Governor Rick Snyder says he’s trying to learn more about President Trump’s executive order on immigration. But he says it’s the start of a national discussion on the subject. Snyder says he is reaching to other governors and the Trump administration to better understand the order and its effects.
The governor released a statement this morning while he is overseas on a trip to Israel.
Lieutenant Governor Brian Calley is in charge while the governor’s away. He says criticism of the order is overblown.
“We have a new administration, and the new administration is looking for a few months to go through and vet the whole process that we use today. That doesn’t seem to be an unreasonable position to me.”
But Democrats in the Legislature condemned the order, and sponsored a resolution to denounce the travel ban. They say it unfairly targets Muslims in war-torn countries.
“We should be taking a leadership role to welcome those people into the cloak of our security, our safety, and our freedom,” said state Rep. State Representative Jeremy Moss, who sponsored the resolution. “Instead, we are succumbing to the same anti-refugee rhetoric that we’ve heard time and time again in dark periods of our history.”
Moss also called on state Attorney General Bill Schuette to file a legal action challenging the order as unconstitutional. But Schuette, a Republican, supports the order, and says criticism of it is overblown.
