Many of you are probably watching the horror show unfold and wondering what tangible thing you can do. Joining or contributing to the ACLU is one small but important, specific way to help: https://action.aclu.org/secure/become-freedom-fighter-join-a....
As a PR in the process of obtaining citizenship, a small fear of mine is that USCIS will start penalizing applicants that support organizations opposed to Trump. Today just proved that anything is possible and I'm sure we've all seen the stories about CBP asking to see the social media feeds of travelers in the past.
I've been considering donating but never had until just now. I was going to give $10/mo but kicked it up to $15/mo on your behalf so you don't have to worry about donating yourself and experiencing negative consequences as a result. Good luck on obtaining your citizenship.
I was thinking the same thing. One obvious thing to do is not claim it as a tax deductible donation, since it will go into federal records, which is easily accessed by law enforcement. Getting your past credit card statements may require one more hoop to jump through for them.
Gosh.. how far have we fallen that we are seriously discussing this?
Just as an FYI, donations to the ACLU Foundation (which have somewhat more limited uses -- no lobbying, but still support litigation and other functions -- but still support the broad mission) are tax deductible.
But at https://action.aclu.org/donate-aclu it should perhaps say that, after "Contributions to the American Civil Liberties Union are not tax deductible."
ACLU and ACLUF are different organizations. ACLU can lobby and donate to politicians, which is what makes them not tax deductible. ACLUF puts restrictions on where the money can go but has tax deductible donations.
Right. And ACLU can litigate. I used to donate to a litigation fund, and donor names were published. But I've never heard about that for ACLU. I wonder what was different about that litigation fund.
It looks like you can donate by check: https://www.aclu.org/how-you-can-help, but I don't see an option for cash or Bitcoin. I suppose it could be possible to donate cash in person at one of their physical offices
The best option is to give a friend you trust cash. They, in turn can donate by proxy and that is basically how Citizens United works so it should be safe enough.
There isn't really a good way to do it on your own unfortunately.
I really hope someone from ACLU is listening in this thread and doing something about taking anonymous donations (can they even?). This is a genuine fear that many of us non-citizens have.
The ACLU has been demonized and criminalized by the right for generations. IIRC, during the McCarthy witch hunts, being an ACLU member made one suspect.
It also depends where you are, for example in New York City or in rural Texas. I heard someone tell the story that in the 1950s or 60s in a small town in the the Eastern U.S., they subscribed to the New Republic and a similar magazine using a neighbor's address so that the postman wouldn't report them.
We have the NRA to protect the 2nd amendment. The ACLU can focus on the other ones. There's no need to try and put it all under one tent: a lot of the pro 2nd amendment folks would not be happy supporting the other things ACLU fights for (separation of church and state, etc.)
Nothing precludes you from being a member of both.
I'm not sure what that has to do with criminalizing them; is that somehow illegal? By the way, an interesting website you cited. Here are the top headlines on the front page:
* Trump’s Ban of Refugees from Terror-Prone Countries Not Comparable to Holocaust
* USA Today Distorts Truth To Make Hero Gun Owner Look Bad
* STUDY: About 800,000 Non-citizens Voted for Hillary in 2016 Election
The ACLU undeniably supports Second Amendment rights. They do disagree with the Heller decision, but they don't actively oppose it. They do support the same fundamental argument behind the Miller decision that is cited by gun owners as a pro-gun rights position[0].
In their own words, they tend not to take Second Amendment cases because those are already handled by many other, much more well-funded organizations. Whereas the ACLU spends a lot of its money on causes that aren't supported by as many other groups.
[0] The Miller decision is cited by both gun rights advocates and gun control advocates for different reasons, but the part of the Miller decision from which the ACLU derives its own position is one which is fundamentally supported by gun rights advocates - the ACLU just happens to take a less expansive view of that decision.
I agree the argument upthread is weak, but your defense of the ACLU is kinda weak, too.
The ACLU's official legal stance on the 2nd Amendment is that it protects a collective right, not an individual right. And that collective right is, as a practical matter, reposed with the state. See https://www.aclu.org/other/second-amendment
In other words, the ACLU sees the 2nd Amendment as a states' rights issue. But we we all know that states' rights is a loaded term in American political discourse. It was originally coined to defend Federal laws which affirmed property interests in slaves traveling in Northern states. In other words, the issue of the day was the slave holding states' rights to pass laws defending the property rights of its slave holders. And the argument was that if those property laws could be ignored once a slave fled to a non-slave state, it effectively diminished states' rights to protect the interests of its citizens (i.e. property interests in slaves).
The biggest reason why the ACLU takes the legal stance it does is because many of its supporters support a so-called right to be free of violent crime. In particular, that means the right of local communities suffering from criminal gun violence to pass laws restricting gun rights. Initially that was a round-about way of referring to black, inner-city communities, but with the increasing attention given to gun massacres in predominantly white, suburban, areas, that "right to be free of violent crime" has become more inconclusive.
It's important to understand as a legal matter the ACLU's stance effectively advances a states' rights argument, albeit in a narrow circumstance. However, their policy explanation for why they're doing that is couched in terms of what's effectively an individual right, specifically the right to be free of gun crime.
The policy justification is arguably consistent with the ACLU's usual focus on human rights matters, but also rather inconsistent from a legal perspective in that the concept of a right to be free of [gun] crime as an excuse to limit others freedom is quite tortured. The history regarding states' rights issues, and the perpetual discriminatory treatment of minorities--specifically black minorities--by states that traditionally defend gun rights adds several layers of complexity. That complexity is important and relevant, but it doesn't justify the tortured conceptual logic of the ACLU's policy reasoning.
From a purely textual and historical perspective I think it's pretty much beyond dispute that the 2nd Amendment was about preservation of states' powers to regulate (or not regulate) guns. Many state constitutions had clauses that specifically framed it as an individual right. So, yes, gun rights were often and widely seen as an individual right in some places. But the Federal constitution was almost exclusively focused on defining the limits of when and how federal legislative powers trumped state legislative powers. So while the federal government couldn't pass laws abridging political speech, states were free to do exactly that for 150 years. That's why the 1st Amendment isn't couched in terms of an individual right, but in terms of restricting federal powers--... shall make no law ... abridging the freedom of speech. That's because the real issue of the day was whether the federal government could pass laws that interfered with state laws protecting _or_ restricting behavior. It's only where the Federal government was expected to have a direct and necessary relationship with an individual person (eminent domain, search & seizure, trial) where things are framed as individual, inalienable rights.
This was especially important in matters of gun rights. Because the federal government had ultimate authority to command state militias, states were afraid the federal government would limit their ability to defend themselves. The right of a state to defend itself basically boils down to the ability to prevent and suppress insurrections and rebellions, especially but not exclusively slave rebellions. Controlling that meant states needed the freedom to both protect the gun rights of some people, but also to limit the gun rights of other people, and to generally regulate guns however they saw fit. Different states might have wildly differing laws based on their circumstance. (You can sort of see how that fits the ACLU's logic of freedom from crime, but the perspective is still different--securing a state's regulatory power vs focusing on a very specific, individual "right".
But after the Civil War, and in particular the passage of the 13th and 14th Amendments, there began a shift of using Federal constitutional laws to limit both federal and state powers, and thus a shift toward emphasizing particular individual rights. Remember, the inalienable rights Jefferson mentioned in the Declaration of Independence were vague--life, liberty, and happiness. The next sentence says that the way to secure those vague rights was by securing the ability of men to govern themselves. It's a defense of democracy. It doesn't proscribe rules for limiting government power; on the contrary it affirms the power and legitimacy of self government to contravene pre-existing laws and limitations in order to secure individual rights as they saw fit. And in the context of a federal government, the highest concern was preserving the power of those individual state governments to address liberty issues as they best saw fit.
The Civil War finally proved how limiting that conception of government was in actuality, even though it was long theoretically understood. It proved that even well-governed democracies were prone to act in a tyrannical manner even despite their own laws. (The 14th Amendment secures the right to equal protection of the laws.) The nation wasn't yet prepared to tackle that dilemma until it became an existential issue 80 years later. But the point is, you can't read the Federal constitution in terms of individual rights. Little of the original text makes sense from that perspective. But neither can you understand and explain subsequent legal and political reasoning, and the evolution of that reasoning, without understanding the complete history.
First, I appreciate the time you took to write a thoughtful response.
Second, I wouldn't really say I'm defending the ACLU here - namely because I disagree with their stance. I won't go into why I disagree, because it's not relevant, but the point of my comment was to point out that the original argument (which comes from an incredibly right-wing website - just take a look at the front page) overstates the case that the ACLU is anti-gun.
But finally - the 'states rights' aspect of it is more complicated. The ACLU, I'll point out, doesn't use the term "states rights" (which I agree is a dog-whistle term). They refer to the right being held by the state, but unlike the specific term "states rights", that's not always a coded concept.
And I think the thing that's missing in your argument is the basic fact of where the topic of gun control actually arose in US public discourse. You do allude to it here:
> Initially that was a round-about way of referring to black, inner-city communities, but with the increasing attention given to gun massacres in predominantly white, suburban, areas, that "right to be free of violent crime" has become more inconclusive.
