Trump passes executive order restricting immigration, in violation of the Constitution.

[The Romulan Republic]

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/01/28/us/r ... order.html

I took the liberty of bolding some highlights:

WASHINGTON — President Trump’s executive order on immigration quickly reverberated through the United States and across the globe on Saturday, slamming the border shut for an Iranian scientist headed to a lab in Boston, an Iraqi who had worked for a decade as an interpreter for the United States Army, and a Syrian refugee family headed to a new life in Ohio, among countless others.

Around the nation, security officers at major international gateways had new rules to follow, though the application of the order appeared uneven. Humanitarian organizations scrambled to cancel long-planned programs, delivering the bad news to families who were about to travel. Refugees who were on flights when the order was signed were detained at airports.

“We’ve gotten reports of people being detained all over the country,” said Becca Heller, the director of the International Refugee Assistance Project. “They’re literally pouring in by the minute.”

There were numerous reports of students attending American universities who were blocked from returning to the United States from visits abroad. One student said in a Twitter post that he would be unable to study at Yale. Another who attends the Massachusetts Institute of Technology was refused permission to board a plane. A Sudanese student at Stanford University was blocked for hours from returning to California.

Continue reading the main story
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RECENT COMMENTS

Linda 6 minutes ago
Why didn't Trump ban people from Egypt or Saudi Arabia? Oh, that's right. He has businesses there. He only bans people from countries where...
John Anthony 6 minutes ago
I find it curious that Saudi Arabia and Egypt aren't on the list. They are the countries that the 911 highjackers came from. And then what...
Olivia 6 minutes ago
Soooooooo is anything going to be done about it?
SEE ALL COMMENTS WRITE A COMMENT
Human rights groups reported that legal permanent residents of the United States who hold green cards were being stopped in foreign airports as they sought to return from funerals, vacations or study abroad.

The president’s order, enacted with the stroke of a pen at 4:42 on Friday afternoon, suspended entry of all refugees to the United States for 120 days, barred Syrian refugees indefinitely, and blocked entry into the United States for 90 days for citizens of seven predominantly Muslim countries: Iran, Iraq, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria and Yemen.

The Department of Homeland Security said that the executive order also barred green card holders from those countries from re-entering the United States. In a briefing for reporters on Saturday, White House officials said that green card holders from the seven affected countries who are outside the United States would need a case-by-case waiver to return to the United States.


Document: Petition for Writ of Habeas Corpus in Kennedy Airport Detention
Legal residents who have a green card and are currently in the United States should meet with a consular officer before leaving the country, a White House official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, told reporters. Officials did not clarify the criteria that would qualify someone for a waiver from the president’s executive order, which says only that one can be granted when it is “in the national interest.”

But the week-old administration appeared to be implementing the order chaotically, with agencies and officials around the globe interpreting it in different ways.

The Stanford student, a legal permanent resident of the United States with a green card, was held at Kennedy International Airport in New York for about eight hours but was eventually allowed to fly to California, said Lisa Lapin, a Stanford spokeswoman. Others who were detained appeared to be still in custody or sent back to their home countries.

White House aides claimed on Saturday that there had been talks with officials at the State Department and the Department of Homeland Security over the past several weeks about carrying out the order. “Everyone who needed to know was informed,” one aide said.

But that assertion was denied by multiple officials with knowledge of the interactions, including two officials at the State Department. Two of the officials said leaders of Customs and Border Protection and Citizenship and Immigration Services — the two agencies most directly affected by the order — and other agencies were on a telephone briefing on the new policy even as Mr. Trump signed it on Friday.

At least one case prompted a legal challenge as lawyers representing two Iraqi refugees held at Kennedy Airport filed a motion early Saturday seeking to have their clients released. They also filed a motion for class certification, in an effort to represent all refugees and other immigrants who they said were being unlawfully detained at ports of entry.

Shortly after noon on Saturday, Hameed Khalid Darweesh, the interpreter who worked on behalf of the United States government in Iraq, was released. After nearly 19 hours of detention, Mr. Darweesh began to cry as he spoke to reporters, putting his hands behind his back and miming handcuffs.


Document: Motion for Class Certification in Refugee Detentions
“What I do for this country? They put the cuffs on,” Mr. Darweesh said. “You know how many soldiers I touch by this hand?”

The other man the lawyers are representing, Haider Sameer Abdulkhaleq Alshawi, remained in custody as his legal advocates sought his release.

Inside the airport, one of the lawyers, Mark Doss, a supervising attorney at the International Refugee Assistance Project, asked a border agent, “Who is the person we need to talk to?”

“Call Mr. Trump,” said the agent, who declined to identify himself.

The White House said the restrictions would protect “the United States from foreign nationals entering from countries compromised by terrorism” and ensure “a more rigorous vetting process.” But critics condemned Mr. Trump over the immediate collateral damage imposed on people who, by all accounts, had no sinister intentions in trying to come to the United States.

