Immigration

[JTA]

Calls to ban Muslims from entering the U.S. are offensive and unconstitutional.
— Governor Mike Pence (@GovPenceIN) December 8, 2015

To be fair (and for the record I don't agree with Trump's EO), it doesn't encompass the entire Muslim world. Places like Saudi Arabia, Indonesia, Malaysia, Pakistan, and Egypt to name a few aren't affected, all of which contain a huge amount of Muslims. It just seems disingenuous to claim it's a Muslim ban, as I've seen in some headlines.

[Vrede too]

Well, it is a ban imposed entirely on Muslim nations, and Trump has already said that Christians from those nations will be allowed in. As long as no one claims that it's a ban on all Muslims, I'm okay with the headlines.

Your mention of Saudi Arabia's exclusion is interesting. The EO cites 9/11, yet 15 of the 19 terrorists were citizens of Saudi Arabia. The others were from the United Arab Emirates (2), Egypt and Lebanon.

[JTA]

Well, it is a ban imposed entirely on Muslim nations, and Trump has already said that Christians from those nations will be allowed in. As long as no one claims that it's a ban on all Muslims, I'm okay with the headlines.

Your mention of Saudi Arabia's exclusion is interesting. The EO cites 9/11, yet 15 of the 19 terrorists were citizens of Saudi Arabia. The others were from the United Arab Emirates (2), Egypt and Lebanon.

Yeah I see your point. Agreed.

[billy.pilgrim]

Well, it is a ban imposed entirely on Muslim nations, and Trump has already said that Christians from those nations will be allowed in. As long as no one claims that it's a ban on all Muslims, I'm okay with the headlines.

Your mention of Saudi Arabia's exclusion is interesting. The EO cites 9/11, yet 15 of the 19 terrorists were citizens of Saudi Arabia. The others were from the United Arab Emirates (2), Egypt and Lebanon.

Yeah I see your point. Agreed.

Countries where he is doing trump business were the ones excluded

Didn't the shooters in San Bernardino come from Turkey

Turkey, Egypt and Saudi Arabia all have big trump projects

All were excluded

[Vrede too]

... Your mention of Saudi Arabia's exclusion is interesting. The EO cites 9/11, yet 15 of the 19 terrorists were citizens of Saudi Arabia. The others were from the United Arab Emirates (2), Egypt and Lebanon.

None of these countries are on Trump's list, nor is Afghanistan where the 9/11 terrorists were trained and led from. In fact, the TV news said there's never been a US domestic terror attack that originated in Sudan, Syria, Yemen, Iran, Iraq, Libya or Somalia.

... Didn't the shooters in San Bernardino come from Turkey ...

Rizwan Farook and Tashfeen Malik

Rizwan Farook

Farook was born in Chicago, Illinois, and was a U.S. citizen at the time of the attack. His parents had immigrated from Pakistan.

Tashfeen Malik

Malik was born in Pakistan but lived most of her life in Saudi Arabia.

Pakistan is also not on Trump's list.

[rstrong]

Just some added context on how badly Trump has fucked over the Syrian refugees:

Naturally there's an outcry in Canada to do everything we can to take in the Syrian refugees that Trump has blocked. But it turns out that under the 2004 Canada-US Safe Third Country Agreement, refugees that are turned away from the US are not allowed to seek entry into Canada. I expect there are similar agreements with other countries too.

Canadians are being urged to write or call our Minister of Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship* to ask him to tear up the agreement.

* Who BTW, is a dual Somalian-Canadian citizen and can no longer travel to the United States.

[rstrong]

Latest Trump Tweet: Christians in the Middle-East have been executed in large numbers. We cannot allow this horror to continue!

Yeah, nice timing. Hours after you blocked them from fleeing as refugees to the US and elsewhere.

[Mr.B]

Latest Trump Tweet: "Christians in the Middle-East have been executed in large numbers. We cannot allow this horror to continue!"
"Yeah, nice timing. Hours after you blocked them from fleeing as refugees to the US and elsewhere."

Many of these refugees are Christians in their worship beliefs; not all citizens of Middle Eastern countries adhere to Islam.

I said before that Trump was not the brightest bulb on the Christmas tree....
I hate to grovel, but I have to concede with Boatrocker's "I told you so"...

He's like a kid with a new toy; the head of the highest office in the land. Also, I said before that I believe he feels he's gotten everything he's ever wanted in life; the presidency is the ultimate feather in his cap.