Simply put: gun control was not a mainstream issue until black Americans[0] started arming themselves in large numbers and (importantly) in an organized manner. That was the tipping point that brought gun control into mainstream attention, and the early organized anti-gun groups had a very noticeable (albeit coded - not always explicit) anti-black agenda.
[0] Not just the Black Panthers - even Martin Luther King Jr. was a very adamant gun owner.
Today federalism connotes an emphasis on limiting the powers of the federal government in favor of state and individual rights. Thus, the Federalist Society is a libertarian leaning political and legal membership association that promotes less regulation, and in particular emphasizes a diminishment of federal regulatory powers.
So federalist would, I think, be appropriate today. The Federalist Society is hardly non-partisan, but the terms federalist and federalism haven't [yet] become associated with any partisan political ideology. And the Federalist Society is still quite respectable, IMO. They largely maintain an earnest and honest legal and scholarly discourse, unlike many other right- and left-leaning political associations today.
> the Federalist Society is a libertarian leaning ...
The Federalist Society is establishment, movement arch-conservative. They are the legal wing of the elite, establishment conservative movement, with several Supreme Court Justices as members. If you look at the list of members here, you will see it is not libertarian or libertarian-leaning:
The federalist society and their website's published opinions look to be to be doctrainaire right wing conservatives. If you look at the about us entry of their webpage, it says individual liberty and traditional values and the rule of law.
But from the perspective of gun owners a collective/state right isn't comparable to an individual right.
Decades ago the ACLU was quite anti-gun. The only reason they got roped into the gun debate (something of a pointless distraction for them) is because of their work with minority communities, their work in helping them deal with the consequences of increasing violent crime during the 1970s and 1980s, and in particular their help in strategizing responses to state and federal laws that they thought were causative or contributive factors of that crime. The ACLU began to believe that equality couldn't be promoted merely by defending the existing panoply of liberties; that to defend civil liberties you had to arm communities with new legal tools to fight what were perceived as biased and oppressive behavior maintained in the guise of equality and liberty. (Just like the original function of the states' rights debate was to protect slavery by appeal to notions of liberty.) And part of that biased behavior was state governments ignoring the plight of some black communities wrt to gun regulation. (As you alluded to, the the prejudice is laid bare by the fact that many of same people and institutions that are today rabidly anti-gun regulation were previously very much pro-gun regulation at the height of and in direct response to the Black Panthers and black power movements, and in particular the movements for them to become armed.)
From the the ACLU's perspective, smart gun regulations could help reduce crime without imposing any undue constraints on legitimate uses of guns. The ACLU and their supporters' notions of legitimate use are clearly in opposition to that of many gun rights proponents--at least the vocal ones who managed to define the debate.
So early on the ACLU provided assistance to communities and legislators writing laws which restricted gun use. And they weren't doing it out of concern about the breadth of those laws. Rather they did so to try to make them as broad as legally and politically possible. It would be sort of like the ACLU not only defending the KKK in a free speech law suit, but helping them write their propaganda. The former defends a principle, the latter is difficult to defend by saying you're just helping them to stay within the bounds of the law.
After the conservative movement gained steamed during the 1980s and 1990s, and after it thoroughly internalized the values and legal reasoning of the rabidly pro-gun rights movement, the ACLU began to see the writing on the wall. It also helped that there always existed conflict internally about their choice to take an official legal stance and to inject itself into the debate at the cost of considerable political capital on other issues. So the past 10 or so years has seen an unwinding of the ACLUs stance and remediation of the trouble it has caused them. That unwinding includes cooperation with the NRA on blocking some federal regulations. It was a very strategic assistance, though perhaps I'm being overly cynical. But from what little I've read internally it created some serious discord because a large contingent of support inside and outside the ACLU comes from the social justice movement, for which gun regulation is a huge issue.
In the next few years don't be surprised if they just silently move away from the issue altogether. I doubt they'll ever affirm an individual right, but they don't have to affirm it. The whole issue was always a distraction from more pressing and important work. Gun violence is a real problem, but it's not something the ACLU is well-situated in any shape or form to help deal with. Better to stop antagonizing guns rights activists, especially when it feeds political divisiveness at at moment when they need all the cooperation they can find fighting for voting rights. And the focus on voting will rightly serve as a distraction for the powerful interests that kept the ACLU in the gun debate for so long.
Plus, the debate is largely over. The law of the land is that gun rights are an individual right under the Federal constitution. End of story. I may disagree with their historical reasoning and some of their legal justification, but I accept that their decision provided finality to both the legal and and political debate. There are alot of unanswered questions, but I don't think they'll be at all consequential.
And for the record, I'm not anti-gun. I'm not afraid of guns. I've shot plenty of guns, including machine guns. I'm comfortable around guns. I'd like to see more open carry and less concealed carry. IMO too many politically left-leaning people have an irrational fear of guns. And while I don't deny that gun regulation could and arguably has limited crime in some countries, I don't think it would be particularly effective nor viable in the U.S. Our gun culture is too strong to make it politically viable, and our society is too violent (criminals and police) for it to really have any effect on street level violence. More regulation won't make the violence go away. What will almost certainly make it go away is less regulation of drugs. I'm not pro-drug, either, but I'll take stepping over more passed out heroin users on the streets than having to worry about dodging bullets. I'd prefer neither, but you can't have everything.
First, I appreciate your nuanced response about the ACLU.
> IMO too many politically left-leaning people have an irrational fear of guns.
The fact that you could place the word 'irrational' in front of 'fear of guns' at all, says a lot to me about your views. I don't think I would ever mistake you for anti-gun.
As someone who is from a rural area, has also shot plenty of guns (many if not most of them assault weapons), and leans left politically; I would disagree with the assumption that more regulation would not be effective or viable in the US. It has been shown many times that a majority of gun owners[1] (and an overwhelming majority of Americans in general) support universal background checks, it's mostly only the gun lobby that keeps it from happening.
You're never going to make all the violence go away. And I agree that changing how we deal with drugs may well make a bigger difference than gun control. However, it's hard for me to come up with an argument that justifies the right of every citizen to own and carry an assault weapon. And while a total ban on all assault weapons may be extreme, I think it's hard to believe that it wouldn't result in a reduction in homicides, not to mention mass shootings where the body counts would be much lower. Gun culture too strong? We're just too violent? If this was the case you would think we wouldn't need a huge gun lobby spending millions of dollars every year to fight sensible restrictions.
The Drug War didn't work out so well. It not only didn't stop the spread of drugs, it exacerbated the problem. It made it more violent.
I'm not saying that prohibition is never a useful tool. It often is. I just don't see gun regulations lessening the problem of criminal gun violence in the American context.
There are already too many guns in this country floating around, and the ones used for criminal violations are already possessed illegally. It'd be like banning cocaine when every household in the country already has a magically self-replenishing stash. Because gun rights are firmly established--before but especially after the Heller--you'll never be able to suppress either guns or ammunition to the point where either becomes sufficiently cost-prohibitive to criminals. It's not exactly cheap now anyhow. Even handguns aren't as easy to acquire on the black market as people think, let alone assault weapons. And a black man carrying an illegal gun is basically begging for life imprisonment whether or not he ever uses it to directly hurt or even threaten someone. Yet there's plenty of people running around with illegal guns, not so much because they're easy to acquire so much as because that's the culture--that's the flip side to our obsession with gun ownership, legal or otherwise. It was always that way. Most recently we mythologized it in the Western, but it's a rare area where the brutality of the fictional imagining was less than the reality. People in this country have always been shooting each other, especially the criminals. But even when they were legal we never had had problem with military-type assault weapons, with the exception of organized crime during prohibition.
(Anyhow, I'm not saying I support allowing everybody to buy assault weapons. My point is regulation should be less of an emphasis.)
We're less violent today than we were 100 years ago, but that's not because of gun regulation. It's because people naturally moved away from it, just like people are naturally moving away from smoking. Government policies coaxed the move away from smoking with public bans and taxation. Importantly, that helped shift the culture. But nobody ever once challenged an individual's right to smoke.
We can fight the gun culture and the culture of violence without having to antagonize what are entrenched and powerful political movements. Regulation isn't even the best approach, IMO.
I think gun regulation could have a very real effect on massacres. But those numbers, while tragic, are too small. It's sickening to say, but those tragedies can't sustain the political will necessary to impose stricter laws. And in any event, the prevalence of people with mental health disorders using guns is a reflection of our gun culture. I think this is one area where violence in movies and video games truly matters. But, again, the body count isn't big enough to sustain such regulation, and such content regulation raises even bigger constitutional issues.
Relatedly, guns are a big factor in suicide in this country. Stricter regulation might actually have a very real impact there, substantially reducing body count. But it might not. What's the degree to which guns are causative? I'm amenable to accepting, in light of the preliminary evidence, that it's high degree. But the sad fact of the matter is that in our culture there's little sympathy for white men committing suicide when their own hand guns. Again, I don't see the political will capable of sustaining meaningfully effective regulation. You can't substantially address the suicide issue without restricting private ownership of handguns in your own home. Assault weapons are feasible; it's no more possible to substantially restrict handguns in homes than it is reviving slavery. Mental health checks don't help very much because we're all prone to depression, and at times far removed from when the weapons are acquired.
