I don’t think it’s accidental. The limiting Visa program was President Obama’s action, not President Trump.
If you review the actual text of the executive order (copied below in full) what you will immediately notice is the order doesn’t specify ANY countries to be included in the Visa suspension (Iran, Iraq, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria and Yemen).
President Trump is not suspending visas from countries his team selected, they are simply suspending visa approval from countries President Obama selected. Additionally, Trump is suspending ALL visa applications from those countries ‐ nothing to do with Muslim applications.
• In 2013 President Obama suspended refugees from Iraq for six months. • In 2015 Congress passed, and Obama signed, a law restricting visas from states of concern; • and in 2016 Obama’s DHS, Jeh Johnson, expanded those restrictions. .... all President Trump is doing is taking the same action as Obama 2013, and applying Visa restrictions to the nation states Obama selected in 2015 and 2016.
From the Executive order:
[...] to ensure the proper review and maximum utilization of available resources for the screening of foreign nationals, and to ensure that adequate standards are established to prevent infiltration by foreign terrorists or criminals, pursuant to section 212(f) of the INA, 8 U.S.C. 1182(f), I hereby proclaim that the immigrant and nonimmigrant entry into the United States of aliens from countries referred to in section 217(a)(12) of the INA, 8 U.S.C. 1187(a)(12), would be detrimental to the interests of the United States, and I hereby suspend entry into the United States, as immigrants and nonimmigrants, of such persons for 90 days from the date of this order (excluding those foreign nationals traveling on diplomatic visas, North Atlantic Treaty Organization visas, C-2 visas for travel to the United Nations, and G-1, G-2, G-3, and G-4 visas). (link)
U.S.C.1187 Law Link Here
The President Obama Department of Homeland Security already targeted those seven listed countries for the past several years as nations of concern.
In February of 2016 the Department of Homeland Security announced that was continuing its implementation of the Visa Waiver Program Improvement and Terrorist Travel Prevention Act of 2015 with the addition of Libya, Somalia, and Yemen as three countries of additional concern.
DHS: "limiting Visa Waiver Program travel for certain individuals who have traveled to these countries." DHS noted "the three additional countries designated today join Iran, Iraq, Sudan and Syria as countries subject to restrictions for Visa Waiver Program travel for certain individuals."
President Trump is carrying out an executive action in support of the US Customs and Border Protection Act of 2015, which relates to "the Visa Waiver Program and Terrorist Travel Protection Act of 2015". President Trump did not select seven countries ‐ the US Congress and Obama’s Department of Homeland Security had singled out these countries.
Nowhere in President Trump’s executive order does he single out any country for VISA suspension. Instead what his XO does is say he’s suspending visa approvals from countries already outlined by the Obama administration as representing a specific threat such that they were categorized for extreme visa vetting by: 8 U.S.C. 1187(a)(12)
[CONTINUES] Many links.