Peaceful protests began forming Saturday afternoon at Kennedy Airport, where nine travelers had been detained upon arrival at Terminal 7 and two others at Terminal 4, an airport official said.

The official said they were being held in a federal area of the airport, adding that such situations were playing out around the nation.

An official message to all American diplomatic posts around the world provided instructions about how to treat people from the countries affected: “Effective immediately, halt interviewing and cease issuance and printing” of visas to the United States.

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Internationally, confusion turned to panic as travelers found themselves unable to board flights bound for the United States. In Dubai and Istanbul, airport and immigration officials turned passengers away at boarding gates and, in at least one case, ejected a family from a flight they had boarded.

Seyed Soheil Saeedi Saravi, a promising young Iranian scientist, had been scheduled to travel in the coming days to Boston, where he had been awarded a fellowship to study cardiovascular medicine at Harvard, according to Thomas Michel, the professor who was to supervise the research fellowship.

But Professor Michel said the visas for the student and his wife had been indefinitely suspended.

“This outstanding young scientist has enormous potential to make contributions that will improve our understanding of heart disease, and he has already been thoroughly vetted,” Professor Michel wrote to The New York Times.

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SEE SAMPLE PRIVACY POLICY
Peter McPherson, the president of the Association of Public and Land-grant Universities, which represents many of the biggest public colleges in the country, said he was “deeply concerned” about the new policy. He said it was “causing significant disruption and hardship” for students, researchers, faculty and staff members.

A Syrian family of six who have been living in a Turkish refugee camp since fleeing their home in 2014 had been scheduled to arrive in Cleveland on Tuesday, according to a report in The Cleveland Plain Dealer. Instead, the family’s trip has been called off.

Danielle Drake, a community relations manager at US Together, a refugee resettlement agency, told the newspaper that Mr. Trump’s ban reminded her of when the United States turned away Jewish refugees during World War II. “All those times that people said, ‘Never again,’ well, we’re doing it again,” she said.

On Twitter, Daniel W. Drezner, a professor at the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University in Medford, Mass., posted an angry message for Mr. Trump after the executive order stopped the arrival of a Syrian family his synagogue had sponsored.

Photo

The wife of an Iraqi citizen who was detained at Kennedy Airport. She was at her sister’s home in Houston on Saturday. Credit Michael Stravato for The New York Times
In an interview on Friday night on “The Rachel Maddow Show” on MSNBC, he expressed sorrow for the fate of the family and apologized for cursing in his Twitter message.

“I can’t quite describe the degree of anger that I felt as a reaction to this, which then caused me to curse at the president on social media,” he said, adding, “which is probably something I should not do as a general rule.”

It was unclear how many refugees and other immigrants were being held nationwide in relation to the executive order.

A Christian family of six from Syria said in an email to Representative Charlie Dent, Republican of Pennsylvania, that they were being detained at Philadelphia International Airport on Saturday morning despite having legal paperwork, green cards and visas that had been approved.

In the case of the two Iraqis held at Kennedy Airport, the legal filings by his lawyers say that Mr. Darweesh was granted a special immigrant visa on Jan. 20, the same day Mr. Trump was sworn in as president. Mr. Darweesh worked with the Americans in Iraq in a variety of jobs — as an engineer, a contractor and an interpreter for the Army’s 101st Airborne Division in Baghdad and Mosul starting shortly after the invasion of Iraq on April 1, 2003.

A husband and father of three, he arrived at Kennedy Airport with his family. Mr. Darweesh’s wife and children made it through passport control and customs, but agents of Customs and Border Protection detained him.

In Istanbul, during a stopover on Saturday, passengers reported that security officers had entered a plane after everyone had boarded and ordered a young Iranian woman and her family to leave the aircraft.


1959
COMMENTS
Iranian green card holders who live in the United States were blindsided by the decree while on vacation in Iran, finding themselves in a legal limbo and unsure whether they would be able to return to America.

“How do I get back home now?” said Daria Zeynalia, a green card holder who was visiting family in Iran. He had rented a house and leased a car, and would be eligible for citizenship in November. “What about my job? If I can’t go back soon, I’ll lose everything.”

Michael D. Shear reported from Washington, and Nicholas Kulish from New York. Reporting was contributed by Mark Mazzetti from Washington, Thomas Erdbrink from Tehran, Manny Fernandez from Houston, and Russell Goldman, Stephanie Saul and Alan Feuer from New York.

Though not mentioned in this article, I will add that this ban apparently applies to US citizens who are duel citizens in the countries in question.

I believe this is a blatant violation of Constitutional Amendments 1 (which prohibits religious discrimination) and 14 (which guarantees equal protection under the law). The Constitutional right to Habeus Corpus has also allegedly been violated.

