It's complicated. But all the fact-checkers whose reports I could find remained unpersuaded that this is basically Obama's list, or Obama's immigration policy.
Snopes.com rates the following claim as
a "Mixture" of true and false:
Quote:
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Claim: President Trump's executive order limiting travel and immigration from certain countries was made possible under a bill signed into law by President Obama in 2015. [Evaluation here.]
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PolitiFact's rates the following statement by Trump
"Mostly False":
Quote:
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"My policy is similar to what President Obama did in 2011 when he banned visas for refugees from Iraq for six months." [Evaluation here.]
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The Public Broadcasting System (which, by the way,
Trump's advisors want to defund or privatize) calls Trump's statement
"a big stretch" because
"There are a number of key differences" [Evaluation
here--scroll down to the third and fourth fact-checked claims on the webpage].
And of course Obama himself has broken his silence to say he disapproves of the ban. Here's the assessment at the end of
yesterday's New York Times article:
Quote:
Mr. Trump and his aides have contended that the immigration order is not a Muslim ban because it does not affect several predominantly Muslim countries. They have also argued that it is similar to actions Mr. Obama took, including a six-month ban on refugees from Iraq he instituted in 2011, and a requirement his administration added in 2015 that travelers from the same seven countries have visas for entering the United States.
But the 2011 action, which only affected one country, was in response to specific threat information about Iraqis seeking to use the refugee program to enter the United States and carry out terrorist acts. And while it tightened visa requirements for people entering from the seven countries, the Obama administration never sought to bar them.
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