Regarding some liberal-leaning people being irrationally afraid of guns: I don't think it's contentious that many people unaccustomed to guns are reflexively and viscerally fearful around guns and suspicious of anyone not in a position of authority carrying a gun. Just look at the responses of people in suburban coffee shops when people carry openly, or the public commentary discussing those incidents.
I get why they're fearful. They should be to some extent. But those same people will step in front of a car while staring at their iPhone while crossing the street. Sometimes they don't have the right of way. Even if they do, sometimes the car hasn't come to a complete stop. I don't know about you, but I never walk into the path of a car until it's going slow enough that I feel I could dodge it if the driver never stopped. In downtown areas with lots of pedestrians that I might have push through, that means I don't leave the curb until every car has come to a complete stop. But few people take that very reasonable precaution. (It's a tiny risk, but an extra second of standing costs me almost nothing, and it's one of the few risks you can so easily control.) While it's not per se irrational to make a different calculation, it is irrational to be more fearful of a gun in Starbucks than the car at the intersection. Both should be feared and respected, especially when you're in control of the machine. But usually you should be more fearful of the car, not the gun, especially when the car is pointed at you and the gun isn't.
The analogy is important because if you grew up in an area with lots of guns around, you don't have that reflexive fear of guns. Familiarity makes for a comfortable coexistence, and makes it easier to think more clearly about the issue. No doubt it's easier for you to think more clearly about it, no matter the conclusions you ultimately draw. People who don't understand that are too quick to judge and dismiss gun-rights proponents as irredeemably stupid or wreckless. And that fear clouds their ability to understand how people could both want a gun and also be trusted to own and use it safely. It feeds into the divisive atmosphere. I don't think guns are some inalienable right, and I don't adhere to the legal theories that have now enshrined those rights. But that lack of fear also makes it easier for me to understand the political costs of regulation, and their viability, and you and I can quickly come to terms with our fundamental disagreement. If you feared guns and thought no sane person whatsoever would want the privilege for himself, let alone for others, to carry around a weapon in public, what would it matter how effective gun regulation would be at stopping gun violence? Just ban them and move on. But that kind of unwillingness to appreciate different cultural values is how we end up with such a divisive political culture, which ultimately empowers extremists and demagogues. Yes, most people supported and still support sensible gun regulation, including most gun owners. But because substantial numbers of a certain type of left-leaning American (white, rich, urban) weren't comfortable joining forces with centrist gun owners--couldn't bring themselves to compromise their notion that there's no legitimate justification for widespread gun possession--they laid the ground work for the current situation. Their brinkmanship has resulted so far in the worst possible legal outcomes.
I can support brinkmanship and a refusal to compromise when it comes to voting rights, or when it comes to abortion and women's bodily autonomy. Those are principles I'm willing to risk everything for. But for guns right? Given all the equivocal evidence about the complex reasons and sources of gun violence? It was pointless and stupid for liberals to be and continue to be so intransigent. Political compromise sometimes means also having to compromise closely held values. And we need to learn to be able to do that more often, especially when our reasons for sticking to our guns, so to speak, are relatively weak compared to other serious issues of the day.
>> We're less violent today than we were 100 years ago, but that's not because of gun regulation. It's because people naturally moved away from it, just like people are naturally moving away from smoking. Government policies coaxed the move away from smoking with public bans and taxation. Importantly, that helped shift the culture. But nobody ever once challenged an individual's right to smoke.
We have less smoking because of government policies which led to better awareness that smoking is really bad for you (as you say), but we do have explicit policies stopping an individual from smoking, in restaurants and businesses. That person's right to smoke up was abridged to help improve the health of others around them.
Well, you are free to be as paranoid as you like and maybe that's a good thing but no, I don't think ACLU donations are grounds for denying your naturalization application. To actually take away citizenship is even harder. You can read about the basic criteria here
but please don't come back to tell me that donating to the ACLU can be interpreted as not having "demonstrated good moral character in the years leading up to application for citizenship".
Would you also like me to not tell you that the president will sign an executive order banning people from "Muslim" countries?
I do agree that it is extremely unlikely that my citizenship will be taken away.
Being denied naturalization does not seem out of the realm of possibility with the way things are going. More specifically, I bet that the probability is high enough that making a donation to the ACLU has negative expected value.
That's not much of an argument and equating all bad things is not a very useful way to think about things (but again, you're welcome to it, it just doesn't make for much of a conversation). The president can't change laws with executive orders.
I think you are overestimating the power of laws and the strength of institutions like the courts. All those people were lynched for a century in the south, and it was illegal every time. Americans of Japanese ancestry were put in camps in WWII, no thanks to the courts. Under GW Bush, the NSA conducted illegal surveillance and the U.S. government illegally kidnapped and tortured people.
I'm not. And again, this is equating every conceivable bad thing. It's a deeply naive (never mind disempowering) way to think. Yes, governments do illegal things. Yes, of course, it's possible that the Trump or some other administration will try to constrain naturalization in some way. It's not going to be over ACLU donations, if they do.
In fact U.S. immigration / customs has a long history of testing political beliefs. The comment above makes confident statements and throws in some hyperbole, but provides no basis to believe them.
Hang on, you brought up lynchings and internment when we were talking about ACLU donations and naturalization and I am engaging in hyperbole? Also, we're not talking about immigration or customs but specifically about naturalization. Take a look at the lengthy wikipedia page
In its worst excesses, during wars, anarchist and red scares, I can't find anything in there remotely close to 'donated to ACLU, denied naturalization'. Someone even managed to get a favourable court ruling after admitting to being a communist. In 1943. What is your basis for believing an ACLU donation (not even membership, a mere donation) is going to ruin your chances of naturalization. 'The US government has done and continues to do bad things' is not sufficient basis.
I was at SFO until a little after 2AM. The things most frightening me right now are (not just SFO but multiple locations):
1. CBP appears to be willfully disobeying orders from federal courts.
2. CBP also is reportedly refusing to speak to sitting members of Congress, they only report to Trump, when Congress most certainly does have oversight powers and the ability to call CBP on the carpet.
At this point I'm seeing open speculation about whether/when a federal court will just send in the US Marshals to start perp-walking CBP personnel out of the airports in leg irons. And that is not a good place for a country which allegedly has the rule of law to be.
My current approach is to donate $10 every time i start typing a political rant on social media. Once i get to a state where i don't quite have that urge so often, i'll switch to a regular payment.
I donated but only $5/month. Hopefully that is an actual donation after credit card processing fees. Hopefully I can make it $10/month later this year.
Thank you. I know "every bit counts" is corny, but we can do the math: $5 less Stripe processing fees (to pick a representative number) is $4.55. If every one of the 65,844,954 who voted for Hillary donated $4.55 a month, that would be just shy of $300 million a month.
If you have the means - and a lot of us here on HN do - consider going a step further and matching donations from friends and family. Many employers also have donation matching programs, and if yours doesn't now is the time to ask.
No one seems to be talking about that fact that Trump can do these things because the Congress has specifically authorized the president to do so. It seems as though a massive amount of power in one person's hands is OK is some situations but not in others, depending on one's political persuasion.
And the list of countries is from Homeland Security's list of "countries of concern" compiled during the Obama administration. And signed into law by Obama himself.
I'm an Iraqi Canadian with a Muslim name, so I know a little more than the average person about this issue.
I can tell you that what Trump is doing is unequivocally worse than what Obama did. One of the things Obama did when he became president was make it easier for nationals of several Arab countries (including Iraq) to travel into the United States.
After the 9/11 attacks, the Bush administration required travellers from a number of Arab countries to disclose their travel plans at entry. It also placed limitations on their movement within the US. Obama and the Democrats waived that requirement. Unfortunately I can't remember the name of this law, and I couldn't find it now. If you can find it and comment with the name, I'd greatly appreciate it. (see update below)
What Obama did in 2015 might have been negative for Arabs who come from the nations affected, but he still left the process better than he had received it.
Also, he didn't campaign on banning Muslims from entering the US, didn't thoughtlessly keep out Green Card holders and dual citizens, didn't say "Islam doesn't like us".
> I can tell you that what Trump is doing is unequivocally worse than what Obama did.
The point was that Obama established the legal infrastructure to enact this law, and without this legal infrastructure Trump's actions wouldn't be possible to implement.
Sure, Trump is responsible for his policies. Yet, no one can turn a blind eye on the mishap that enabled these mistakes to be made.
Even if a straw ultimately broke the proverbial camel's back, that doesn't eliminate the responsibility of the predecessor who piled heaps of straw on the camel.
well thank goodness we don't penalize innocent individuals for the abhorrent laws of their nation's governments - especially when many of those people come from nations in which the people have no say and no control over their government and its actions.
The governments of those people decided that, not the people who lived there. I'm sure you don't want to be judged for the actions taken by your government.
The "No Fly List" unilaterally revoked the right of countless innocent American citizens to travel for many months without any notice or redress -- most found out when they tried to travel. The precedent has been around for a long time and is still winding its way through the courts 15 years later. (Americans have the right to travel freely by common conveyance per the Supreme Court from way back. The government has managed to avoid having this question adjudicated through a variety of procedural gimmicks, keeping the list in force.)
Visa holders can explicitly have their entry privileges revoked without cause at any time; it may be a questionable practice but it is still entirely within the express letter of the law for such things. If American citizens don't have standing to travel freely even to return home, then visa holders certainly don't and the former abhorrent practice still has not been fully adjudicated. Visa holders are not going to have rights that have eluded American citizens in recent years.
