7-year-old Syrian refugee tweets Trump ‘Am I terrorist?’
President Donald Trump and White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer have had conflicting messages on whether to characterize Trump’s immigration executive order as a “ban.” Trump seemed to try to clear that up in a tweet this morning, but a 7-year-old girl decided to focus on another part of that message.
Bana Alabed built a large social media following during her posts describing life in besieged Aleppo, which criticized the West for its failure to end the attacks. She has remained active on Twitter since she and her family evacuated to Turkey in December, frequently focusing on Trump.
One tweet Wednesday morning is gaining particular attention.
Am I terrorist? https://t.co/wXc1iekTmg
— Bana Alabed (@AlabedBana) February 1, 2017
It was in response to Trump’s tweet about the ban keeping “bad people” out of the country.
Everybody is arguing whether or not it is a BAN. Call it what you want, it is about keeping bad people (with bad intentions) out of country!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) February 1, 2017
It wasn’t the first time Trump’s ban was criticized for its effect on children. A 5-year-old boy, a U.S. citizen with an Iranian mother who flew in from Iran, was reportedly detained at Dulles International Airport for more than four hours. Spicer said those actions were necessary to keep people safe.
“To assume that just because of someone’s age and gender that they don’t pose a threat would be misguided and wrong,” Spicer said at a press conference.
Spicer gave the examples of the Boston Marathon bombers and San Bernardino shooters as reasons detaining children might be necessary. The younger of the two Boston Marathon bombers, Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, was 9 when he came into the U.S. as a refugee from Dagestan, a federal subject of Russia. San Bernardino shooter Syed Rizwan Farook was a U.S. citizen. Tashfeen Malik, the other shooter and his wife, came to the U.S. on a fiancee visa from Saudi Arabia as an adult.
Neither Russia nor Saudi Arabia are included on the list of countries from which Trump has restricted travel. Those countries are Iran, Libya, Yemen, Sudan, Somalia, Iraq and Syria.
This story was originally published February 1, 2017 at 1:37 PM with the headline "7-year-old Syrian refugee tweets Trump ‘Am I terrorist?’."