So, to everyone who ever said "Trump won't really round up minorities en mass"- what do you have to say now?

I say that Congress has a moral duty to impeach Donald Trump immediately, and failing that, other nations should open their doors to these people, while any official with a conscience should engage in civil disobedience to obstruct Trump's actions.

[The Romulan Republic]

I think the most chilling line in all of this might be this one:

Inside the airport, one of the lawyers, Mark Doss, a supervising attorney at the International Refugee Assistance Project, asked a border agent, “Who is the person we need to talk to?”

“Call Mr. Trump,” said the agent, who declined to identify himself.

The subtext here, to me, is clear: Your rights don't matter, because their is no law. The only thing that matters is the whim of Trump.

This may not yet, and God willing never will be, the accepted law of the land. But every day Trump continues to behave in this manner, all the people who think this way will feel emboldened to act in a manner contrary to the rule of law. Every day this goes on, the ideals of equality, democracy, and the rule of law will be further discredited in the eye of the public.

Trump must be impeached.

[Coop D'etat]

You might want to get your facts straight prior to posting. It doesn't apply to American citizens, they have such a clear right of entry back into the country that not even the Trump White House is stupid enough to order that they can't. It does apply to dual citizens of other countries. That's still very likely unconstitutional under the fifth amendment and ultra vires of the Presidents powers to issue executive orders, but its less obviously illegal than if the prohibited American citizens. The government does have extraordinarily broad powers to deny entry to non-citizens, even to green card holders, at boarder crossings, which is why their is sufficient plausible legality for them to order this, even if its most likely going to be struck down for being an illegal overreach of said powers.

[Flagg]

So Saudi Arabia (a country that Trump has business ties to) where 15 of the 19 9/11 hijackers were from is exempt from President Pussygrabber's hilariously unconstitutional fiat? I'm shocked, shocked I say!

I wonder how the SCOTUS decision (assuming they uphold the Constitution, which isn't a given) smacking this down will be dealt with. I assume President Pussygrabber will just ignore it. I'd love to see that constitutional crisis. Imagine how the standoff between US Marshals and the secret service will go down in the alternate universe where someone has the integrity to enforce the courts decision.

I imagine it will go down more like Andrew Jackson giving the court the finger and forcing American Indians on a death march with impunity since only fake scandals involving emails and Democrats are worthy of action.

[Tribble]

I don't think it would come to that if Trump gets his way with his SCOTUS judge appointment. Scala's probably going to look like a bleedin' heart liberal compared to his replacement.

[Flagg]

I don't think it would come to that if Trump gets his way with his SCOTUS judge appointment. Scala's probably going to look like a bleedin' heart liberal compared to his replacement.

The Democrats have said turnabout is fair play and are going to block a SCOTUS appointment for the duration of the Pussygrabber's Presidency. Mitch Maconnal's shitfit decrying obstructing a SCOTUS nomination when he said they were going to continue to block one should Clinton have won made my day when it happened.

[Zaune]

Trump must be impeached.

For fulfilling a campaign promise? That's never going to fly, not when the Republicans control both Houses and their base are probably disappointed he didn't go further. I wouldn't even bet too much on the Democrats unanimously voting in favour; there's not many votes in standing up for Muslims these days.

[The Romulan Republic]

You might want to get your facts straight prior to posting. It doesn't apply to American citizens, they have such a clear right of entry back into the country that not even the Trump White House is stupid enough to order that they can't. It does apply to dual citizens of other countries. That's still very likely unconstitutional under the fifth amendment and ultra vires of the Presidents powers to issue executive orders, but its less obviously illegal than if the prohibited American citizens. The government does have extraordinarily broad powers to deny entry to non-citizens, even to green card holders, at boarder crossings, which is why their is sufficient plausible legality for them to order this, even if its most likely going to be struck down for being an illegal overreach of said powers.

CBC article (I quoted and bolded the relevant passage):

http://www.cbc.ca/news/world/trump-refu ... -1.3956842

Ban affects Canadians with dual citizenship

In an email to CBC News, a spokesperson for the U.S. State Department said: "Beginning January 27, 2017, travellers who have nationality or dual nationality of one of these countries... will not be permitted for 90 days to enter the United States or be issued an immigrant or nonimmigrant visa."

A spokeperson for Transport Canada told CBC News via email the agency is looking into the ban's affect on Canadians.


"We are in contact with the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, the U.S. Department of Transportation, and other partners to get more information on the impacts," said Delphine Denis.

"We will be providing further information to Canadians as available."

President of the Iranian Canadian Congress Bijan Ahmadi says his organization, which represents Iranian Canadian interests, is trying to figure out who exactly will be affected by the ban.

"It's unacceptable. It's very unreasonable," he said. "It's very discriminatory to target people based on their race, their religion, the country of their origin and the country of their birth. And the community has that same outrage."

