Surely and to say otherwise would be alternative facts ;)

Because they are short on reasons and ability to recruit as it is? Really?

Forget our immigration policy. As an entire country, we have already told Muslims we aren't with them. We allow gay marriage, are fine with transgender people, don't have an issue with women working or showing their faces, and don't think that it's acceptable to kill someone because they decided to change religions. (note: most polls show that well over 70% of Muslims from Middle Eastern/North African countries want Sharia law.)

I'm not with Trump on slamming the door shut on anyone from those countries coming here. But I'm not for just the standard "Oh, come on in, make yourself at home, I'm sure you are fine with our lifestyle and you'll fit in just fine" either.

As mentioned above, the complete lack of a middle ground causes us to fall prey to whoever is in power to make the decision for us. The fact that so many people were called "racists" for even wanting to have this discussion is a huge reason THE DONALD resides in The White House now.

You mention something along these lines in pretty much every post of yours. The lady doth protest too much, methinks.

Never said that, but I don't think we should make it any easier for them. And I'm not sure why you keep bringing being called a racist. This is at least the third post you've responded to me where you've referred to that. I think we can agree that I haven't called you a racist, right?

It sounds like you and I agree that Trump's order was wrong, so I'm not sure why my post deserved another Troy rant. If you want to discuss the differences towards the current refugee policy (which I support) and your "middle ground" (which you didn't even explain), then fine. If you want to complain about being called a racist, then take it up with the people who have called you racist.

Fun fact: banning Muslim immigration from the countries covered in this Executive Order would have kept exactly *0* of the murderers of 9/11, Orlando, or San Bernardino out of the country.

(Aren't those the three deadliest attacks on American soil by foreign or family-semi-recently-immigrated Muslims in the last, oh, 30 years, if not my lifetime, or am I missing some?)

Just watched a video on Facebook where Obama was calling for more infrastructure, security, and fencing to secure the Mexican border to stem the tide of illegal immigration.

I had no idea he would have ever said that. Thanks, Facebook!

And that's one of the reasons illegal immigration was dropping. But somehow the rhetoric was it was getting worse.

It's not as simple as that. The amount of support and resources and communities to get things done require a lot more than just the trigger hands. It requires lots of anti-Americans to be embedded in the country. Imagine an attempt today for a 9/11 against our security measures. It will simply require a lot more effort.

But nice try, Ben!

Out of interest then what network of 'anti-americans' were discovered as an active part of those attacks? ... I'm confused as I believed (possibly incorrectly) that most such terrorist setups worked with small 'cells' of people not interacting with others which is why it was so difficult to detect and prevent such things?

So then if 9/11 would be so difficult now, then the greater risk is from one-off shooters like San B and Orlando--people whose origins would have been missed by this ill-conceived maneuver. My church is *deeply* involved in local refugee resettlement (mainly from Congo and Rwanda,) and I'm good friends with some who work in that field. The unintended consequences of this aren't worth the perception (not reality) of increased safety that it may bring to some portion of fearful Americans. Families waiting to be reunited will continue to be split; true Good Samaritans who work in that field will lose their jobs. My detailed thoughts on this are here:
Evangelicals and Refugees – Uncomfortable Places

The countries that had individuals help in 9/11 were Saudi Arabia, Egypt, and the Arab Emirates. Those countries are not on the ban list.

Thanks for posting that Ben.

On the other hand, let me tell you about a bag of skittles.

My church had just started talking about helping a Syrian family and now that's over.

I agree, good post. My small church has a growing number of Somalis and Cameroon families. We could still support those that go to other countries and refugee camps.

I used to live in Minnesota and most of the Somali refugees who were brought over were because of Christian missionaries.

Also looks like Russia found some double agents right after Trump became President.

https://mobile.nytimes.com/2017/01/2....co/CE4BSMyft0

The first "wall" of the Trump administration is already up.

