
Revised executive order bans travelers from six countries from getting new visas - Garbage
https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/new-executive-order-bans-travelers-from-six-muslim-majority-countries-applying-for-visas/2017/03/06/3012a42a-0277-11e7-ad5b-d22680e18d10_story.html
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tabeth
I don't see the point of these orders.

Muslim immigrants commit fewer crimes than natives.

[1]
[http://www.nber.org/papers/w13229.pdf](http://www.nber.org/papers/w13229.pdf)

[2] [https://www.cato.org/blog/immigration-crime-what-research-
sa...](https://www.cato.org/blog/immigration-crime-what-research-says)

~~~
jcranmer
Trump promised in his campaign that he would ban Muslim immigration, because
radical Islamic terror. Someone apparently got through to Trump that a Muslim
ban wouldn't pass constitutional muster, so the ban was "tailored" as an
emergency ban for the purposes of terrorism.

If you look at the mass casualty incidents since 9/11, only at best ~50% of
them were instigated by immigrants, let alone Muslim immigrants. A leaked DHS
report apparently concludes that even most of those immigrants who did commit
terrorism were radicalized post-entry, although this should have been the
reasonable assumption of anyone who cast a cursory glance at the evidence.

The exclusion of Saudi Arabia, Egypt, UAE, Pakistan, and now Iraq, as well as
the inclusion of Iran on the list (Iran's support of terrorism is pretty much
limited to proxies whose targets are limited to Middle Eastern governments
(including Israel) and have no inclination to carry out attacks in the US or
Europe) indicate that the set of targets is chosen less for which countries
are liable to produce terrorists and more for which countries the US
government doesn't like.

As I've pointed out in the past, the number of terrorists who might be stopped
by a travel ban like this is probably 0 and maybe as high as 2. The number of
people for whom this would be the tipping point in their radicalization is
probably between 0 and 10. This may create more terrorism than it catches.

~~~
nojvek
I just hope students who have come for a legit purpose of studying don't get
caught up in the mess.

But I've been really giving thought to what I can do as an average citizen to
make the slightest change in public policy.

~~~
_jal
I hate to dash your hopes, but... Trump promised a Muslim ban. That's what his
followers want. He's doing what he can to deliver.

Students, family members, and others following the rules are the targets. The
goal is to increase hassle, expense, uncertainty and humiliation for Certain
Visitors in order to have less of them.

------
andy_ppp
I was under the impression that executive power was only expected to be used
when gridlock occurs in The Senate and/or Congress?

Is he just allowed to keep issuing more orders every day forever or rather
shouldn't the states be very concerned by this centralised power grab? I'm
equally concerned by Obama or Bush using these powers, it's not just about
Trump.

~~~
maxerickson
No, the President can't act just because of gridlock, they have to have a
clear authority for each action they take.

In the case of immigration, quite a lot of power rests with the president, so
the president making changes to immigration policy is nothing unusual.

~~~
andy_ppp
I have no idea if this is true, but would it not be better to get a well
thought through bill through both houses instead? I know it might seem mad,
but isn't the point of them to make sure the proper checks and balances are
included, not just journalists or leftwing concerns like mine but more right
wing ideas too?

We seem to have lost our way being able to give and take and discuss
meaningfully our goals and how America could develop a better immigration
policy while trying to minimise unfairness on individuals.

Just a thought.

~~~
mikeash
Trump is used to being in charge of privately held companies with limited
oversight. All his life, he decides what he wants done, tells his people to do
it, and then they do.

I'm not sure if he even grasps the concept of being "president" but still
having to work with 535 other people he did not choose and may not like in
order to get stuff done. If he does grasp it, he certainly shows no desire to
actually follow it.

------
metalliqaz
Has anyone asked the White House why Egypt and Saudi Arabia are not on that
list?

~~~
riyadparvez
This is the question we all should ask. Saudi Arabia is known as terrorism
exporter. Why is US administration (both Republicans and Democrats) so
reluctant to go after SA?

~~~
littletimmy
We all know the answer. Saudi Arabia is the chief stabilizer of oil price (and
therefore the petrodollar) in the world. Therefore, Saudi Arabia can export
all the Wahabism it wants.

------
robbiemitchell
Related: "We'll see you in court, 2.0" written by David Cole of the ACLU.

