely to live below the poverty line, rent rather than own their homes, and report worse health outcomes.