Border detainment and no fly lists have been an ongoing problem for the last 2 administrations. There was some outrage on sites like HN, but generally no one seemed to care. It's nice that people are getting mad, but it is bothersome that Trump had to get elected for people to finally notice.
I think this is a misunderstanding/misrepresentation of the argument. Following your logic, everyone criticising the Iraq war would be a hypocrite if they did not also oppose Congress' power to authorise wars.
Others are arguing that this executive order violates constitutional rights because it's awfully close to a religious test. Within that line of reasoning, there's no contradiction between opposing this order and not opposing Obama's, assuming those do not violate constitutional rights.
Of course that's okay with most folks. Reality is messy, and large swaths of it are unamenable to formalization in laws; human discretion will always be required.
Now, we can argue about where the balance is best struck, whether it's better to have the president making decisions vs. individual government workers, etc. Those discussions are fine. But we nerds have to stop pretending that a nation's laws are or could be or even should be as black and white and bug free (hah!) as most computer code.
In lieu of "blasting" you, can I ask how this is relevant? Does this change something? It doesn't seem the same to say a country is of concern vs. effectively suspending all visa entry including permanent residents with zero notice after campaigning on banning Muslims. Are these two things comparable?
The idea that a president should ever have this power is ridiculous. Only people who think that their president is a benevolent figure would dare support this ability. So yes, it is relevant, because people should start asking, "what if [insert evil politician] had this kind of power?" That would prevent these issues from being possible in the first place.
> The idea that a president should ever have this power is ridiculous. Only people who think that their president is a benevolent figure would dare support this ability.
Precisely.
Now, please someone pay attention to what the NSA has been set up to do.
You're right that Congress has been slowly ceding a lot of its presidential oversight responsibilities. That's been going on a long time, not just during the Obama administration. It goes back at least as far as 9/11 and likely well before.
While it would have been great to see more opposition to this earlier, I'm glad to see people making noise about it now. With the hyper-polarization we've got right now in the US it's hard for people to step back and realize there are actually things that we agree on, regardless of who we may have voted for. Knee-jerk reactions that rationalize why we can't work together is one of the things that's been keeping us from moving forward as a country.
They're not talking about that because it's not relevant here. People are reacting to the action he took. The basis for it and the underlying legal structures are a different, or at least tangential conversation. If the house is on fire that may not be the right time to discuss why someone was allowed to store flammable chemicals next to the furnace.
>It seems as though a massive amount of power in one person's hands is OK is some situations but not in others, depending on one's political persuasion.
Yes. What's wrong here is the actual policy, not the details of how it came to be policy. Political views are not morally equivalent or something just because they're political views.
What's wrong here is allowing a single person to have the ability to do this in the first place. Giving a single person power over controlling who can enter the country should raise of huge red flag, regardless of political persuasion. Those who allowed this ability to be in the president's hands are at least at equal fault for allowing this to happen.
> Trump can do these things because the Congress has specifically authorized the president to do so.
Brighter liberals I know have complained that Obama and the Democrats in congress by passing these laws were handing the next Republican President the legal equivalent of a loaded gun.
Also, the ACLU's complaint is that permanent residence holders are being denied due process by being kicked out of the country without legal recourse, so it is not purely by the policy. See Judge Donelly's Stay Order: https://twitter.com/joshleitzel/status/825529124986900480/ph...
Largely unrestricted executive power is like leaving bear traps open and armed in your living room. 9 times out of 10 you're going to step around them, but one day your trip to make coffee is going to really suck.
CNN is reporting that the
White House over ruled the DHS when it came to green cards.
>Friday night, DHS arrived at the legal interpretation that the executive order restrictions applying to seven countries -- Iran, Iraq, Libya, Somalia, Syria, Sudan and Yemen -- did not apply to people who with lawful permanent residence, generally referred to as green card holders.
The White House overruled that guidance overnight, according to officials familiar with the rollout. That order came from the President's inner circle, led by Stephen Miller and Steve Bannon. Their decision held that, on a case by case basis, DHS could allow green card holders to enter the US.
A little OT, I guess, but the WaPo's story about this repeats a map I've seen that shows the seven countries.
Conspicuously absent are Egypt, Saudi Arabia, UAE and Lebanon, which is where the people who hijacked the 9/11 planes, the worst, and most logistically complex, terrorist act against the US ever, were from. Where's the logic? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/September_11_attacks#FBI
I don't at all think that this order should be in effect, but I don't see the logic in its implementation.
Not that I agree with the EO, but the logic behind it was that 6 of those 7 countries have ongoing insurgencies involving the IS, and Iran was dragged in there due to either existing prejudice or more likely their involvement in Syria and Iraq.
If this was entirely driven by religion they'd better put Bosnia and Albania on the list too.
Albania is actually mostly atheist/agnostic country. It has three religions on paper but most people are not religious at all.
It is a staunch US ally and part of NATO as well.
That logic doesn't hold water. If the rule was banning any country that has any muslims then it would ban 98% of European countries, as all have a %percentage of practicing muslims.
This rule seems more like a childish fit, to appease to the base voter that voted out of fear of muslims in general.
Yeah, there was an article on HN today from a Venezuelan writer (which HN flagged away ...) describing Chavez's and Trump's tactic, which is to paint a group with the bad guy label, and whip people up to hate that group, and in turn love the guy who says only he can save them.
> Iran was dragged in there due to either existing prejudice or more likely their involvement in Syria and Iraq.
Definitely the latter. They are directly opposed to Saudi Arabia and Wahhabism. [1] Saudi Arabia is an ally of the United States. It is a kind of Middle Eastern Cold War (war by proxy).
Of course, if they're battling extremists insurgencies, then likely they aren't going to give as much push back diplomatically, and very little that matters. IMO, the administration would have banned more if they weren't worried about a backlash from key military allies in the region.
There's no need for wild theories. The list of countries was previously chosen by the Obama administration. The EO specifically orders for additional research into amending the list of countries in the future.
". . . I hereby proclaim that the immigrant and nonimmigrant entry into the United States of aliens from countries referred to in section 217(a)(12) of the INA, 8 U.S.C. 1187(a)(12), would be detrimental to the interests of the United States, and I hereby suspend entry into the United States, as immigrants and nonimmigrants, of such persons for 90 days from the date of this order . . . The Secretary of Homeland Security, in consultation with the Secretary of State, shall submit to the President a list of countries recommended for inclusion on a Presidential proclamation that would prohibit the entry of foreign nationals."
I have yet to see anyone try to justify the choice of countries. I know I live in a bit of a bubble with regard to the particular Trump brand of conservatism, but I usually see people arguing the opposite side, even if it's just being quoted by people who agree with me.
The choice of countries actually dates back to a 2015 Act of Congress restricting access to the Visa Waiver Program to nationals or prior recent visitors of certain countries. These people will have had to apply for a visa instead, and presumably are subject to more stringent checking than most.
The list of countries wasn't defined by Congress beyond Iraq and Syria (presumably thanks to those being specifically called out in the name "Islamic State of Iraq and Syria"). It did include provision for the Secretaries of State and Homeland Security to designate additional countries.
My gut feeling is that the current administration didn't choose to target the same countries deliberately, but rather chose to incorporate the prior legislation by reference as a defence against legal challenges.
The EO wording is that "immigrant and nonimmigrant entry into the United States of aliens from countries referred to in section 217(a)(12) of the INA, 8 U.S.C. 1187(a)(12), would be detrimental to the interests of the United States". The referenced legislation is here: https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/8/1187#a_12 .
I haven't seen this list referenced by the administration as the rationale, but the list of countries is the same as those included in a question added to the Electronic System for Travel Authorization (ESTA) application in June 2016, which addresses countries DHS considers at higher risk:
Have you traveled to, or been present in, Iraq, Syria, Iran, Sudan, Libya, Somalia, or Yemen on or after March 1, 2011?
Please note that I really don't understand the details of the visa process in general or this program in particular, or how DHS arrived at this list of countries. I'm just submitting it as an pre-existing list of countries the DHS has expressed concern about with respect to immigration and visas. Nor do I have any reference that this list was used for the Executive Order. That said, it does seem reasonable to imagine that similar reasoning was used in choosing the countries listed in the Executive Order.
I personally support the executive order in its motif.
Radicalization of US-born or US-admitted Muslims by clerics, relatives, social media -- is real, eg [1] (Fort-hood terrorist), San-Bernardino terrorists [2].
Therefore, the argument could not just be about questioning if any visa/green card holder for the initial list of 7 'banned-county -->to--> Muslim terrorist perpetrating killing on US soil'.
It is a preventive measure, with a time limit .
Very appropriate for this period of time, given the war with ISIS.
I am not, however, impressed with the execution or the preparation that went into this particular order.
I would like to see a different level of scrutiny and reduced personal inconvenience afforded to US green card holders.
Appreciate that majority on this forum, including highly respected scientists, will disagree with me.
But please allow the expression of, at-least partially informed dissent.
Not all terrorists are muslims, just a majority of them in our current time. This is due to the destabilization of the region more than their religion, although the more radical versions of the religion certainly play a part. Similar things occured in Ireland back in the day: terrorism created by destabilization and fueled by radical religious zeal.
