President of the United States Donald Trump on Jan. 27 signed an executive order to restrict people from seven Muslim-majority countries - Iraq, Iran, Syria, Somalia, Sudan, Libya and Yemen - from entering the US for 90 days. Other Middle Eastern nations, such as Eygpt, Turkey, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Oman and United Arab Emirates are not included.

The order also restricts refugees from other nations from entering the US for the next 120 days. Refugees from Syria are barred from entering the US indefinitely.

The move has left many refugees and immigrants stranded at airports or denied entry to flights to the US.

Singaporeans react

Singaporeans' reactions fell largely into three camps - those who supported Trump's move because accepting refugees leads to complications, those who did not support the ban on refugees because that is not the moral and humane thing to do, and people pretending that they fall in the first camp but are actually bigots.

Here are some reactions:

Trump's rationale for the executive order, which was part of his campaign promises, was for "national security” and he said he was "establishing new vetting measures to keep radical Islamic terrorists out of the United States of America."

In contrast, Canada Prime Minister Justin Trudeau tweeted the following statement on Jan 29:

"To those fleeing persecution, terror & war, Canadians will welcome you, regardless of your faith. Diversity is our strength #WelcomeToCanada"

Here's how Singaporeans reacted to that:

Singapore's stance on refugees

The Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) had reiterated this stance on May 15, 2015, that Singapore will not be accepting refugees or people seeking political asylum.

This was following the humanitarian crisis in 2015, where the plight of boat people — this time from Bangladesh and Burma — who were looking to land at surrounding Southeast Asian countries, was widely reported internationally.

According to a MHA spokesperson then, Singapore’s stance was and is clear:

“As a small country with limited land, Singapore is not in a position to accept any persons seeking political asylum or refugee status, regardless of their ethnicity or place of origin.”

This wasn't always the case, in 1978, Singapore accepted refugees from Vietnam, but with several conditions - including only allowing refugees who are guaranteed to be accepted by another country within 90 days and having no more than 1,000 refugees in Singapore at any given time.

It was then that then-Prime Minister Lee Kuan Yew famously said, "You’ve got to grow calluses on your heart or you just bleed to death," when asked by the New York Times on Singapore's stance on refugees.

Top image from Donald Trump's Facebook

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