Refugees detained at U.S. airports challenge Trump’s executive order - The Washington Post

Yeah, don't get me wrong, I think the vetting of refugees already in place was more than sufficient to prevent obvious current terrorists through, and much more stringent than most immigration or visa checks. (I'm more concerned that the female San Bernardino shooter got through since she apparently had obvious red flag social media posts.) And I dislike the fearmongering behind it that does more harm than good.

Plus if anything that concentration of known radicals from one specific community makes me want to ask what else is going on there, and not f.e. the Somali community in Southern Maine. Hopefully this dumb shit from Trump leads to better integration for those already here and going forward.The rhetoric sucks, but this isn't even close to a ban on Muslims (and also doesn't make any sense when you dig in - Trump says he wants to give priority to Syrian Christian refugees, which would seem to be prohibited by his own executive order.) And the type of person dumb enough to fall for a recruiter like that already has enough legitimate ammo & conspiracy theories to latch on to I don't think this actually matters.
I think everyone on both sides of the spectrum can agree that IF there's to be a list like this that Saudi Arabia should be at the top of it (with Pakistan a close 2nd, and it's kinda weird that Afghanistan was left off), but apparently even Trump won't touch that 3rd rail.
Dropping the quota hurts, but ignoring that (so I can play devil's advocate) doesn't a ban on refugees from other countries give more spots to Congolese refugees (who were a top 2 refugee group in the U.S. last year, along with the Burmese)? Since there's a limit anyway, isn't it just re-allocating who we help vs how many we help? For all the angst over this, a quota of 50,000 really isn't far off from the number of refugees accepted every year since the early 90's - and in fact it dropped to less than 30,000 in the 2 years after 9/11 without much consternation that I can recall.

When you really play it out as a thought exercise it gets into some weird places. What should decide which poor people we should help? Should we help poor Americans or much poorer foreigners first? There's a finite amount of resources to distribute, and at a certain point helping foreign refugees is just less resources you can help other people with, so where do you draw those lines? Everyone draws that line differently, and it's not an easy answer.

NPR weighs in on the issue

Here's a FB post by a friend of a friend yesterday:

"I watched a refugee's heart break today.

I've been working with Amar (not his real name) for a couple of months. His sister arrived a few weeks ago to join him-he was thrilled. Today he came to my office and asked when his parents and other sister will arrive in Spokane. I had to tell him that they aren't coming. He didn't understand. They were all registered together with the UN, so why would his parents and other sister not come soon? I told him our new president is probably signing a ban tomorrow that will permanently prevent people from his country from coming here as refugees. I saw his always present smile turn to shocked dismay. Then his eyes welled with tears. I turned away. I couldn't look him in the face anymore."

It's shameful that anyone is supporting this nonsense.

In fairness, Evangelicals share many of those beliefs. Christians are to be given priority however.

This is an interesting point but I'm pretty sure a law was passed during the Civil Rights era that prevents this from taking place. Basically you can't give preference to a nationality or place of birth when it comes to immigrant visas.

If we're going to give preferences, number one should be people that help our intelligence and armed forces, number two should be people dislocated because of our bombs. After that it gets trickier for me, but helping those who help us and mitigating the damage we do in war should always be priorities.

That's a question that I've thought about some. It partially boils down to percentages, of course, but the other real issue is the potential loss of positions within the industry. I'm now hearing rumors that World Relief may get *hammered* by this both short-term and long-term. i.e. They have to cut positions now due to loss of funding, and then if the flow actually does resume, they have a *much* harder time recruiting quality people to work for them because potential employees are concerned that the President might decide to do this again.

If we're going to give preferences we should first change the law making it legal to give preferences.

It goes beyond that


https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/...utive-action?0

I'm no lawyer, and maybe this will fly, but it seems really problematic to ban current green card holders as DHS says is now the policy. It's one thing to say, no new..., but how is it legal to say, these green cards don't count anymore, simply through an executive order?

Deplorable wasn't an inaccurate descriptor.