> Not all terrorists are muslims, just a majority of them in our current time
In terms of terrorism in the US, that's not actually true by most counts. The US has seen more far-right terrorists than radical Islamic terrorists. Casualty counts for the Islamic terrorists are typically higher, but there are both more events and more individuals involved in far-right terrorism.
It's still worth noting that in terms of actual risk-per-individual both are astonishingly rare, and if your goal is to save lives that might otherwise be lost to violence there are far, far better ways of doing it.
Even if you completely agree with what the order does, it's impossible to claim that the implementation of this was anything other than a complete and utter disaster. No warning, no clear way to enforce the order, widespread protest, and getting the courts involved within 24 hours.
This is going to have ramifications for years to come. We want to encourage the world's best and brightest to come here, and a precedent of unannounced, widespread, severe changes to enforcement of the laws will cause people to reconsider.
This is utter negligence and I'm ashamed of my country.
I doubt trump actually drafts anything. His alt-right neo-nazi minions Bannon will draft it up, and he'll just sign it. I doubt he actually even reads what he signs. He's too busy looking at himself on tv and twittering.
I think the title of this post is wrong. Here's another post - http://www.theverge.com/2017/1/28/14427086/federal-court-hal... - that states that "The court specifically ruled on Darweesh and Alshawi’s petition; the ACLU will have to include all other similarly-affected immigrants as part of a class action to have it apply more broadly."
This is incorrect - the government tried to remove the ACLU's and NILC's standing by allowing Darweesh and Alshawi (the representative plaintiffs) through, but they prevailed in getting a stay on behalf of the class.
It looks like The Verge has fixed the sentence to "The court specifically ruled on Darweesh and Alshawi’s petition; other similarly-situated people being detained and those in transit are covered by the ruling, which is only temporary."
It is true that this doesn't stay the entire executive order. It just responds to the habeas-corpus bits for those who already made it to the US (including someone who was being placed on a plane leaving the US as the order was being made, and hopefully was allowed to get back off that plane).
The wording of the ruling looks like it applies nationally to me:
"WHEREFORE, IT IS HEREBY ORDERED that the respondents, their officers, agents, servants, employees, attorneys, and all members and persons acting in concert or participation with than, from the date of this Order, are
ENJOINED AND RESTRAINED from, in any manner or by any means, removing individuals with refugee applications approved by U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services as part of the U.S. Refugee Admissions Program, holders of valid immigrant and non-immigrant visas, and other individuals from Iraq, Syria, Iran, Sudan, Libya, Somalia, and Yemen legally authorized to enter the United States."
I think that may have meant it applied to all airports as opposed to just the New York airports, but it could still only apply to the people who have already been held and not future travelers.
Trump and the Republican Congress are going to appoint many judges during his term, including Supreme Court judges. That could be Trump's most enduring legacy.
When Democracts decided to vote "yes" on some of the more ridiculous appointments, even though they would have been appointed even if those Democrats voted no, it was done for them. I can't take a single thing a Democrat congressman says seriously when opposing Trump if they couldn't even say no to Ben Carson being appointed as HUD secretary.
Grow a spine. What do they even stand for these days?
Basically, the standard practice used to be for most cabinet appointments to be easily confirmed with bipartisan support. Obama's appointments saw unprecedented levels of push-back from republicans, but still received significant numbers of republican votes. Democratic opposition to Trump's nominations has been, again, unprecedented.
My opinion: perhaps, given the fact that their votes are purely symbolic anyway, some democrats are choosing to 'pick their battles', and vote yes to the picks they feel are halfway reasonable, saving opposition for the cases where (again, in their opinions) it matters most.
The two alleged front runners on his SCOTUS list right now are moderates (Gorsuch and Hardiman). I'm not sure those two are all that distinguishable from Garland frankly.
More precisely, it only blocks part of Trump's order:
"Judge Ann Donnelly of the US District Court in Brooklyn granted a request from the ACLU to stay deportations of those detained on entry to the United States following President Trump's executive order."
The text of Trump's temporary order is mostly copy-pasted from temporary orders enacted by Obama that have withstood scrutiny, so I wouldn't get hopes up for a full reversal.
> Trump is banning visa and Green Card holders from returning to the States. This is notably different.
From a foreigner's standpoint, that isn't notable at all. In fact, it's nothing more than closing a loophole.
When the US government specifically dictates that a kind of foreigners are banned from entering US soil, the exceptions to that rule doesn't change the rule or even the spirit of the rule.
The US government wants those foreigners off their land, and that's it.
I agree that it's a silly rule, but it wasn't implemented overnight.
Yeah, but Obama also bombed their countries first, which is notably worse.
As a foreigner, for me this looks like a hypocrisy theater of crocodile tears. But then again, this is par for the course for politics in general, and US politics in particular.
That bombing was extensively reported and widely criticized.
This attempt to dismiss complaints as hypocrisy is really tiresome. Obama bombed some countries so who cares if Trump fucks over law-abiding American residents for no reason.
>That bombing was extensively reported and widely criticized.
Really? Did taxi drivers stop serving the airport? Company leaders asking others to "take a stand"? Liberal media unanimous against it? Judicial intervention?
Because it seems this has 10x or 100x the scale those "widely criticisms" of the bombings had under Obama (during Bush, and for the Iraq war it was only slightly better).
>This attempt to dismiss complaints as hypocrisy is really tiresome. Obama bombed some countries so who cares if Trump fucks over law-abiding American residents for no reason.
Well, that's the hypocrisy though. What's worth protesting "law-abiding American residents" who are denied entrance is not for non-Americans from the same countries who are bombed.
Is the world tiring US with all these demands for consistency?
It's like that Mel Brooks quote: “Tragedy is when I cut my finger. Comedy is when you fall into an open sewer and die.”
>Also, I'm fairly sure Obama didn't bomb Iran.
No (though Bush did several covert military action and internal meddling there), but he did the same thing Trump did:
"The State Department stopped processing Iraq refugees for six months in 2011, federal officials told ABC News [in 2013] – even for many who had heroically helped U.S. forces as interpreters and intelligence assets."
Why do people keep bringing up this Iraq refugee thing as if it were equivalent? I'm not going to defend that action, but it's not at all the same. Screwing with legal US residents is a whole different level.
Please point out the vast protests that occurred in the US over the Syrian bombings. Surely that drew extremely large marches. Or perhaps link me to the Huffington Post's Syrian death counter that tracked how many people Obama's war on Syria killed.
Whataboutism is absolute poison. Are you actually arguing that we should ignore evil on the basis that prior evil wasn't sufficiently protested? Or are you just trying to score a point for your team? I don't get it.
>Whataboutism is absolute poison. Are you actually arguing that we should ignore evil on the basis that prior evil wasn't sufficiently protested?
No, selective interest is absolute poison.
Whataboutism is merely about prioritization.
It allows people to have their pet causes and feel good about themselves while ignoring larger scale evil going on and affecting both their country and the lives of millions.
And it's not like what's suggested is something like "do something about everything bad going on or do nothing" paralysis.
It's like, major major evil affecting hundreds of thousands of lives is going on by your country and you don't give a damn, and suddenly you all jump for a much smaller offense.
Prioritize damnit. You can't largely ignore 10x and cry wolf for 1x. Or you can, and you did, but you shouldn't.
In the 60s they knew how to mass protest for both civil rights, women/gay rights, AND the Vietnam war for example, at the same level of engagement.
I could argue about priorities, but I'm more interested in a larger question.
What's your end game here? If you want us to go back in time and protest drone strikes more strongly, my understanding is that this is not practical. If you want us to stop caring about Trump's insane actions, I can't understand why. If you want us to care more about more stuff in the future, that makes sense, but it's not the meaning I get from what you write. What are you after?
+1. Can't wait for them to start "protesting" against the exact same kinds of drone strikes and bombing raids Obama ordered for years when Trump starts ordering them.
The difference to me is context. I admit that I don't have a great recollection of the details of Obama's refugee ban, but from what I remember I have no reason to believe that he was motivated by something other than national security risk (whether or not the risk was significant enough to justify the ban is something I don't claim to know).
But the context of Trump's ban is very different. He promised a Muslim ban during his campaign, and according to Rudy Giuliani (tonight on Fox News), Trump asked him for advice on implementing the Muslim ban but in a technically legal way. I see no reasonable interpretation of this as anything other than Trump's team's best effort to discriminate against Muslims while being technically legal.
> I see no reasonable interpretation of this as anything other than Trump's team's best effort to discriminate against Muslims while being technically legal.
How about Trump fulfilling his campaign promises while being technically legal?
The State Department implemented new layers of bureaucracy at the start of 2011 which acted as a de facto impediment/delay to applicants in the Iraqi refugee program, and were rightly criticized at the time. [1]
This differs substantially from an affirmative ban which stranded people at airports.
This report (dated 13 July 2011) by the NYTimes with the title "Visa Delays Put Iraqis Who Aided U.S. in Fear" is the exact opposite of "nary a peep". [0]
EDIT: remove appositional identification of the NYTimes as "widely considered the US newspaper of record". Change from interrogative to declarative mood.
Yep, hardly a peep at all. Where were the large scale protests? Where was the 24/7 media coverage across every possible outlet? Where was the widespread outrage? It didn't exist, which is why the story didn't continue to have legs and most forgot it ever happened.
