Permanent residence status applies for as long as you're a resident. If you're out of the country for a sufficiently long time (or some other set of circumstanc

Permanent residence status applies for as long as you're a resident. If you're out of the country for a sufficiently long time (or some other set of circumstances enforced at the whim of immigration applies), your status was invalid before you got to the border - you weren't a legal resident at the time you tried to enter. What's different here is that nobody's arguing that their status has changed. They are legal residents, and they're being forbidden from entering anyway. These are not the same thing, and it's legitimate to be more upset about one case than the other.