5 ms·

why do they need to halt immigration in this way while they review? they haven't presented any reason for that, and since they've been talking about it for a y

why do they need to halt immigration in this way while they review? they haven't presented any reason for that, and since they've been talking about it for a year i doubt they learned some new info after the election (that some terrorist was specifically trying to get in from these countries, when none ever has, historically) further, they are wasting a lot of the time they've given themselves in the fallout of how botched and rushed it was. to say nothing of my lack of confidence that they could come up with a good immigration plan after how poorly this was executed this whole situation is pointless and cruel

cookiecaper 10y ago
>why do they need to halt immigration in this way while they review? Their theory is that travel needs to be temporarily halted to ensure that insufficient vetting procedures do not allow any terrorists to sneak in while the review is ongoing. You may agree or disagree that that's a real/substantial threat, but there is valid reasoning behind suspending travel.
- davidw 10y ago
  There isn't valid reasoning though: if you look at what actually kills people in the US, those people who get in after vetting pose virtually no threat. Toddlers with guns, and falling out of bed kill more Americans than people from those countries have in the US. It's a Muslim ban, plain and simple. It's not about our security.
  - cookiecaper 10y ago
    As others have pointed out in this thread, if it's a "Muslim ban", it's a "Muslim ban" that bans less than 5% of the worldwide Muslim population, and leaves untouched the 5 countries with the largest Muslim populations. That doesn't sound like a very effective "Muslim ban" to me. Logically, when compared with what's actually happened, it makes much more sense to interpret Mr. Trump's comments that specifically mentioned barring Muslims from entering the U.S. as hyperbolic campaign statements. Whatever intentions you wish to thrust upon American officials, the fact is that the Order makes a valid security-based argument and contains no religious test. Those are the facts. We can't argue over the intentions of someone neither of us has ever met, but we can discuss the text of the Order in question. It's possible for reasonable people to disagree with the Trump administration's arguments, to be sure. But that's not justification for subverting the law, nor is it justification for the DoJ to undermine the president and prevent the executive branch from making a case for itself in the forthcoming judicial challenges, as Ms. Yates was doing. In a democracy, we implicitly accept that there will be some successes and some failures, and that we are bound to live under the laws we dislike as much as the laws we favor. If we lose mutual respect sufficient to live with those compromises, we are in big trouble.
    - davidw 10y ago
      There's both a religious test and no valid security argument. Absolutely none. https://twitter.com/FT/status/826470867945283584 https://twitter.com/FT/status/826470867945283584
      - cookiecaper 10y ago
        "A religious test" is an actual thing. Please refer to the full text of the EO [0] and let me know where a religious test for travelers is instituted. I am aware of the "religious minority" re-prioritization on the refugee program, but I'm not discussing that right now, I'm discussing the travel restrictions that people mean when they say "Muslim ban", not the re-prioritization of asylum requests that claim religious persecution (which doesn't really rise to the standard of a religious test IMO either, but neither here nor there right now). When I say valid, I mean that the argument as formed and asserted appears to be a real argument, not necessarily a correct one (which is a matter of subjective individual judgment). It's like code that will compile but not do what was intended. The room for disagreement is in whether or not the "program works without bugs" (the Executive Order achieves its intended purposes), not whether the "code compiles" (the argument formed is syntactically legal). I assert only the latter; the EO itself presents a "syntactically valid" argument, which one is free to agree or disagree with personally. This technical crap matters because it's relevant to the DoJ's obligations to represent and faithfully execute upon the legally-valid instructions of the executive branch, and because it's important to keep people from killing each other on the false belief that the republic is being subverted. [0] https://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2017/01/27/executive-order-protecting-nation-foreign-terrorist-entry-united-states https://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2017/01/27/execu...

cookiecaper 10y ago

>why do they need to halt immigration in this way while they review? Their theory is that travel needs to be temporarily halted to ensure that insufficient vetting procedures do not allow any terrorists to sneak in while the review is ongoing. You may agree or disagree that that's a real/substantial threat, but there is valid reasoning behind suspending travel.

davidw 10y ago
There isn't valid reasoning though: if you look at what actually kills people in the US, those people who get in after vetting pose virtually no threat. Toddlers with guns, and falling out of bed kill more Americans than people from those countries have in the US. It's a Muslim ban, plain and simple. It's not about our security.
- cookiecaper 10y ago
  As others have pointed out in this thread, if it's a "Muslim ban", it's a "Muslim ban" that bans less than 5% of the worldwide Muslim population, and leaves untouched the 5 countries with the largest Muslim populations. That doesn't sound like a very effective "Muslim ban" to me. Logically, when compared with what's actually happened, it makes much more sense to interpret Mr. Trump's comments that specifically mentioned barring Muslims from entering the U.S. as hyperbolic campaign statements. Whatever intentions you wish to thrust upon American officials, the fact is that the Order makes a valid security-based argument and contains no religious test. Those are the facts. We can't argue over the intentions of someone neither of us has ever met, but we can discuss the text of the Order in question. It's possible for reasonable people to disagree with the Trump administration's arguments, to be sure. But that's not justification for subverting the law, nor is it justification for the DoJ to undermine the president and prevent the executive branch from making a case for itself in the forthcoming judicial challenges, as Ms. Yates was doing. In a democracy, we implicitly accept that there will be some successes and some failures, and that we are bound to live under the laws we dislike as much as the laws we favor. If we lose mutual respect sufficient to live with those compromises, we are in big trouble.
  - davidw 10y ago
    There's both a religious test and no valid security argument. Absolutely none. https://twitter.com/FT/status/826470867945283584 https://twitter.com/FT/status/826470867945283584
    - cookiecaper 10y ago
      "A religious test" is an actual thing. Please refer to the full text of the EO [0] and let me know where a religious test for travelers is instituted. I am aware of the "religious minority" re-prioritization on the refugee program, but I'm not discussing that right now, I'm discussing the travel restrictions that people mean when they say "Muslim ban", not the re-prioritization of asylum requests that claim religious persecution (which doesn't really rise to the standard of a religious test IMO either, but neither here nor there right now). When I say valid, I mean that the argument as formed and asserted appears to be a real argument, not necessarily a correct one (which is a matter of subjective individual judgment). It's like code that will compile but not do what was intended. The room for disagreement is in whether or not the "program works without bugs" (the Executive Order achieves its intended purposes), not whether the "code compiles" (the argument formed is syntactically legal). I assert only the latter; the EO itself presents a "syntactically valid" argument, which one is free to agree or disagree with personally. This technical crap matters because it's relevant to the DoJ's obligations to represent and faithfully execute upon the legally-valid instructions of the executive branch, and because it's important to keep people from killing each other on the false belief that the republic is being subverted. [0] https://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2017/01/27/executive-order-protecting-nation-foreign-terrorist-entry-united-states https://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2017/01/27/execu...