> The Obama administration has required new background checks for visa applicants, reacting to a case in Kentucky in which two Iraqi immigrants were arrested on suspicion of ties to an insurgent group, according to American officials in Baghdad.
You're surprised that there weren't nationwide protests for "required new background checks for visa applicants", versus an outright ban against green card holders? Maybe because most people don't know of a current visa applicant from Iraq, but many people know of green card holders -- i.e. people who have been living legally in the United States -- who are now banned from re-entry.
The "peep" is national media coverage. The insinuation of the GGP was that mainstream media did not cover this fact. Given the reputation of the NYTimes as the US newspaper of record, the article I cite is the journalistic equivalent of using a bullhorn.
The fact that people did not protest the 2011 executive order which suspended the approval of visa applications from Iraq indicates people were not unduly alarmed.
In the present case, however, many people believe that the indiscriminate ban on immigration from 7 majority-Muslim nations is immoral and possibly a violation of the US Constitution. The protests indicate that public opinion opposes this administration's executive action.
In other words, the media were very "loud" about Obama's 2011 and Trump's 2017 executive actions halting immigration.
The people, however, see these two things very differently, as well they should.
EDIT: grammar, readability, clarification of subject in second paragraph, change metaphor from "shouting" to "using a bullhorn".
No, it specifically relates to increased security checks and verification for refugee visa-seeking applicants (a major discussion point of R governmental agenda, but since it was enacted by a Dem president he is still clearly soft/weak on terrorism).
> "IT IS FURTHER ORDERED that to assure compliance with the Court's order, the Court directs service of this Order upon the United States Marshal for the Eastern District of New York, and further directs the United States Marshals Service to take those actions deemed necessary to enforce the provisions and prohibitions set for in this order."
Is the U.S. Marshals Service part of the judicial or executive branch?
Its in a weird situation where it is technically part of the DOJ, but its primary statutory duty is to carry out the orders of the judicial branch: 28 U.S.C. § 566.
It's part of the power separation. Congress makes laws, can impeach the executive, and confirms judges, judiciary interprets laws, orders, and constitution, executive nominates judges, vetoes or signs laws, and enforces them.
I was at the solidarity rally at the Dulles International Airport in Herndon, VA for a few hours, although I had left by the time this story broke. I'd wonder if it got announced to the crowd.
The USA has clear separation and balance of powers, and the judiciary gets to rule on matters of law and constitution interpretation, so ya. It's like Rock Paper Scissors.
Lawyer here. Almost everything in this post is incorrect.
> Depends on the President currently in power. The judiciary has no real authority to enforce anything. The Obama administration and the Bush administration before basically made up the law as it went along in some cases.
Nope. Both had executive orders blocked by the judiciary.
> I don't actually think the ACLU has any real standing here, to be honest.
ACLU is not the plaintiff. They are merely representing the plaintiff.
> You can't sue in US federal court on behalf of non-citizens.
Yes you can. Happens all the time. [Edit: I suppose, technically, you can't sue 'on behalf of' non-citizens. But that's a total red herring. The non-citizens can sue on their own behalf, as happened here.]
> They have no standing.
This is inaccurate, and misunderstands concept of legal standing. 'Standing,' as the term is used in U.S. law, essentially refers to whether the plaintiff is actually suffering an injury, caused by the challenged conduct, that the court can address through a lawsuit.
Under the proper use of the term, of course someone has standing to challenge their own detention. (There are complexities about the scope of the substantive rights of citizens and non citizens, but this has little to do with standing.)
Edit: I forgot one!
> In the US you can find a federal judge to block anything. You just shop around for a circuit with a politically friendly judge and file your suit there.
Again. No. You don't get to choose your circuit--you have to sue in a circuit (district, actually) that has jurisdiction. In this case, there really was only one choice: the Eastern District of New York. And when you sue, you don't get to pick your judge. They're assigned at random.
What is the relationship here with the idea of Sovereign Immunity. Which I (quite possibly wrongly) understand that you can't sue the US government ... unless it allows itself to be sued. Does this mean in his matter the US government has allowed itself to be sued. And then how would it go about disallowing itself to be sued. Can it decide tomorrow to say "no, can't sue us anymore regarding immigration".
I didn't find immigration here for example. Maybe I missed it:
This area of law is complicated, but the answer is: a little of each.
The usual strategy is to circumvent sovereign immunity through a nifty legal trick: sue agents of the government in their individual capacity. https://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/bivens_actions
That appears to be what they did here. Note that the first defendant is Donald Trump, not the United States. (This presents its own set of challenges, that I'm glossing over here. But this is the general approach.)
Thanks for this. And for once again proving that the quickest way to get the correct answer for something is to post something wrong and wait for users to respond.
> Nope. Both had executive orders blocked by the judiciary.
Yes, and? Would you like a list of decrees ignored by previous Presidents? The balance of power between the judiciary and the executive really only finds resolution in the legislative. I find executive orders, presidential findings, and the like extremely undemocratic. But the extent to which Presidents are adversarial and seek "workarounds" is clearly dependent on the administration in power and the context.
You might find the survey of executive orders and their interaction with judiciary helpful to review[0]. Most reviews are about how the executive order is implemented, not the sub stance of the order itself. The same will most likely be in this case (e.g, how to properly resolve the status of those affected and detained right now but not the denying entry to others)
> Under the proper use of the term, of course someone has standing to challenge their own detention.
Yes, there are two classes of people here. A relative handful who have a legal visa and are being denied entry who may have standing and millions outside the US who have none.
I believe the order as written (and copy-pasted from a previous Obama administration executive order denying entry to a similar class in 2011) allows for a case-by-case exemption by DepHomeSec.
Yes, and therefore it is not the case that "[It] depends on the President currently in power. The judiciary has no real authority to enforce anything." See GP.
> Would you like a list of decrees ignored by previous Presidents?
I would. But as you try to assemble it, bear in mind that the relevant task is to find cases where court orders have been ignored, not "legally circumvented." You will find some of the latter, of course. But I doubt you'll find too many of the former.
I with you agree that executive orders are especially difficult to challenge in court. I also agree with you that, for this and other reasons, executive orders generally have become pretty troubling from both a political and legal standpoint. But neither of these are the claims I was addressing in my comment.
> You can't sue in US federal court on behalf of non-citizens.
This affects citizens as well, and they can very well sue on their behalf. Employers, spouses, children, etc. of immigrants all have rights that are being infringed here.
Also, I'm not sure if that exception also applies to green card holders. They have some extra rights and privileges.
You mean for example a US employer who is being harmed because their potential employee is presently stuck in an airport unable to work violating a valid employment contract, or do you mean a potential employee who is in their home country?
I think the first is arguable but there would have to be some actual harm, the second probably less so.
It is my understanding the executive order allows DepHomeSec the ability to allow entry on a case-by-case basis so any potential plaintiff already has an avenue to exhaust prior to seeking relief in a federal court.
The former. Not just "potential" employee, though. Many companies have employees that are out of the country on business, visiting family, etc that cannot get back in.
Probably. It really does seem that the next several years are going to be an extremely litigious period.
The order does contain a clause specifying that SecState and DeptHomeSec can admit people from these countries on a case-by-case basis that are in the national interest. So I imagine an employer could be able to use his or her political influence to get their employees return access in this framework.
But this administration is anything but predictable.
These people have standing because the executive order is causing an adverse effect on them directly. Non-citizens may certainly file lawsuits in the United States.
I'm no lawyer, but I do think that these are some basics in civics that even I am qualified to comment on.
You are taking the sentence out of context and I'm not sure it would be worth the downvotes to provide it, but sure, why not.
People seem to be assuming (probably because of the poor media coverage and inherent bias) that the ACLU has obtained an injunction on the order preventing entry into in the US by foreign nationals from the countries listed.
That really doesn't seem to be the case. Because the citizens of those nations have no standing in her court. For example, the ACLU can not sue in federal court on behalf of Jane Doe of Tehran with whom the US has no treaty obligation who was going to travel to the US next month.
She issued an injunction on behalf of a limited class of people (specifically those already in the US being detained with legal visas, etc) who do have standing in her court because they are are suffering (what she has decided to be irreparable) harm as a result of the order.
So, I hope that distinction is now clear, and also wish you a safe return from your limb.
> I don't actually think the ACLU has any real standing here, to be honest. You can't sue in US federal court on behalf of non-citizens. They have no standing.
You should refrain from talking about things you clearly know nothing about.
Please don't post empty insults. If someone else's comment is wrong, please explain why, so we all learn. Alternatively, just flag and/or downvote and move on.
I don't think that's fair. The burden is on the original poster to provide evidence for their claim. If they don't do so, then the person calling them out for it is not obligated to educate them.
It will be an interesting case for certain but people outside the US can't sue the US government demanding entry. They have no standing.
As a citizen, I barely have legal standing to sue for a denial of passport.
The affected people already present might have some standing to fight their denial of entry as they are here legally but people here illegally have no such right.
> "The affected people already present might have some standing to fight their denial of entry as they are here legally but people here illegally have no such right."
The biggest effect of this order is people here legally and those who previously had legal access to the US. There are a ton of people with legal grounding here, and this case holds significant precedent for them.