The article is admittedly unclear as to weather it applies only to duel citizens where both citizenships are non-American, or to, say, American/Syrian duel citizens, but if you take the bolded quote at face value, it would apply to American duel citizens. Though I will acknowledge that this could be a case (as noted in the OP) the order being unevenly implemented, rather than being the intent of the order.

Not that it wouldn't be a violation of Amendments One and Fourteen anyway, in my opinion, since it would affect American citizens by separating them from their families and legitimizing bigotry against them, and do so by discriminating on the basis of religion and national origin.

And either way... they are literally rounded up refugees for mass deportation, allegedly violating Habeus Corpus, and your first response is basically "Well, its not as bad as you say"? Accuracy matters, and if I'm wrong on this point I'll concede it and be glad to be able to do so, but surely the greater concern is this blatantly authoritarian and discriminatory order?

I don't think it would come to that if Trump gets his way with his SCOTUS judge appointment. Scala's probably going to look like a bleedin' heart liberal compared to his replacement.

The Democrats have said turnabout is fair play and are going to block a SCOTUS appointment for the duration of the Pussygrabber's Presidency. Mitch Maconnal's shitfit decrying obstructing a SCOTUS nomination when he said they were going to continue to block one should Clinton have won made my day when it happened.

Thank God. It is far past time the Democrats grew some balls. I've often spoken out against adopting Tea Party-esque tactics of threats, lies, extremism, voter suppression, and political violence, and I stand by that now, but principled is not the same as weak. Their is no shame in obstructing an aspiring tyrant's agenda, and if the Republicans want to whine about it, they will get zero sympathy from me. If you ask me, we probably wouldn't be here if the Democrats had shown more of a collective spine over the last decade or two.

And if their's one appointment that should be obstructed regardless of merit, its Scalia's replacement. The Republicans have effectively stolen a Supreme Court nomination by failing to do their duty and even hold hearings on Obama's appointee (who Obama had every right and duty under the Constitution to nominate). They should not be rewarded for that.

They could nominate Bernie Sanders and I'd say to block it on principle. Filibuster for four years or eight if necessary.

I would not even recognize the legitimacy of any 5/4 ruling passed by the vote of a Republican-appointed replacement to Scalia.

[The Romulan Republic]

Trump must be impeached.

For fulfilling a campaign promise? That's never going to fly, not when the Republicans control both Houses and their base are probably disappointed he didn't go further. I wouldn't even bet too much on the Democrats unanimously voting in favour; there's not many votes in standing up for Muslims these days.

For violating the Constitution.

But they probably don't even need to impeach him for this, though in a better world, that's what would happen. Their's plenty to go after regarding conflict of interest. I don't really care which of the many possible justifications they use, as long as the legal case can be made and it gets the job done.

[Tribble]

Do you think the Democrats have the stamina to block a Supreme Court Justice nomination for years on end?

[The Romulan Republic]

No, probably not, although its what they should do.

But at least the Democrats seem to be collectively realizing that Trump is not someone they can work with as if he was any other President. Too little too late, but maybe, just maybe, we'll begin to see some fucking backbone from them, in time to at least constrain his actions and salvage something of our democracy.

[Dragon Angel]

Tick, tock...

Unconstitutional? To the Republicans, the Constitution may as well not exist, except for the 2nd Amendment. This attitude goes as far back as PATRIOT.

Let's see if anyone non-Republican, with whatever power they have left, will have the spine to act against this. Not just make symbolic gestures ... act. Or, I suppose, the undesirable will come closer, no matter what we think.

Tick, tock...

[Coop D'etat]

You might want to get your facts straight prior to posting. It doesn't apply to American citizens, they have such a clear right of entry back into the country that not even the Trump White House is stupid enough to order that they can't. It does apply to dual citizens of other countries. That's still very likely unconstitutional under the fifth amendment and ultra vires of the Presidents powers to issue executive orders, but its less obviously illegal than if the prohibited American citizens. The government does have extraordinarily broad powers to deny entry to non-citizens, even to green card holders, at boarder crossings, which is why their is sufficient plausible legality for them to order this, even if its most likely going to be struck down for being an illegal overreach of said powers.

CBC article (I quoted and bolded the relevant passage):

http://www.cbc.ca/news/world/trump-refu ... -1.3956842

Ban affects Canadians with dual citizenship

In an email to CBC News, a spokesperson for the U.S. State Department said: "Beginning January 27, 2017, travellers who have nationality or dual nationality of one of these countries... will not be permitted for 90 days to enter the United States or be issued an immigrant or nonimmigrant visa."

A spokeperson for Transport Canada told CBC News via email the agency is looking into the ban's affect on Canadians.


"We are in contact with the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, the U.S. Department of Transportation, and other partners to get more information on the impacts," said Delphine Denis.