After Trump's immigration ban, people flood social media with tales of stranded family

Actually immigration law does allow you to discriminate based on nationality. Whether religion is allowed is up for debate, and the ACLU/CAIR will certainly sue, but as late as the 1970's the Supreme Court was deferring to Congress & the White House's plenary power.

Could Donald Trump's Proposed Ban on Muslim Immigration be Constitutional? - The Atlantic
Idk how they're structured, but I thought World Relief was a much broader organization? Guess I didn't realize they were also that federally funded, figured it was a higher % from donations.

Dual citizenship holders are being denied entry if one of the two is from a listed country. How long until our allies raise a fuss over denying entry of British, French, German, etc. citizens?

I don't think it does. Doesn't this Act say they cant?

Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965 - Wikipedia

What a disaster. Not sure why someone in the Trump White House said, hey, lets think about some of the unintended issues involved and sign the executive order in a few weeks (not that I think the executive order has any good consequences, mind).

Interesting situation for athletes. Luol Deng who grew up in Britain would not be allowed to play a game in Toronto or do humanitarian aid overseas like he does each offseason.

Federal judge blocks Trump immigration order

I hate being in a position that requires agreeing with the ACLU.

Time to remove a federal judge, asap.

Fixed that for you.

One of the petitioners in the case in which the stay was granted worked for the U.S. military for 10 years in Iraq, which made him a target of violence from terrorist and insurgents. He was detained at JFK

Which one of your "Christian" principles supports this?

11 PhD candidates in computer science from Columbia, a PhD student at Clemson who has a green card and has lived in the US for 7 years, the post doctoral researcher at Harvard that I linked to above, etc.

Yeah, those are exactly the people we want to keep out of the country.

If you happen to know someone who is affected by this and is stuck outside the US, airBnB co-founder Brian Chesky just shared this:

Not allowing countries or refugees into America is not right, and we must stand with those who are affected.
Airbnb is providing free housing to refugees and anyone else who needs it in the event they are denied the ability to board a US-bound flight and are not in your city/country of residence. We have 3M homes, so we can definitely find people a place to stay.
For more details, please reach me directly at [email protected].

WWE wrestler Sami Zayn (real name Rami Sebei ) was born in Canada but has duel Syrian citizenship and is a Muslim. So he might be subject to the 90-day visa ban depending on his current status in the U.S. if he left for a overseas WWE tour and tried to come back (the DOJ said that the visa ban applies to citizens of one of the targeted countries even if they have a passport and/or citizenship from a different country). It all depends on how the DOJ and customs at the airport interprets the executive orders.

And his boss's wife works in the Trump administration.

Edit: It also could become an interesting issue with all kinds of international Olympic-sport competitions that the U.S. hosts.

Log In - New York Times

Might want to check up on that ole thing called the Constitution.

The stay only applies to those currently at airports with visas. There is at least one other filing on the order in general, but the current ruling is fairly narrow.

I've been moving and have watched no news or kept up with anything happening from any source in the last 48 hours. I feel sick.

So much ridiculousness going on with this administration that Bannon getting a permanent invite to the National Security Counsel meetings goes by practically unnoticed.

The veteran in question here is Jeffrey Buchalter.

Iraq vet w/ 4 Purple Hearts, drove two hours to Dulles w/ his son.

Nobody called him. He just came. Why?

"Not what I fought for." pic.twitter.com/pAe50ugtlI

— Mike Breen (@M_Breen) January 28, 2017

Also, Cory Booker has been at Dulles all night making sure the illegally detained have access to lawyers. The DNC would be wise to start getting his name out there right now for 2020.

What a dumpster fire.

We were hoping to head back to the US over the next 12-18 months to see my wife's family in Florida and Texas, but at this point I'm just going to sit this presidency out I think.

Some much needed levity amidst the dreck.

Spoiler for size.

This is all under section 3.

tl;dr vet immigrants, keep muslims out, let non-muslims (christians) in

It was really stupid they didn't include this in the EO. They probably drafted it up and didn't let anyone from the Judicial branch look over it.

One hell of a week (pardon the pun).