You might also be interested in Cole's paper from 2003: "Are Foreign Nationals
Entitled to the Same Constitutional Rights As Citizens?"
[http://scholarship.law.georgetown.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?ar...](http://scholarship.law.georgetown.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1302&context=facpub)

------
jlebrech
I'm kinda disappoint that the ban is based on country and not whether the
individual has negative views towards the Kafir or the USA.

~~~
zhengyi13
As a practical exercise, try coming up with a system that could determine
individual views as you suggest, that:

1) isn't trivially avoidable ("are you now, or have you ever been, a Militant
Islamist?"), and

2) doesn't rely on extending the surveillance state further.

~~~
xherberta
Islam does allow you to lie to advance the cause. I don't know if it would
allow you to eat a ham sandwich. (PS: I'm not serious)

~~~
tropo
Go ahead and be serious. That might work decently well. We could upgrade it
and cover more ground: eat a bacon cheeseburger to get a visa, and then
another upon arrival in the USA. If somebody doesn't mind this too much, they
are probably harmless.

------
JustSomeNobody
More people in the USA die from chocking on improperly chewed food than they
do from terrorists.

This is getting ridiculous!!!

------
thepumpkin1979
Couldn't find any reference to the name of the countries in this article,
although NYT mentions "Iran, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria and Yemen".

[https://www.nytimes.com/2017/03/06/us/politics/travel-ban-
mu...](https://www.nytimes.com/2017/03/06/us/politics/travel-ban-muslim-
trump.html?_r=0)

~~~
United857
Basically all the previous countries except Iraq.

The Pentagon raised concerns that the previous ban on Iraq hindered many Iraqi
citizens (translators etc) who were actually _helping_ the US.

~~~
misingnoglic
I guess the Pentagon gets what the pentagon wants, meanwhile tons of Iranian
students won't be able to continue their research in the USA...

------
dghughes
Does it really matter anymore? US border guards seem to be refusing to let in
anyone that fits in the category: brown, accent or Muslim. All three of those
you may as well not even try which I say is the no so subtle message.

Even today a story on CBC news a woman born in Canada, speaks English denied
entry told she needed an immigrant visa not just a visa which is weird an
immigrant visa. Her two white friends passed through with no trouble.
[http://www.cbc.ca/beta/news/canada/montreal/canadian-
denied-...](http://www.cbc.ca/beta/news/canada/montreal/canadian-denied-entry-
us-immigrant-visa-1.4011202)

~~~
Mikeb85
And the story literally says she was first stopped in December.

US border guards have always been assholes, I got detained recently because
the border guards are, to put it mildly, idiots (they thought visiting family
in the US for the weekend was strange). Remember at one point Canadians used
to be able to visit without a passport; that ended long ago.