> The affected people already present might have some standing to fight their denial of entry as they are here legally but people here illegally have no such right.
Even people here illegally might have some standing in court (under international and amnesty laws). You clearly have no idea what you're talking about.
Do you think magically that no one was previously denied entry and faced irreparable harm based on this longstanding policy of the previous administration and passed into law by Congress?
You will have to state specifically which "international and amnesty laws" you think the US has been violating for the past several years if you wish for me to comment.
Non-citizens can absolutely sue the government in Federal court. What do you think Boumediene v Bush was?
Nice to see you already walking back your incorrect claims though. Perhaps in the future you will refrain from making blanket and false assertions on the law.
Walking back? Now you are placing words in other people's mouths? The order is to prevent people from specified countries from travelling to the US for a set period of time.
Thse citizens of those countries have ZERO, none, less than zero standing to sue in US federal court. Any less clear?
The only people who might have standing are those already in US airports with proper visas who are being denied entry because they can show imminent harm and that is their only standing.
Boumedine v Bush is about haebaus corpus and unlawful imprisonment and has absolutely nothing to do with the executive order under discussion.
The order is about denying visas to foreign nationals and denying status to some refugees and directing the various departments to submit plans, etc on a timeline.
Isn't this what the Alien Tort Statute is about? Actual question, I could easily be wrong. But clearly citizens of other countries sometimes have standing in US court.
Yes if they can show harm and that the court is the proper forum to address it.
Alien Tort Statute establishes (among other things) that non-citizens can seek remedy in US courts for civil actions to remedy violations of treaty obligations or international law in the absence of any more proper legal forum.
There is no treaty obligation to allow entry into the US from the countries listed in the executive order.
For the people who support the ban: do you realise it was catching people in transit, who had no intention of staying in the US?
Here's one woman who was flying from Costa Rica to Scotland. Her initial flight transited through the US, where she was told her transit visa was no longer valid.
No foreign national in a foreign land, without ties to the United States, has any unfettered right to demand entry into the United States or to demand immigration benefits in the United States.
While many Trump stories should be flagged, some are important for society and for HN to discuss.
This is one of those important stories. Americans can not stick their heads in the sand about these anti-muslim actions.
Please do not delete this story. The American and global tech community needs to discuss this. Trump and his advisors win when HN deletes stories like this.
I feel alone on this board in thinking this. While I believe the execution of the order was clumsy (why ban green card holders who have already made a life for themselves here and people already mid-flight?), the people of any nation have the right to self determination and have to have complete control over who comes into their country. Trump did not hide his intentions about what he was going to do once in office. He said it loudly and repeatedly. And he still got roughly half the votes.
Regarding the specific cases currently making the news, I believe there's a competing argument that people should have the assurance that their personal relation with the government is governed by a set of predictable rules and not subject to sudden and dramatic changes. That would include that any administration is in some way bound by the commitments of their predecessors. To use a less controversial example: If I painted the walls in the white house, finishing 10 minutes before Trump was sworn in, should the new administration be required to pay me?
Secondly, there are limits to the power of the majority, even in a democracy: "Democracy isn't two wolves and a sheep voting on what's for dinner". These limits are defined by the constitution. The bill of rights for individual rights, and much of the rest for the mechanisms of government. That's why Trump won't be God-Emperor His Trumpitrump the First, even though he could probably get the electoral college votes for it.
That may seem somewhat unconstitutional, and it requires a definition of "democracy" that is far more complicated than majority-rule, which is sometimes called "the tyranny of the majority".
Beyond moral rules, the President's power is constrained both by the Constitution and Congress. He is not within his right to issue executive orders that violate the previous.
That law mentions visa issuance. But Trump is disallowing people with valid visas from coming in. Is it actually illegal? If so, what specifically is the conflict?
An E.O. which violates Constitutionally-valid statutory restriction on the executive is, ipso facto, a violation of the provision of the Constitution empowering Congress with the authority to control the matter addressed by the statute.
> This is one of those important stories. Americans can not stick their heads in the sand about these anti-muslim actions.
The thing is, Trump was elected mainly because a large percentage of americans explicitly asked for these anti-muslim actions to be implemented.
It would be disingenuous to assume that these actions, no matter how much ill-advised they are, aren't sought by a significant number of US citizens.
In a related issue, tech forums are typically packed with discussions regarding immigration, where US citizens complain about foreign workers, including legal workers and the visa programs that enabled them to work in the US. Now that Trump was democratically elected, US citizens shouldn't just pretend that the US has some unresolved issues regarding immigration, protectionism, and even issues regarding race, religious, and cultural differences.
Let's wait for that to happen. Seriously, if this occurs (and we are all damn well aware Trump is capable of it), this will approach a whole new level of madness.
Some part of me wants Trump to make this mistake, and make more big mistakes of the non-lethal variety quickly so that there is grounds to impeach him before he starts a war.
You are more optimistic than I am about the prospect of a GOP-controlled congress impeaching a GOP president.
I think they would only do so if he did something that was obvious to everyone to be a serious existential threat to the US's existence as a country.
I mean, it'd have to be something even more beyond the pale than ignoring the Constitution and transforming the US government into an authoritarian regime without the rule of law. Like, nuking China for no reason, or something.
According to Robert Reich[0], the republicans' whole plan is to use trump to ram through their unpopular agenda and then impeach him when he's no longer useful:
Him: They’ll get as much as they want – tax cuts galore, deregulation, military buildup, slash all those poverty programs, and then get to work on Social Security and Medicare – and blame him. And he’s such a fool he’ll want to take credit for everything.
Me: And then what?
Him (laughing): They like Pence.
Me: What do you mean?
Him: Pence is their guy. They all think Trump is out of his mind.
Him: So the moment Trump does something really dumb – steps over the line – violates the law in a big stupid clumsy way … and you know he will ...
Me: They impeach him?
Him: You bet. They pull the trigger.
He's been in office for one week. At this rate, he won't last more than a few months. I'm fully confident that he'll piss off the wrong group of people at some point in the next 0-6 months and land himself in court. If Bill came close from lying about cheating on his wife...then again, sort the votes chart at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Impeachment_of_Bill_Clinton by party affiliation. Then again, I'm sure many more Red Team would want Pence instead, so I'm sure we'll see.
The odds of that seem fairly high. Maybe not on this particular decision (I think he'd have a hard time convincing all immigration officials to break the law), but we're heading in that direction very rapidly.
If the ban goes to the Supreme Court and is struck down because Trump didn't wait to fill the vacancy with a loyalist first, he'll have essentially failed the marshmallow test.
Yeah, Scalia was certainly conservative and had some literal-genie interpretations of the Constitution, but he wasn't exactly a lapdog. It seemed like he had a fairly libertarian interpretation of the first amendment and probably wouldn't have approved of thinly veiled religious discrimination.
Although not relevant here, Scalia and Stevens dissented in Hamdi v. Rumsfeld. The majority issued a weak sauce opinion that admitted the possibility of detaining a U.S. citizen with some due process short of a trial under some circumstances. Scalia and Stevens pointed out that the government must try a US citizen in regular court unless it suspends habeus corpus.
How could he have let the ban stay -- in its current form? Many people didn't like his decisions for various of their own preferences for particular outcomes, but he generally didn't "make new law" with his decisions.
Thomas was the sole dissenter in Hamdi v. Rumsfeld, which struck down the detention of a US citizen held in Guantanamo without trial. He's an intense believer in the power of the executive over the border and national security.
(This is not totally clear cut. Controlling entry across the border is an issue uniquely within the President's powers. I think the due process issue overrides that for immigrants who have been granted visas and green cards, but I could see Thomas being "unitary executive" enough to see differently.)
After thinking about it for a while, I realized the law is about issuance of visas. Trump is disallowing people with valid visas from entering the country. It's not clear to me that there is a conflict here.
Good on you for actually reading the law rather than just skimming Wikipedia like I did.
I'm going to defer with the ACLU's assertion that it's unconstitutional/illegal because I trust them and they know a lot more about the law than I do. Here's their explanation for why they think it's illegal: https://www.aclu.org/blog/speak-freely/well-see-you-court-wh...
This past election season has taught me that you really can't trust anything written anymore. If you really want to understand you have to follow the links to source material. It's time-consuming.
Given that this only effects those in transit (based on a comment in another thread) it probably wouldn't hit the Supreme Court before people finally end their trips and get to the US.
It certainly would not get to the Supreme Court unless a lower court ruled against Trump and Trump decided to appeal. However, that's probably the most likely scenario anyway.
That's unlikely to happen before the new justice is seated. Getting on the SCOTUS docket normally takes years, and I'll be surprised if we don't have a new justice before the next term starts.
Honestly I don't think you'd see a partisan ruling on this. There is an originalist argument that Congress has no power to regulate immigration and that it is the sole duty of the executive, but there are myriad ways the justices could get around that if they so desired. I'm no expert on the court, but I would imagine it would break 6-2 or better against the EO.
Such an injunction would be without any basis in law whatsoever, the constitution instructs the President to "take care that laws be faithfully executed". Individual executive orders need to have their own constitutional reasoning, but since executive orders are really the means by which the president fulfills that clause, a court could not prohibit them altogether.
The question, then, is what recourse would the courts have against a President who just spams new EOs with the same text and new IDs? Can he be charged with contempt of court?