"We will be providing further information to Canadians as available."

President of the Iranian Canadian Congress Bijan Ahmadi says his organization, which represents Iranian Canadian interests, is trying to figure out who exactly will be affected by the ban.

"It's unacceptable. It's very unreasonable," he said. "It's very discriminatory to target people based on their race, their religion, the country of their origin and the country of their birth. And the community has that same outrage."

The article is admittedly unclear as to weather it applies only to duel citizens where both citizenships are non-American, or to, say, American/Syrian duel citizens, but if you take the bolded quote at face value, it would apply to American duel citizens. Though I will acknowledge that this could be a case (as noted in the OP) the order being unevenly implemented, rather than being the intent of the order.

Not that it wouldn't be a violation of Amendments One and Fourteen anyway, in my opinion, since it would affect American citizens by separating them from their families and legitimizing bigotry against them, and do so by discriminating on the basis of religion and national origin.

And either way... they are literally rounded up refugees for mass deportation, allegedly violating Habeus Corpus, and your first response is basically "Well, its not as bad as you say"? Accuracy matters, and if I'm wrong on this point I'll concede it and be glad to be able to do so, but surely the greater concern is this blatantly authoritarian and discriminatory order?

The article is reasonably clear if you read it in its proper context. Its talking about Canadians or similar countries dual citizens. Not Americans dual citizens. If you weren't clear about that fact, you might have done better to actually look it up rather than assume the worst from an ambigous statement. The article itself was pretty clearly talking about people who had at most green card status, not citizenship rights.

This is also more directly vulnerable to litigation under the fifth amendment's protection of due process rights against the federal government rather than building a first or fourteenth amendment case, which is more remote from the matter at hand (the violations of religious freedoms are indirect, although become more relevant if they actually start using a religious test to allow people back in as has been rumoured).

Accuracy matters because if you want to be credible on a subject, its bad to be passing on false information. Effective opposition comes from knowing exactly what was wrong and then using the levers of action availible to address them. Which is why I made sure to read the ACLU's petion of habeus corpus for their test case before saying anything about the legalities involved because I'm pretty sure they'd understand them better than I do (immigration law is a very specialised field, even if you have legal training you want to have your ducks in a row before thinking you understand the law involved).

EDIT: Particularly if your claim is that this is so unconstitutional it merits an impeachment, then you really want to make sure you understand what's involved legally,

[Zaune]

No, probably not, although its what they should do.

But at least the Democrats seem to be collectively realizing that Trump is not someone they can work with as if he was any other President. Too little too late, but maybe, just maybe, we'll begin to see some fucking backbone from them, in time to at least constrain his actions and salvage something of our democracy.

Don't hold your breath. Martin Niemöller knew what he was talking about; a depressingly small percentage of people are willing to do anything proactive about issues that don't affect them personally, and even fewer will get angry enough to set some shit on fire, which is what it seems to take for a government to even acknowledge a protest is happening these days.

[Tribble]

Tick, tock...

Unconstitutional? To the Republicans, the Constitution may as well not exist, except for the 2nd Amendment. This attitude goes as far back as PATRIOT.

Let's see if anyone non-Republican, with whatever power they have left, will have the spine to act against this. Not just make symbolic gestures ... act. Or, I suppose, the undesirable will come closer, no matter what we think.

Tick, tock...

Sadly this is true. The ideal Republican Constitution can be summed up as:

1. 'MURICA F %^K YA!!!
2. Guns, military and Republican Bible* good.
3. Gays, non-whites, Non-Christians, women, the poor, science (except guns), Non-Republicans etc bad.
Non-Americans even more bad.
4. All Bad must be punished and killed.
5. All laws that don't follow the above are unconstitutional.


* aka the Bible just minus all the nasty parts Republicans disagree with like "love they neighbour".

[Joun_Lord]

I understand wanting to do something about terrorism, even if the US hasn't had much of a problem with it recently thanks to our already pretty good immigration laws and law enforcement efforts, and worries about Syrian refugees when the media makes it seem like Europe has become a college campus of rape and violence.

However this is dumb, like super dumb. As Flagg pointed out it doesn't go after a place where a majority of 9/11 hijackers came from, it blocks people who are already here, already working and clearly not terrorists. Why not instead reform the watch list?

I'd disagree with it vehemently but could see a stop of the refugees temporarily while we work some system out. ALL refugees though, not just Muslims. Any problems we have from Muslim Syrians and Somalians of lack of integration and extremism we could have from Christians from those nations. If we need to block the Muslims from entering we need to stop the Christians too.

The thing that really gets me is a morbid humorous sort of way is the people surprised by this. Trump promised to do this, he campaigned on it. Are Presidents so likely to break campaign promises that its shocking when they stick to it?

