President Donald Trump’s revised travel ban signed Monday drew praise from one of Maine’s members of the U.S. House of Representatives, scorn from the other and sharp words from U.S. Sen. Angus King.

King, an independent, said the president’s temporary travel ban, set to take effect in 10 days, will weaken the country’s security rather than strengthen it.

Maine’s senior senator, Republican Susan Collins, said the new version is an improvement over Trump’s first one and “addresses some of the concerns I had with the original ban.” But, she said, she has to analyze its impact further.

The new executive order would prohibit immigration from six majority-Muslim countries in the Middle East and Africa but no longer includes Iraq among them. It also drops a much-criticized section that sought to protect religious minorities in those lands.

Collins took note that the president’s new order “now exempts green card and visa holders, permits Iraqi translators and others who assisted our military to enter our country on Special Immigration Visas, and eliminates the ill-conceived religious test that was included in the previous executive order,” all steps she urged.

U.S. Rep. Bruce Poliquin, a 2nd District Republican, said that “it appears the White House has worked closely with our national security agencies, officials from our State Department and legal counsel from the Justice Department in crafting this executive order to improve our nation’s efforts to protect the homeland.”

But U.S. Rep. Chellie Pingree, a 1st District Democrat, said Trump’s revised executive order banning refugees and immigrants from six countries “is another case of irrational judgment.”

“Given that there are no Trump hotels in the six Muslim-majority nations affected by this order, it is troubling that he would sign an order that will impact thousands of lives, but not his bottom line,” Pingree said.

King said Trump’s original travel ban was “a serious policy mistake and legally questionable – and that he needed to issue a new, revised ban only underscores that fact.”

“Rather than sow divisions that will pose dangers to national security, and punish innocent families seeking refuge from violence, the president should work to improve counterterrorism partnerships with the Muslim world and also work with Congress to further strengthen entry and exit procedures, like the visa waiver program, which I continue to believe represents a serious security vulnerability,” King said.

“A deliberate strategy of ISIS and other extremist groups is to create a divide between America and the Muslim world in order to drive Muslims toward their brand of extremist violence and terrorism,” King said. “Unfortunately, the president’s travel ban, even with its revisions, continues to risk playing into that strategy, which I believe will result in the weakening of our national security – not the strengthening of it, as the president intended.”

Poliquin said it’s important to note that Trump’s order is only “a temporary halt on visas and the refugee program for the purposes of improving screening measures to keep citizens safe.”

“I have consistently supported efforts to increase border security and to put in place effective processes to ensure that no suspected or potential terrorists are allowed to cross our borders,” he said.

Poliquin said that as a nation of immigrants, “we must also always uphold our core American values of inclusion through legal and secure immigration processes” so he’s glad that Trump included a provision allowing case-by-case waivers.

“I look forward to working with my Republican and Democratic colleagues in Congress and with the White House in putting the safety and security of America’s homeland and Mainers at the forefront of national security,” the congressman said.

Pingree said the impact of Trump’s initial travel ban, which a federal court stopped, “was destructive to communities across Maine and the nation.”

She called the first ban “erratic, irrational, and inhumane” and insisted that even with the removal of Iraq from the countries covered, the new order is “no less harmful to our national security or the fabric of America.”

“Immigrants build our nation and keep Maine’s economy moving,” Pingree said. “It is wrong and un-American to ban people from coming to our nation to build a better life.”

Comments are not available on this story.