[Vrede too]

Just some added context on how badly Trump has fucked over the Syrian refugees:

Naturally there's an outcry in Canada to do everything we can to take in the Syrian refugees that Trump has blocked. But it turns out that under the 2004 Canada-US Safe Third Country Agreement, refugees that are turned away from the US are not allowed to seek entry into Canada. I expect there are similar agreements with other countries too.

Canadians are being urged to write or call our Minister of Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship* to ask him to tear up the agreement.

* Who BTW, is a dual Somalian-Canadian citizen and can no longer travel to the United States.

To: Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and Minister of Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Ahmed Hussen

Tell Trudeau: Welcome Those Fleeing Violence and Deportation Under Trump

Done, thanks. 22,660 signers so far.

Latest Trump Tweet: Christians in the Middle-East have been executed in large numbers. We cannot allow this horror to continue!

Yeah, nice timing. Hours after you blocked them from fleeing as refugees to the US and elsewhere.

Well, it is a ban imposed entirely on Muslim nations, and Trump has already said that Christians from those nations will be allowed in....

Of course, this is patently unconstitutional. While banning people based on national origin is sketchy, admitting people based on religion clearly violates the Establishment Clause. Otoh, courts give POTUSes wide latitude when it's about "national security". We'll see. So far, 3 separate injunctions against the EO have been granted by 3 separate judges.

[rstrong]

Trump has banned everyone from those countries, Christian and Muslim alike.

So far, 3 separate injunctions against the EO have been granted by 3 separate judges.

Four, as I understand it. Interestingly, all four judges were women.

Trump has already declared the mainstream media to be the "opposition party." Given the events of just his first week in office - let alone his own misogyny before - it looks like women may be declared another "opposition party."

[Vrede too]

I'll be upping my contribution to ACLU. They're going to need all the help they can get.

ACLU says it raised $10 million since Saturday

The American Civil Liberties Union says it has raised over $10 million since Saturday morning and gotten over 150,000 new members in what the group’s executive director calls an “unprecedented” response to President Trump’s executive order blocking entry into the United States from citizens of seven predominantly Muslim countries.

“I’ve never seen anything like this,” Anthony Romero, executive director of the civil liberties group, told Yahoo News in a telephone interview. “People are fired up and want to be engaged. What we’ve seen is an unprecedented public reaction to the challenges of the Trump administration.”

... Overall, the group’s membership has more than doubled since the November election, jumping from about 400,000 to over 1 million, he said....

Even if one supports what Trump wants to do, he sure sucks at doing it.

One factor clearly helping the group is what appears to be confusion and disarray within the Trump administration and the departments charged with carrying out the executive order. Romero noted that during the hearing leading up to the stay, the assistant U.S. attorney charged with defending the Trump administration’s position had to defer to a Customs and Border Patrol official, on the phone, to answer the judge’s questions about how the order was being implemented. Key issues — such as whether it would apply to legal residents with green cards — were unclear and prompted contradictory responses from administration officials.

“It was Keystone Cops-like,” Romero said. “Clearly, they didn’t have their act together.” (“As far as green-card holders going forward, it doesn’t affect them,” Trump’s chief of staff, Reince Priebus, said on NBC News’s “Meet the Press,” contradicting what government officials had said only a day earlier.) ...

[Vrede too]

Trump has banned everyone from those countries, Christian and Muslim alike....

True, but he's said that will somehow change. For now, though, he has indeed screwed Christian immigrants, refugees, legal visitors and legal residents.

[Vrede too]

Ivanka Trump Posts Photo of Date Outfit in Midst of Humanitarian Chaos

the point is: hypocrisy, ignorance, stupidity, and twitter head aches.

Who wore it better?

This picture makes me think of a quote "let them eat cake" right?

"Sure, my dad and his goons are literally setting the country on fire but LOOK AT MY STUPID DRESS!"

[Vrede too]

Simon Helberg and Wife Protest Trump’s Refugee Ban at SAG Awards: ‘Let Them In’



Fwiw, Simon Helberg is a Jew in real life as well as playing one on BBT. We're gonna see a lot of this. Some Jews are pro Zionist Israel and anti Muslim no matter what. Others know instinctively what it's like to be the hated minority, how evil neofascists like Bannon and Trump are, and what happens when refugees are denied.