Kinda wish he had lied though.

[Dragon Angel]

I'd disagree with it vehemently but could see a stop of the refugees temporarily while we work some system out. ALL refugees though, not just Muslims. Any problems we have from Muslim Syrians and Somalians of lack of integration and extremism we could have from Christians from those nations. If we need to block the Muslims from entering we need to stop the Christians too.

Why are they refugees? Because they do not want to die. What will sending them all back do?

Do you think it would be at all wise for America to be complicit in that?

And we already had a system in place. There was nothing to work out.

[The Romulan Republic]

No, probably not, although its what they should do.

But at least the Democrats seem to be collectively realizing that Trump is not someone they can work with as if he was any other President. Too little too late, but maybe, just maybe, we'll begin to see some fucking backbone from them, in time to at least constrain his actions and salvage something of our democracy.

Don't hold your breath. Martin Niemöller knew what he was talking about; a depressingly small percentage of people are willing to do anything proactive about issues that don't affect them personally, and even fewer will get angry enough to set some shit on fire, which is what it seems to take for a government to even acknowledge a protest is happening these days.

It actually took us, what, a dozen posts to get to thinly veiled incitement of violence. At this point, I'm only surprised it took so long.

Can we at least give the courts and Congress a chance to shoot this down before we go to mobs in the streets?

[The Romulan Republic]

I understand wanting to do something about terrorism, even if the US hasn't had much of a problem with it recently thanks to our already pretty good immigration laws and law enforcement efforts, and worries about Syrian refugees when the media makes it seem like Europe has become a college campus of rape and violence.

However this is dumb, like super dumb. As Flagg pointed out it doesn't go after a place where a majority of 9/11 hijackers came from, it blocks people who are already here, already working and clearly not terrorists. Why not instead reform the watch list?

I'd disagree with it vehemently but could see a stop of the refugees temporarily while we work some system out. ALL refugees though, not just Muslims. Any problems we have from Muslim Syrians and Somalians of lack of integration and extremism we could have from Christians from those nations. If we need to block the Muslims from entering we need to stop the Christians too.

The thing that really gets me is a morbid humorous sort of way is the people surprised by this. Trump promised to do this, he campaigned on it. Are Presidents so likely to break campaign promises that its shocking when they stick to it?

Kinda wish he had lied though.

Yeah. Its amazing how long and stubbornly people have clung to "But Trump won't really be that bad".

I guess its easier than the ugly truth- that they really do mean to drag us back to the 19th. Century, or at least the first half of the 20th.

[The Romulan Republic]

You might want to get your facts straight prior to posting. It doesn't apply to American citizens, they have such a clear right of entry back into the country that not even the Trump White House is stupid enough to order that they can't. It does apply to dual citizens of other countries. That's still very likely unconstitutional under the fifth amendment and ultra vires of the Presidents powers to issue executive orders, but its less obviously illegal than if the prohibited American citizens. The government does have extraordinarily broad powers to deny entry to non-citizens, even to green card holders, at boarder crossings, which is why their is sufficient plausible legality for them to order this, even if its most likely going to be struck down for being an illegal overreach of said powers.

CBC article (I quoted and bolded the relevant passage):

http://www.cbc.ca/news/world/trump-refu ... -1.3956842

Ban affects Canadians with dual citizenship

In an email to CBC News, a spokesperson for the U.S. State Department said: "Beginning January 27, 2017, travellers who have nationality or dual nationality of one of these countries... will not be permitted for 90 days to enter the United States or be issued an immigrant or nonimmigrant visa."

A spokeperson for Transport Canada told CBC News via email the agency is looking into the ban's affect on Canadians.


"We are in contact with the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, the U.S. Department of Transportation, and other partners to get more information on the impacts," said Delphine Denis.

"We will be providing further information to Canadians as available."

President of the Iranian Canadian Congress Bijan Ahmadi says his organization, which represents Iranian Canadian interests, is trying to figure out who exactly will be affected by the ban.

"It's unacceptable. It's very unreasonable," he said. "It's very discriminatory to target people based on their race, their religion, the country of their origin and the country of their birth. And the community has that same outrage."

The article is admittedly unclear as to weather it applies only to duel citizens where both citizenships are non-American, or to, say, American/Syrian duel citizens, but if you take the bolded quote at face value, it would apply to American duel citizens. Though I will acknowledge that this could be a case (as noted in the OP) the order being unevenly implemented, rather than being the intent of the order.

Not that it wouldn't be a violation of Amendments One and Fourteen anyway, in my opinion, since it would affect American citizens by separating them from their families and legitimizing bigotry against them, and do so by discriminating on the basis of religion and national origin.

And either way... they are literally rounded up refugees for mass deportation, allegedly violating Habeus Corpus, and your first response is basically "Well, its not as bad as you say"? Accuracy matters, and if I'm wrong on this point I'll concede it and be glad to be able to do so, but surely the greater concern is this blatantly authoritarian and discriminatory order?

