United CEO: Trump's Mexico wall is 'damning and damaging' to America

The Trump administration's immigration policies are "damning and damaging" to the US, Oscar Munoz, the CE of United, said. Munoz, who is Mexican-American, made the comments during a wide-ranging interview with Business Insider last week. He talked about Trump's plan to build a wall on the US's southern border as well as his executive order temporarily barring immigrants from seven majority-Muslim countries. Munoz also discussed how the executive order has created unwelcome complications for his company. Over the past few weeks, the Trump administration has moved swiftly on a laundry list of campaign promises through a wave of executive orders. Perhaps most controversial among them is the 90-day ban on immigration, including refugees, from seven countries. "It was so sudden that you have people in the air, you have people out of the country, you have people connected back here that are just stranded," Munoz said. "So how do you tell somebody who lives in America … that they can’t come back. And so nobody thought through those things. I just wished and hoped that we could do it a little more thoughtfully." Munoz lamented the fact that his employees and others in the travel industry have been forced to deal with the day-to-day chaos created by the executive order. From his perspective, it's an order whose efficacy is debatable. On the business front, Munoz said he believes the uncertainty surrounding the administration's somewhat erratic behavior has had a direct effect on the airline in the form of reduced bookings to certain destinations. As the most prominent Mexican-American CEO in the US, Munoz is fundamentally opposed to the wall Trump has threatened to build along the Mexican border. "Clearly, on a visceral human front, I oppose any wall, anywhere, between any people — period," he said. But on a more practical level Munoz questions whether a wall would actually make for a safer border.<br/>