The President of the United States issues executive orders when they deem it necessary.  In the process, presidents must still follow the rule of law and guide their executive orders within framework.

Recently, President Donald Trump signed an executive order that changed U.S. refugee and immigration policies.

It includes a temporary hold on all refugees entering the U.S. for four months, an indefinite ban on Syrian refugees heading to the U.S., puts in place a 90-day hold on entry by citizens from seven Muslim-majority countries, and it prioritizes refugees fleeing religious persecution if they are a minority religion in the country they are fleeing, essentially giving Christian refugees from Muslim-majority nations priority.

The president’s executive order has been met with heavy criticism.

In an effort to manage the uproar, President Trump said, "My policy is similar to what President Obama did in 2011 when he banned visas for refugees from Iraq for six months."

PolitiFact Florida heard the claim and gave it a MOSTLY FALSE rating.

Writer Josh Gillin said the president is referring to a May 2011 event during which the FBI arrested two Iraqi men in Bowling Green, Kentucky. They hadn't committed any offense yet, but they were being investigated for making false statements for having actually done some bomb-making, as well as other terrorist activities back in Iraq.

As a result, President Barack Obama took action.

“The Obama administration had limited the inflow of refugees from Iraq for about six months.  Now, it didn't stop entirely, but the process was changing, and there was a real drop-off in the number of refugees that came into the United States from Iraq since then,” Gillin said.  “This is different than what [President] Trump did, where he restricted access from seven different countries, and said that refugees from Syria couldn't come in at all.”

Gillin went on to say there is some similarity there because both were executive actions, but they were very different because there was a specific threat and it was only a temporary action where activity didn’t stop entirely.

For those reasons, President Trump’s claim received a MOSTLY FALSE rating.

SOURCES:  Trump says refugee ban similar to Obama ban