The article is reasonably clear if you read it in its proper context. Its talking about Canadians or similar countries dual citizens. Not Americans dual citizens. If you weren't clear about that fact, you might have done better to actually look it up rather than assume the worst from an ambigous statement. The article itself was pretty clearly talking about people who had at most green card status, not citizenship rights.

This is also more directly vulnerable to litigation under the fifth amendment's protection of due process rights against the federal government rather than building a first or fourteenth amendment case, which is more remote from the matter at hand (the violations of religious freedoms are indirect, although become more relevant if they actually start using a religious test to allow people back in as has been rumoured).

Accuracy matters because if you want to be credible on a subject, its bad to be passing on false information. Effective opposition comes from knowing exactly what was wrong and then using the levers of action availible to address them. Which is why I made sure to read the ACLU's petion of habeus corpus for their test case before saying anything about the legalities involved because I'm pretty sure they'd understand them better than I do (immigration law is a very specialised field, even if you have legal training you want to have your ducks in a row before thinking you understand the law involved).

EDIT: Particularly if your claim is that this is so unconstitutional it merits an impeachment, then you really want to make sure you understand what's involved legally,

Well, I hope you are correct regarding the extent of the order, but it doesn't really change my opinion of it. While you are correct that specifics matter, I still consider it a violation of multiple Constitutional Amendments, including One and Fourteen, for the reasons I stated, though this is, obviously, a layman's opinion- I am not a lawyer nor trained Constitutional scholar.

And indeed, from a certain, very cynical point of view, it might be better if it did apply to American citizens, as it would make it easier to muster opposition against it. Though I can't bring myself to be quite that cynical yet.

[Simon_Jester]

I don't think it would come to that if Trump gets his way with his SCOTUS judge appointment. Scala's probably going to look like a bleedin' heart liberal compared to his replacement.

If Trump goes far enough- correction, as he does go far enough- and as those challenges reach the Supreme Court...

I am honestly not sure I'd count on the Republican justices currently on the Court to back him.

I could be wrong about this, but I wouldn't count on Anthony Kennedy ruling in favor of a fascist interpretation of the Constitution. I'm not even sure I'd count on Clarence Thomas doing it. Roberts and Alito argued in favor of 'fascism lite' back when they were working for the Bush Administration, but they don't eat out of Trump's hand and he has little or no influence or power over them now. Supreme Court justices are appointed for life for a number of reasons, and times like these are one of the reasons.

I understand wanting to do something about terrorism, even if the US hasn't had much of a problem with it recently thanks to our already pretty good immigration laws and law enforcement efforts, and worries about Syrian refugees when the media makes it seem like Europe has become a college campus of rape and violence.

If one guy concealing himself in a stream of a a hundred thousand refugees is a murderer, it makes the international news. The other 99,999 refugees make NO international news. Don't assume Europe really IS "a college campus of rape and violence."

Because those 99,999 refugees represent 99,999 lives saved. Unless one takes a stance like "brown people lives are worthless," there is no way to justify turning back those 99,999 refugees to protect a few dozen of your own citizens from that one terrorist.

However this is dumb, like super dumb. As Flagg pointed out it doesn't go after a place where a majority of 9/11 hijackers came from, it blocks people who are already here, already working and clearly not terrorists. Why not instead reform the watch list?

Because for Trump it isn't actually about stopping terrorists. Even pretending it's about stopping terrorists is drinking the poison Kool-Aid. It's not about whether or not the system succeeds in stopping terrorists. It's not about whether the people being imprisoned or deported because of their national origin or their religion are terrorists. They can hate terrorism, they can (like many Iraqis) have actively helped America fight terrorism. And it wouldn't matter.

It's because he, and the people who put him into power, think that racism is a good defense against terrorism. It's "PURGE THE XENOS, IN PURITY LIES STRENGTH" only in real life. And the xenos are in fact 'people' just like you and me, on the receiving end of cruelty and hatred with the power of the United States government behind it.

I'd disagree with it vehemently but could see a stop of the refugees temporarily while we work some system out. ALL refugees though, not just Muslims. Any problems we have from Muslim Syrians and Somalians of lack of integration and extremism we could have from Christians from those nations. If we need to block the Muslims from entering we need to stop the Christians too.

We already HAVE a system, it works fine, it saves 99,999 lives for every dangerous person who gets through.

Stopping all refugees while 'working out a system' is just the Golden Mean fallacy in action. It's assuming that both side must be reasonable, and are probably equally correct, so that the correct response is a 50/50 split between their position and the opposing position.