Jewish groups add their voices to protest immigration ban

... That the executive order had been issued on a day when the Jewish survivors of the Holocaust and their descendants marked International Holocaust Remembrance Day intensified the outrage, as the vast majority of Jewish families originally came to the United States as refugees from religious persecution.

“The fact that President Trump’s order appears designed to specifically limit the entry of Muslims evokes horrible memories among American Jews of the shameful period leading up to World War II, when the United States failed to provide a safe haven for the vast majority of Jews in Europe trying to escape Nazi persecution,” the progressive pro-Israel group J Street said in a statement Friday. “President Trump’s decision to suspend the U.S. refugee program is a profound affront to our values as Americans and as Jews.”

Rabbi Rick Jacobs, president of the Union for Reform Judaism, went even further in a Saturday evening tweet, writing, “Yesterday’s EO will be remembered with Dred Scott and WWII internment of Japanese Americans as gov actions most antithetical to Amer. Values.”

Rebecca Vilkomerson, executive director of Jewish Voice for Peace, called the executive order “a travesty” and vowed to “resist” it directly.

“Turning away refugees and immigrants seeking safety and opportunity goes against all of our basic values,” she said from John F. Kennedy International Airport, where she had come together with thousands of New Yorkers in a flash protest Saturday evening. “These policies will tear apart lives, families and communities. People’s lives are at stake. We pledge to do everything to protect and defend people’s rights and call on our elected officials to do the same.”

Also planning to speak at the Kennedy International Airport protest were representatives for Jews for Racial & Economic Justice.

“History will look back on this order as a sad moment in American history — the time when the president turned his back on people fleeing for their lives,” said Anti-Defamation League CEO Jonathan A. Greenblatt in a statement on the refugee order Friday. “For the Sunni family whose son languishes in prison in Iran because of his faith, for the former Army translator in Iraq who has been threatened because of his service, LGBT youth in Yemen terrorized because of their sexual orientation or gender identity, for the widows and orphans caught between the barrel bombs of [Bashar] Assad’s regime and the unparalleled brutality of ISIS, this executive order could very well be a death sentence.” ...

In just one week Bannon/Trump/Giuliani have managed to generate enormous sympathy for Muslims and massively ramp up the energy level of the already sympathetic, all while harming our national security far more than protecting it. Smart.

Pat Tillman's widow:

[Mr.B]

Two arrested in Quebec mosque shooting

But...but...but....that's in CANADA!

[rstrong]

Two arrested in Quebec mosque shooting

But...but...but....that's in CANADA!

And? We live next to a country with a "gun in every school locker" policy. When someone is killed by a gun in Canada, the gun is inevitably traced back to the US having been smuggled into Canada.

It's also Quebec, where the separatist ruling party did its best to harness anti-Muslim demagoguery during the last election. They tried to pass a law banning all but "traditional" religious symbols in government workplaces. (In other words banning Muslim, Hindu and Sikh symbols while still allowing Christian symbols.) The idea was to force Ottawa to declare it unconstitutional, so that the Parti Québécois could scream and rant about Ottawa dictating policy to Quebec. The year before there was some kind of silly claim that wealthy Muslim men were taking over swimming pools.

In defense of the people of Quebec, both incidents backfired badly on the Parti Québécois. But while smaller than Trump's, Quebec's alt-right is very real and has been around for a long time. Usually they're focused against English speakers, but the Parti Québécois and Trump have given them a new target.

[Vrede too]

Of course, Mr.B's own link explains a lot of that. Mr.B is an idiot, again. Here's more:

Inside Quebec's far right: Where do Quebec's extremist groups fit in?
How does the far right in Quebec compare with other iterations of the global neo-nationalist movement?

Also, Mr.B wouldn't be so flip if it had been Christians slaughtered while praying in church, that's how bigoted, heartless and lacking in "Christian compassion" he is. I'm sorry for your country's pain tonight, rstrong.

That said, while anti-Muslim terrorism seems likely in today's mosque attack, I haven't seen it confirmed yet. Could possibly be something else.

[Vrede too]

Even if one supports what Trump wants to do, he sure sucks at doing it.

Trump Bows to (4) Judges’ Orders on Muslim Travel Ban in Defiantly Worded Statement

[rstrong]

I'm sorry for your country's pain tonight, rstrong.

Thanks.

Waiting to see who the cowards are.

