People keep bringing up the Obama thing in response to the immigration ban.
Obama suspended visas from Iraq for six months, and gave plenty of warning beforehand so people could prepare.
Trump suspended all immigration from seven countries on a Friday without warning, ordered the detention of people from those countries at the border, prevented them from seeking legal representation, and deported some of them. Including green card holders.
If you don't understand the massive difference between these two things than I don't know what to tell you.
I have a couple of questions here if you'll allow me to play devil's advocate.
1) Given that what Trump is doing is allowed by law - what circumstances can one imagine in which this kind of travel ban would be okay (since it's legal) or is the law itself a problem?
2) I'm curious about (1) because there are legitimate reasons why Trump's ban is more draconian than Obama's, all of which are rooted in various screw-ups by the previous administration. Those are:
a) Last year, the vetting process somehow managed to grant visas to 9500 terror linked individuals, all of whom are missing. When the visas were revoked, there was no way to locate them. (Source: House oversight committee hearings & Mainstream media ~ 2015 / 2016)
b) DHS has 40 staff members currently handling 51000 applications for credible threat to life asylum requests. (Source: House oversight committee hearings & Mainstream media ~2015)
c) Top intelligence officials have named the refugee program as a high risk attack vector (Source: CNN, ~ 2015/2016)
Under those 3 criteria alone, if you are taking over as President and you see this kind of track record from the administration, and you get this advice from the intelligence agencies, would you really be comfortable with the visas issued thus far?
I sort of agree with the principle in theory that if the government has granted someone the right to enter, they ought to be allowed to enter, but that's never really been an airtight thing either. Your final entry is always conditioned upon being interviewed at the airport and getting your passport stamped, and answering various questions - where will you be staying, for how long, etc. etc. I suspect it would have been more principled to have a comprehensive screening process for people when they landed, but that may be an operational nightmare.
Given that there are plenty of PhD students, guest workers, etc. from Iran mostly, who are immensely inconvenienced by this kind of draconian rule, I am not entirely in favor of the policy. At the same time I'm curious as to whether a President is really dutybound to stand by the visas issued by the previous administration when there is proof of this sort of incompetence / error in the process at this magnitude (i.e. nearly ten thousand).
If we grant those legitimate reasons (none of which are quoted in the stated justifications for the EO given to date by the White House, but which are, if true, certainly reasonable grounds for executive action) - If the concern is with visas issued in a given time period, from particular offices, via particular channels, then direct CBP to stop people for additional screening or refusal to enter if they present a visa issued in that time period, from those particular offices, via particular channels. Every US visa has all those details printed on it. You get all the benefits you want - time to rescreen those visa holders whose visas may not have received adequate screening - without causing massive confusion and inconvenience to travelers whose visas don't need to be called into question.
Such action would be fully backed up by the precedent of what Obama did in suspending the Iraqi asylum application process for 6 months in reaction to specific risks that had been highlighted in that process.
>Last year, the vetting process somehow managed to grant visas to 9500 terror linked individuals, all of whom are missing. When the visas were revoked, there was no way to locate them. (Source: House oversight committee hearings & Mainstream media ~ 2015 / 2016)
No, since 2001, 9500 "terror linked individuals" were given visas. Unfortunately, I can't find any explanation of what "terror linked" means in this context. Each year, the US grants approximately 8-9 million visas. So, in 15 years, across over 100 million issued visas, approximately 10,000 may have been given to individuals who were "terror linked", where that could mean "confirmed terrorist", or it could mean "their uncle once went to a market that we believe is a known terrorist hotspot". Again, there's no explanation, anywhere, of what "terror linked individual" means in this context.
I'm well aware of the difference, which is why I specifically did not reference any particular event for which Obama may have been responsible, except to illustrate that civil rights abuses have been going on for far longer than Trump has been president, and the comparative outcry has been infinitesimal.
Apologies if my deliberate ambiguity was hard to parse.
Obama suspended visas from Iraq for six months, and gave plenty of warning beforehand so people could prepare.
Trump suspended all immigration from seven countries on a Friday without warning, ordered the detention of people from those countries at the border, prevented them from seeking legal representation, and deported some of them. Including green card holders.
If you don't understand the massive difference between these two things than I don't know what to tell you.