That isn't true when one side of the debate says "round up all the refugees from these seven countries and throw them in detention facilities." Rounding up only half of them, or just keeping them in detention for a little while... those are not right answers. Those are not acceptable compromises. They might be less wrong, but they are still wrong, not just 'unsatisfactory.'

The thing that really gets me is a morbid humorous sort of way is the people surprised by this. Trump promised to do this, he campaigned on it. Are Presidents so likely to break campaign promises that its shocking when they stick to it?

Kinda wish he had lied though.

I'm not surprised at all. But it makes all the people who thought "he won't be that bad, he's just posturing with all his anti-immigrant stuff" fucking laughable, you're right. No, Trump is not four more years of business as usual, any more than Mussolini was business as usual for Italian democracy, or any more than Franco was business as usual for Spanish democracy.

He may yet be stopped from destroying democracy in America, hopefully without even the need for violence, but he is not and never has been business as usual.

[The Romulan Republic]

I do think that some of the current court will break ranks against Trump, or so I hope.

Even with a replacement for Scalia, it'll still be a four-four court with a swing vote, correct? And Roberts has shown his willingness to cross party lines on major issues before (like Obamacare).

I do not believe the Supreme Court will act as a simple rubber stamp for Trump. Not until he can get at least two, maybe three or more Justices on it, anyway.

[TheFeniX]

The Democrats have said turnabout is fair play and are going to block a SCOTUS appointment for the duration of the Pussygrabber's Presidency. Mitch Maconnal's shitfit decrying obstructing a SCOTUS nomination when he said they were going to continue to block one should Clinton have won made my day when it happened.

Oh man, I would love to have even a small a taste of that delicious candy, provided it's actually served and not immediately dumped into the trash.

Democrats on the ropes showing some balls? It's like a Rocky movie where you can understand something out of the protagonist's mouth besides "ADRIAN!"

Unconstitutional? To the Republicans, the Constitution may as well not exist, except for the 2nd Amendment. This attitude goes as far back as PATRIOT.

Was I in a coma when I witnessed Democrats in both the House and Senate voting overwhelmingly in favor of the Patriot Act? I'm going off (possibly bad) memory here, but didn't only a single-digit number of Democratic senators (you know, the ones with principles) vote against "fuck the bill of rights"? And was I also in a coma when I witnessed Obama signing EXTENSIONS of parts of the Patriot Act?

I was a huge conservative turd at the time the Act was signed (I was 19-20, fucking sue me) and even I had large reservations about how willingly Americans accepted the Patriot act.

I'm not going to absolve the Republican party of responsibility here, but an overwhelming majority of U.S. citizens in general were willing to write GW a blank check to smash turrists. And Obama (and elected Democrats) didn't exactly make it a point to destroy that power creep once we did so, even when their party controlled enough of Congress to spank Republicans any time they wanted.

[Coop D'etat]

Well, I hope you are correct regarding the extent of the order, but it doesn't really change my opinion of it. While you are correct that specifics matter, I still consider it a violation of multiple Constitutional Amendments, including One and Fourteen, for the reasons I stated, though this is, obviously, a layman's opinion- I am not a lawyer nor trained Constitutional scholar.

And indeed, from a certain, very cynical point of view, it might be better if it did apply to American citizens, as it would make it easier to muster opposition against it. Though I can't bring myself to be quite that cynical yet.

I know for a fact that it doesn't apply to American citizens. So you can lay that concern to rest. Partly because I bothered to read the executive order. The really unusual bit of it was how it didn't exempt green card holders, which is such a no brainer thing to do for this kind of order it strongly suggests they didn't consult much beyond Trumps inner circle before issuing it (its been leaking recently that the new Administration isn't consulting with legal staffs from affected departments before issuing orders, something that speaks to their inexperience in governing).

The idea they were banning actual citizens from entering is so out there that you really should have thought about it a moment. Its also not a good idea to just assume a constituional provision applies to a situaiton like you think it does. I have legal training and I couldn't tell you right off the bat whether a provision applies unless its an extremely blatant violation that's been established in jurisprudence I'm already familar with.

[Zaune]

It actually took us, what, a dozen posts to get to thinly veiled incitement of violence. At this point, I'm only surprised it took so long.

Can we at least give the courts and Congress a chance to shoot this down before we go to mobs in the streets?

By all means give Congress and the courts a chance if you still have any faith left in them, although I'm sure I don't know why you think they deserve it.

But I've been to a number of peaceful protests in the last few years, and watched a lot more that I couldn't attend, and they all might as well have been a freak weather phenomenon for all the lasting impact they had.

And in any case, I'm pretty sure going out and watering the tree of liberty with the blood of innocent bystanders is a waste of effort as well at this point. People like us, who actually understand and care about these issues? We're a tiny minority; most people believe what they're told to believe, vote for who they've always voted for because that's who they've always for -if they bother to vote at all- and demand nothing from their government except that they only oppress people who aren't them.