I'm surprised El Presidente Obama even suggested any of these countries for heightened scrutiny, as opposed to, say, Switzerland
he didn't really do that.....
Obama's order was for the 38 friendly Nations that we allow their citizens to come here and visit without needing to go through the long and tedious process of getting a Visa for their visit. The 38 countries are VISA WAIVER nations and can move back and forth between their countries and ours on vacation or business or to visit family... Nations like the countries in Great Britain, Germany, Australia, France etc...
Well, several terrorist attacks took place in some of these Friendly Nations, where the terrorists were citizens of these friendly Nations, making our Visa Waiver program less safe because who's to say if another citizen terrorist of any of those friendly Nations would not take advantage of the ease of travel, without needing to be vetted for a Visa....
So, what the Obama E/O did, was tell the friendly 38 nations, that their citizens that had duel citizenship with any of these 7 hot spot Nations, we would not allow them to travel here, without a VISA....they could not be WAIVED on needing a VISA.....they had to wait the 18 to 24 months it takes to vet them and get the clear, for a Visa.
And the E/O also stopped citizens from those friendly Nations being WAIVED of the VISA, any of their citizens who had visited any of those 7 hotbeds in the past 6 years, or basically since the Arab Spring uprising....in 2011.
The Obama administration also also let congress know what their plans were, and ALL pertinent agencies had a say on who these countries should be based on the best intelligence they had and allies had, at the time, also based on other intelligence situations we also had going on or knew about and all the agencies that would be involved in executing the E/O had a say on how it should be done, to cause the least havoc.
Obama's E/O never involved those particular 7 nations....they could continue to come to the USA on a VISA if they met the vetting ...the way they always did...our immigration laws with them, never changed....they were already tough....with no WAIVERS allowed.