[Vrede too]

Syrian Refugees in the United States

In response to the civil war in Syria that began in 2011 and has resulted in the displacement of more than 11 million people within and beyond the country’s borders, the United States in 2015 began to accept for resettlement significantly more Syrian refugees than ever before. The Obama administration surpassed its goal of admitting 10,000 Syrians via the refugee resettlement program in fiscal year (FY) 2016, up from just 36 in FY 2013 (see Figure 1). In total, 18,007 Syrian refugees were resettled in the United States between October 1, 2011 and December 31, 2016.

Internationally, close to 4.9 million Syrians had been registered as refugees as of early January; the vast majority are in first-asylum countries such as Turkey, Lebanon, Jordan, and Iraq; only a fraction are likely to ever be permanently resettled. Facing dim resettlement prospects and eager to establish new lives, nearly 900,000 Syrians have headed to Europe and filed asylum claims there since the war began.

Beyond the United States, a small number of countries have accepted Syrian refugees through their resettlement programs, most notably Canada, which took in close to 40,000 Syrians between November 2015 and December 2016. Since 2013, Germany has admitted about 41,000 displaced Syrians who were living in Syria or a first-asylum country in the region via a humanitarian admissions program.

The Obama administration, which raised the overall refugee ceiling in FY 2016 to 85,000 (up from 70,000 the year before), announced an increase to 110,000 in FY 2017 to respond to the unprecedented global humanitarian burden. While a formal target for Syrians was not set for FY 2017, it is anticipated they would receive more than 12,500 of the overall places. With the administration ending less than four months into the fiscal year and with President-elect Donald Trump having pledged to suspend Syrian refugee admissions, it remains unclear whether the FY 2017 resettlement pledges will be met.

It is worth noting that although Syrian refugees represent a new flow to the United States, the broader Syrian immigrant community, while quite small in size, has had a U.S. presence since the late 19th century. As of 2015, approximately 83,000 people born in Syria resided in the United States, accounting for less than 0.2 percent of the overall foreign-born population of 43.3 million. It is also well integrated, with Syrian immigrants having higher levels of education and English proficiency than the overall foreign-born population....

Syrian refugees admitted between October 1, 2011 and December 31, 2016 were placed across the United States and their distribution was more spread out than the overall Syrian immigrant population (see Figure 2). California, Michigan, and Texas received the most Syrian refugees during this period, together accounting for 30 percent of the 18,007 total (California and Michigan with 11 percent each of all Syrian refugees, and Texas with 8 percent). In contrast, the broader Syrian immigrant population was more concentrated, with nearly 31 percent residing in California in 2015, followed by Michigan (9 percent) and Texas (7 percent).

After terrorist attacks in Paris in December 2015 and elsewhere in 2016, 31 U.S. governors issued statements opposing the resettlement of Syrian refugees in their states. Several states initiated legal challenges to the placement of Syrians; none have prevailed to date and voluntary organizations working with the U.S. government continue to resettle refugees across the United States.

The vast majority of the 31 states opposing Syrian refugee arrivals had received scant numbers more than one year into the process of increased Syrian resettlement. Three states—Alabama, Mississippi, and Wyoming—had received no Syrian refugees as of the end of 2016; ten states (Arkansas, Kansas, Louisiana, Maine, New Hampshire, New Mexico, North Dakota, Oklahoma, South Carolina, and South Dakota) had gotten fewer than 100; and nine states (Idaho, Indiana, Iowa, Massachusetts, Nebraska, Nevada, New Jersey, Tennessee, and Wisconsin) were the destination for between 100 and 500. Just four states had received more than 1,000 Syrian refugees, with Michigan the destination for 1,950 to date, followed by Texas (1,364), Arizona (1,149), and Illinois (1,059). Notably, Texas, Michigan, Arizona, and Illinois are traditionally major refugee resettlement states, receiving 24 percent of all 378,750 refugees admitted to the United States between October 1, 2011 and December 31, 2016, and have strong infrastructure to serve these refugees....

Relatively, NC isn't bad at 500-999:

Figure 2. Syrian Refugees Resettled in the United States by State, FY 2012-17*



Table 2. Age Distribution of Syrian Refugees Resettled Since October 2011 and Comparison with Overall Immigrant and Native-Born Populations



Nearly half are under 14 years old and nearly 2/3 are under 20 or over 50.