A blunderbuss order sows confusion and a defeat in court.
Mr. Trump campaigned on a promise of “extreme vetting” for refugees from countries with a history of terrorism, and his focus on protecting Americans has popular support. But his refugee ban is so blunderbuss and broad, and so poorly explained and prepared for, that it has produced confusion and fear at airports, an immediate legal defeat, and political fury at home and abroad. Governing is more complicated than a campaign rally.
.. The President has wide discretion over refugee policies, and the overall Trump order is no doubt legal. But surely someone in the executive branch knew that anyone who touches down on U.S. soil is entitled to some due process before summary removal.
.. Opponents of the policy pounced to sue in several jurisdictions, and no fewer than four judges have rebuked the order in some way. One government lawyer who had to defend the White House position couldn’t explain why those detained were a security threat or why they weren’t at risk if they were sent back to their native countries.
.. But by suspending all entries from seven Muslim-majority nations, it lets the jihadists portray the order as applying to all Muslims even though it does not. The smarter play would have been simply to order more diligent screening without a blanket ban.
.. The order also fails to make explicit exceptions for Iraqis, Afghans and others who have fought side by side with Americans. These include translators and others who helped save American lives and whose own lives may now be at risk for assisting GIs.The U.S. will fight wars in foreign lands in the future, and we will need local allies who will be watching how we treat Iraqis, Kurds and other battle comrades now... The U.S. is in a long war with jihadists that is as much ideological as military. The U.S. needs Muslim allies, while the jihadists want to portray America as the enemy of all Muslims. Overly broad orders send the wrong signal to millions of Muslims who aren’t jihadists but who might be vulnerable to recruitment if they conclude the U.S. is at war with Islam, rather than with Islamist radicals.
Silicon Valley’s Ambivalence Toward Trump Turns to Anger
Sergey Brin, a Google founder who immigrated from the Soviet Union when he was 6, seemed to take that suggestion literally, attending an impromptu protest on Saturday evening at San Francisco International Airport. When some of the demonstrators realized that the 10th-richest man in America was with them, they asked for selfies. He good-naturedly obliged.
Sergey Brin, a Google founder who immigrated from the Soviet Union when he was 6, seemed to take that suggestion literally, attending an impromptu protest on Saturday evening at San Francisco International Airport. When some of the demonstrators realized that the 10th-richest man in America was with them, they asked for selfies. He good-naturedly obliged.
.. The tech companies’ reaction was more forceful than that of other industries. Just about everyone in Silicon Valley came from somewhere else or is a son or daughter of someone who did or is married to someone who did.
.. That list starts with the most famous Silicon Valley citizen of all: Steve Jobs, the Apple co-founder, whose biological father immigrated from Syria in 1954.
.. Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook’s chief executive, said that his great-grandparents had come from Germany, Austria and Poland and that the parents of his wife, Priscilla Chan, were refugees from China and Vietnam.
.. Stephen K. Bannon, his chief strategist, said in 2015 that “two-thirds or three-quarters of the C.E.O.s in Silicon Valley are from South Asia or from Asia,” an incorrect statement that many in Silicon Valley perceived as racist.
.. The larger tech companies tended to be less forceful in their reactions to the executive order than the smaller ones. Google said it was “concerned.” Apple said, “It is not a policy we support.” Amazon said only that it was committed to diversity. Oracle did not respond to requests for comment.
A ship full of refugees fleeing the Nazis once begged the U.S. for entry. They were turned back.
Nine hundred thirty-seven.
That was the number of passengers aboard the SS St. Louis, a German ocean liner that set off from Hamburg on May 13, 1939. Almost all of those sailing were Jewish people, desperate to escape the Third Reich. The destination was Havana, more than two weeks away by ship.
.. “Many Cubans resented the relatively large number of refugees (including 2,500 Jews), whom the government had already admitted into the country, because they appeared to be competitors for scarce jobs,” the museum noted. “Hostility toward immigrants fueled both antisemitism and xenophobia. Both agents of Nazi Germany and indigenous right-wing movements hyped the immigrant issue in their publications and demonstrations, claiming that incoming Jews were Communists.”
.. The “St. Louis Manifest” Twitter account, which gained more than 52,000 followers within two days, was the product of Russel Neiss, a Jewish activist and educator who used data from the Holocaust museum to build the bot.
.. The current situation in Syria is “probably the easiest example in the world today of people being massacred by a political tyrant,” Hathaway said. “That we would not read the tea leaves of history and understand that the people fleeing are the enemies of our enemy is beyond comprehension to me.”
What you need to know about the terrorist threat from foreigners and Trump’s executive order
The executive branch has broad discretion through this authority. In 2015, the Supreme Court ruled that the government can deny someone a visa on national security grounds without a specific reason.
Interestingly, it was a fear of communists that drove Congress to give this power to the president more than six decades ago. President Harry S. Truman vetoed the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1952 — and in a lengthy statement, he cited concerns about broad powers being granted to the executive branch, even to “minor immigration and consular officials.”
.. Truman wrote in his veto statement: It repudiates our basic religious concepts, our belief in the brotherhood of man, and in the words of St. Paul that “there is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither bond nor free …. for ye are all one in Christ Jesus.”
But Congress overrode Truman with a bipartisan veto-proof majority.
.. Of about 400 individuals charged with or credibly involved in jihad-inspired activity in the U.S. since 9/11, just under half (197) were U.S.-born citizens, according to research by the nonpartisan think tank New America Foundation. An additional 82 were naturalized citizens, and 44 were permanent residents.
“Far from being foreign infiltrators, the large majority of jihadist terrorists in the United States have been American citizens or legal residents. Moreover, while a range of citizenship statuses are represented, every jihadist who conducted a lethal attack inside the United States since 9/11 was a citizen or legal resident.
.. Trump’s executive order applies to migrants, refugees and U.S. green-card holders from seven countries: Iraq, Iran, Sudan, Somalia, Syria, Libya and Yemen. That means the order would not have prevented some of the most high-profile terrorist attacks by individuals from countries excluded from that list, including the 9/11 hijackers, the San Bernardino attackers and the Boston Marathon bombers.
.. “The threat to the U.S. homeland from refugees has been relatively low. Almost none of the major terrorist plots since 9/11 have involved refugees. Even in those cases where refugees were arrested on terrorism-related charges, years and even decades often transpired between their entry into the United States and their involvement in terrorism. In most instances, a would-be terrorist’s refugee status had little or nothing to do with their radicalization and shift to terrorism.”
