Cooper: Accuracy, speed should both be important to Trump

President Donald Trump apparently emphasized speed but forgot accuracy.

In an attempt to fulfill campaign promises to keep America safer, he signed an executive order Friday temporarily halting almost all travelers from seven majority-Muslim countries with histories of terrorism.

That's what Americans said they wanted and is the right thing to do until the administration can put together its policy on refugees and travel from the specific countries, but in the process t's weren't crossed and i's weren't dotted. That is absolutely not the way to go about something so sensitive - we're practically all descendants of immigrants, after all - and something so politically divisive.

Travelers already in the country were halted, and some of the people detained had helped the U.S. with its war efforts. Worse, several of the administration's Cabinet offices were not even informed of the policy.

That's not smart.

Americans are right to want their country to be more secure than it has felt to them for the last eight years, and we believe they would have been glad to give the Trump administration more time to determine a thorough and detailed policy before springing it on the world.

A Rasmussen Reports poll taken just days before the president signed his executive order showed a majority of voters backed the idea of temporarily halting admissions from seven terrorist-connected countries, Iran, Iraq, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria and Yemen. Indeed, 56 percent liked it, less than a third of respondents opposed it and 11 percent were undecided.

Administration officials said over the weekend part of the reason the order was signed with such haste was it didn't want to alert terrorists. Fair enough. But an order that had been more thoroughly vetted with waivers for people already traveling here and one that was considered and approved by all relevant Cabinet offices could have been sprung just as quickly a few weeks later.

"In the future," said U.S. Rep. Michael T. McCall, R-Texas, chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee, "such changes should be better coordinated to ensure we get it right - and don't undermine our nation's credibility while trying to restore it."

Those caught in the middle of the bureaucratic snafu - those with green cards and already approved for legal permanent residence in the U.S. - all had been admitted to the country as of Sunday night.

The outcry over their detention - fewer than 200 people - was outsized compared to the importance of what the new administration is trying to do. Just last year, the CIA said the official strategy of the Islamic State is to hide its operatives among refugees entering the United States and Europe along with larger groups coming from the Middle East and North Africa.

"[The Islamic State] has a large cadre of Western fighters who could potentially serve as operatives for attacks in the West," then-CIA Director John Brennan told a Senate committee in 2016. "And the group is probably exploring a variety of means for infiltrating operatives into the West, including refugee flows, smuggling routes and legitimate methods of travel."

The alarm over the president's order also, not surprisingly, was disingenuous. It was not, for example, a "Muslim ban," as critics referred to it and something Trump threatened on the campaign trail. No, travelers from more than 40 majority-Muslim countries aren't affected.

And it was hardly unprecedented. Indeed, former President Barack Obama signed a six-month pause on refugees from Iraq in 2011 - compared with Trump's 90 days (for the travel ban) and 120 days (for refugee admission) - and the world has become a far more dangerous place since then.

But that shouldn't keep Trump and his Cabinet from working through any measure that needs time and attention to detail.

Whatever replaces the Affordable Care Act, for instance, cannot be a policy worked on by junior staffers over a weekend in the West Wing. Careful consideration must be given on what persons will be covered, how much less of a government role there will be and how to include the health care law's most popular features that Republicans favored before they ever were included in the original legislation.

The country's security is no less important. Over the weekend, a message posted on the Telegram app and flagged by the Middle East Media Research Institute pointed to just how important.

"Trump is preventing the entrance of the citizens of [seven] countries to protect America from terrorism," it said. "Your decision will not do anything to prevent the attacks; they will come from inside America, from Americans born in America, whose fathers were born in America and whose grandparents were born in America."

Americans are a compassionate people who want to welcome refugees who are seeking a better life for their families, but they also are wary about how dangerous the world has become. They want - and expect - vigilance both in the country and on those who seek to come here. We applaud Trump for the steps he is taking but urge him to steer carefully, lawfully and thoroughly in taking those steps.