I mean, my solution is to avoid the US whenever possible (never take layovers
there, avoid travelling there unless someone really, really wants me to
visit), but it is rather annoying to be treated like shit by a country where
we're supposed to be able to enter without problems. I've never experienced
the same issues travelling to the EU.

~~~
dghughes
Yes stopped because of a "random check" as stated in the article.

She was told to fill out a form her fingerprints were taken then told there
was a computer problem and she couldn't enter the US. They came back the next
day and were allowed in.

But then the latest crossing attempt the border guards asked her why she was
stopped in December?! It was the border guards who did it.

It's like in grade school a bully grabs your hand and pushes it into your face
asking "Why are you hitting yourself?!"

------
pasbesoin
Here's a concern I don't hear expressed much in all the reporting: The
enormous expense in all this.

The expense of changes without demonstrable nor explained benefit.

The expense of all the CBP officers spending all this time and energy
screening and rejecting entrants who manifest NO demonstrable security risk
nor connections to persons and organizations of real concern.

People ARE talking about Trump spending millions every weekend to go down to
Florida. Itself, as I see it, an egocentric, inconsiderate act of self-
indulgence. All the more so in the face of his campaign rhetoric.

I guess I could also mention the outsided security expenditures for Trump
Tower.

And here we have the Administration and CBP spending enormous amounts of time
and money on a policy that as yet has no direct, rational explanation.

It may and probably does have explanation in domestic and international
political posturing and manouvering -- one of debatable merit. Effect and
merit that SHOULD be better identified, reported, analyzed, and discussed.

BUT WHAT ABOUT THE COST OF ALL THIS???!!!

Once again, "the Right" complains while vastly increasing what they complain
about.

We'll end up needing another Obama to hopefully clean this up -- or, as to
some extent in his case, simply to balance the books.

P.S. Today's reporting features a natural Canadian citizen (born and raised
there) of Asian heritage that gives her darker skin, being stopped by CBP at
the start of a day trip to Vermont, interviewed, and ultimately turned back
and told she will have to apply for a visa.

Ok, I'm for cost-effective government. What was the bill for this? I'm not
particularly in favor of paying for this entirely ineffective action -- on the
face of it, entirely unnecessary.

Is THIS why I have to give up my ACA health insurance policy? (No subsidy for
me, by the way; just, FINALLY, a mandate that allows this older, independent
worker to purchase a health insurance policy. Along with laws, such as "no
pre-existing conditions", that level the playing field for me vis a vis
corporate workers with employer-provided insurance.)

I'm following the money, and it smells.

------
ocschwar
Well, that is an improvement, as it means our border guards won't get the
chance to disgrace the nation by mistreating travelers.

------
wheelerwj
Say what you will, but Trump is a master manipulator. Session's on Thursday,
wiretapping on Saturday, new ban on Monday all being reported on by fake news.

We couldn't keep up with this even if we tried. We'd need individual and
autonomous teams dedicated to triaging and resolve each of these issues. Who
even knows whats really going on in the background.

------
cryoshon
cue the trumpettes lining up to babble about how it's necessary.

even if you think this policy is necessary, this is still a shitty policy
because it doesn't go far enough to satisfy its stated aims in addition to
being morally repugnant. you shouldn't support this policy because of how
flawed it is.

there are plenty of countries that are incubators of islamic terrorism that
aren't on the ban. if the goal is to prevent islamic terrorists from abroad
committing terror acts here, that's still entirely possible. osama bin laden
wouldn't be caught by this ban or the previous one because he was a saudi.
think about that for a minute.

and now the border patrol / tsa will be even more inspired to make life hell
for the law abiding people who are coming here or returning here from abroad
from countries not mentioned on the ban.

this is killing the usa's tourism industry. this is preventing highly educated
people from abroad from coming here to let us make use of their talents. this
is an embarrassment.

anyways, i challenge any supporters of this policy to defend it here in
public. you won't last long.

~~~
VLM
Why is driving a privilege, yet visiting the USA is seen by some as a human
right for all of our species?

What claim does a random foreigner have on the USA that ranks their desire to
visit above the commander in chief's desire for them not to visit, in other
words why is the desire of the elected president believed by some to rank
lower than the desire of any random non-citizen human visitor? It seems an
incredibly peculiar ranking.

Why are some countries allowed to control who visits them, and some are not?
Why is the USA one of the countries that is not allowed to have any border
controls? Is that, pragmatically, successful?

Why is the battle almost exclusively being portrayed as it being immoral and
unethical for only the USA to have any border control at all of any form,
rather than the somewhat more likely and seemingly easier to convince
specifics of this individual border control ruling being wrong?

If this regulation or law needs to be repealed because it can be "proven"
wrong (where proving amounts to yelling really intimidatingly loud) then why
is only this regulation or law being targeted as opposed to NORML or the IRS
or a bazillion other laws and regulations which are both more likely to be
nonsense and hurting more people?

~~~
jcranmer
> Why is the battle almost exclusively being portrayed as it being immoral and
> unethical for only the USA to have any border control at all of any form,
> rather than the somewhat more likely and seemingly easier to convince
> specifics of this individual border control ruling being wrong?

Context is everything. The US is already regarded as having a well-working,
effective screening process for visa and refugee applications. This means that
it's hard to find any justification for drastic, emergency-sounding
restrictions. Particularly since Trump was well-known for espousing a
religious test ("Muslim ban") on the campaign trail, Giuliani says this is
what he suggested when asked how to implement the Muslim ban, and the
government hasn't offered any evidence for why the additions are necessitated
for national security, it is rather easy to assume that this is an attempt to
ban Muslims. And imposing a religious test runs afoul of the Constitution,
even if there were good reasons for it.