Those orders would not hold an legal water. Any court that saw them would throw them out on precedent.
As an equivalent example of this, if the court rules a particular law unconstitutional and congress passes the same law under a different name, that law would be utterly powerless as well. In general, Changing the name of something doesn't change its legality.
In that case, no injunction would be necessary. The orders would be utterly powerless if they relied upon bits that the court previously found unconstitutional.
We've banned this account for repeatedly breaking the HN guidelines and using this site for political battle, despite our requests to stop.
You're right that the parent comment was out of line as well, but you've been consistently abusing HN. Please don't create accounts to break the site guidelines with.
Commenting like this will get your account banned, so please don't do it. Comments here need to become more civil and substantive, not less, as topics get more divisive. If you can't do that, please don't post.
If someone expresses concern about something happening in America that is fundamentally immoral, unethical, un-American, and historically counterproductive, it ain't whining, it's called having principles and giving a shit about them. Nothing wrong with that.
Anti-trump stories? This is not an anti-trump story.
This is a discussion of a likely illegal, unconstitutional, dehumanizing, and ill-considered executive order that affects the lives of many people on HN and related to them.
Everyone wants to ignore problems that don't affect them, which is how the US ended up with its current leadership.
While I can sympathise with the desire for peace, now is not the time, and I'm sorry, but you're just going to have to put up with it. The time for silence is over.
> This is a discussion of a likely illegal, unconstitutional, dehumanizing, and ill-considered executive order that affects the lives of many people on HN and related to them.
It is also a policy which was specifically supported by a significant portion of the US electorate to the point that a presidential candidate managed to win the US presidential elections by promising just that.
Additionally, it appears that the same policy was already implemented by former US presidents, except with some nuances regarding current visa holders.
As a non-US citizen whose career may quite possibly involve emigrating to the US, I can tell you that regarding these immigration issues the only thing that actually changed with Trump is this newfound sentiment against the US's immigration policy, which quite frankly appears to be motivated solely by an unwillingness to accept the outcome of the US presidential elections.
I've seen multiple people write that it's illegal or unconstitutional, but I don't understand how. Can you help me connect the dots to see which law or part of the constitution it violates?
It's a story that is overwhelmingly of political and media convenience. There was hardly peep about it being illegal, unconstitutional, dehumanizing, or ill-considered when Obama banned Iraqis for six months in 2011. Gee, I wonder why.
The reason people are upset is because banning Muslims from many countries, when a chief political advisor and propagandist [1] Bannon has called for a white-only US, is what authoritarians do.
Hannah Arendt in her work on 1930s Germany described how well meaning people would fact check the government, but the government's statements were not about what was was true, but what would need to be true to justify their actions.
The president at that time didn't write an executive order preventing the entry of holders of legally approved visas or green cards from entering the country.
What they did do was pause the refugee program, which is wildly different than what you're attempting to imply:
You're very confused. I'm not justifying present wrongs.
I'm proclaiming that the dumbest thing a human rights supporting people can do, is not protest their own President out of partisan loyalty / blindness.
Scenario: you believe Obama was overwhelmingly a decent person. You trust him with various questionable policies, so you don't protest his bad actions, whether related to his vast violations of civil liberties around spying, or the 2011 ban on Iraqi refugees, or his vicious and persistent attacks on press freedom.
It is thus, that by not protesting your own President (who is dramatically more likely to listen to his own voters), you risk allowing his bad expansion of power to be handed down to following Presidents who may be dangerous or tyrannical in any number of ways and may abuse the new powers in question.
If one is a liberal, this is why it's critical to protest as loud as possible about any civil liberty abuses committed by a liberal President. By the time you're protesting Trump's abuse of Obama's (or Bush's) increased NSA powers, it's far, far, far too late.
> By the time you're protesting Trump's abuse of Obama's (or Bush's) increased NSA powers, it's far, far, far too late.
...And what is the precedent for "if you didn't protest back then, then you're just fucking screwed so shut the fuck up"? People who didn't vote Trump aren't happy about the current state of affairs, but I don't think they believe America has descended into a fascist state.
The premise isn't that the partisan left that intentionally ignored Obama's abuses should just shut up, but rather that it's very likely already too late.
Roll back Obama's 10x increase in NSA spying capabilities? Not a chance. The Republicans have the house, senate, supreme court, executive branch, and most of the states. The left should have been loudly protesting their own President's rights violations, that was the only shot they had. This was all very predictable, inevitably a dangerous person will come into the Presidency, that's why you don't allow someone like Obama (or anyone) to push through such extraordinarily dangerous policies if you can help it.
The protesting over things like the wall or this temporary ban on people coming into the US from seven nations, is a sideshow to the abuses Obama and Bush's espionage efforts will make possible in the next decade. Nothing can be done about that now, Trump isn't going to care about liberal protests against spying programs.
The point is, the next time you get a liberal President in office, protest like crazy, encourage them to not violate civil liberties; rather, encourage them to protect them aggressively. Protesting Obama might have worked, protesting Trump is going to be mostly ineffectual.
None of this matters. It doesn't matter what people did or didn't do in the past, and it doesn't matter what they'll do at some indefinite point in the future. This is something that's happening right now. I have no idea why you would be more focused on other things that other people may or may not have done at other times than this thing that is most definitely happening right now. If you want to blame liberal governments for this, remember that the more liberal candidate argued just as passionately against this approach, as the victorious candidate argued in favor of it. So I don't see how you can claim that this is the fault of anyone but the person who is currently making this happen.
I'm proclaiming that the dumbest thing a human rights supporting people can do, is not protest their own President out of partisan loyalty / blindness.
Well, since we only have one president currently, I don't know what point you're trying to make.
Also, some of us did protest the unreasonable expansion of power by previous administrations.
I don't see what anything you're saying has to do with my original comments.
The point is extremely obvious. The left waited until Trump to protest things that Obama had either already done, or has helped to make possible. It's the exact same thing they did in turning a blind eye to Clinton's various abuses, but the instant Bush was President, they rediscovered civil liberties. Partisan hypocrisy, leading to dangerous increases in executive power, handed down to future Presidents whose behavior you can't predict.
The left was very quiet while Obama was violating the civil liberties of hundreds of millions of people by massively increasing the scale of spying, not to mention using his DOJ to constantly fend off challenges to such rights abuses.
The left was very quiet as Obama prosecuted the most aggressive campaign against freedom of the press in US history.
The left was very quiet as Obama murdered tens of thousands of civilians in Syria with his bombing campaign, not to mention arming terrorists within Syria to help escalate the destruction on the ground.
Obama supports the Secure Fence Act or a refugee ban, the left remains very quiet.
Trump becomes President. The left widely rediscovers civil liberties again. Waiting until that point, means you waited too long.
You've been making many comments to this effect. Do you agree with the Executive Order? If you disagree with the Executive Order do you think it's worth protesting? If you think it's worth protesting, will you allow others to protest with you even if they didn't protest to your satisfaction for similar issues in the past?
If you agree with the order, please say so explicitly. If you disagree but don't think it's worth protesting, what's the point of your comment? If it's worth protesting, can you forgive others their past mistakes and let them join you now?
Or are you content to just repeatedly point out what you perceive as hypocrisy? If that's all it is, at this point it's no longer civil or substantive, and please stop.
If I'm misunderstanding your goal, please do elaborate and correct me.
edit: let me put it in even more simple terms. I think the Democrats should be overwhelmingly focused on rebuilding their party right now (in terms of where their energy is going), in extraordinarily strict terms, as the party of civil liberties. No exceptions. If their next President crosses any lines, mass protests must ensue, otherwise their party can't be taken seriously. One of the problems the Dems have right now is the lack of credibility as they intentionally failed to widely protest nearly all of Obama's rights abuses. I won't support them because I have very good reason to believe they're frauds on civil liberties; as a voter, they get my support when they act consistently. That effort would be far more useful, than protesting Trump and the Republicans, who are not going to listen and do not have to for now (and this isn't to say there shouldn't be legal challenges thrown at bad policy).
---
I think it's barely worth protesting now (in the style it's mostly being done), because of how ineffectual that will be in obtaining results. Legal challenges are likely the only meaningful thing that can occur at this point. The protestors should be focused almost exclusively on raising money for that purpose, more so than marching or showing up at airports. Sergey Brin could make a difference by putting together a $100 million civil liberties fund, to try to roll back Obama's spying programs, and legally challenging the Trump policies he disagrees with such as this temporary ban. Showing up at the airport won't do a thing, the Republicans have all the power. It's equivalent to putting a bumper sticker on your car.
Unfortunately for most of the left (to one degree or another), they made a massive mistake in three big ways: not turning out for the election in nearly the numbers they should have, turning a blind eye as Sanders was intentionally sabotaged by the DNC, and turning a blind eye to Obama's abuses.
They can't put the genie back in the bottle under Trump. I think the single most important point is: they better remember how this feels, the next time they are fawning over a liberal President, because that's exactly when they should be protesting. Yet I don't see too many people talking about this, and those that attempt to are roundly getting shouted down. It's the same thing/effect John Cusack got to enjoy, as he tried to speak out against Obama and was shunned for it (now he'll be a hero again); that is, the vast partisan hypocrisy.
I think it's barely worth protesting now (in the style it's mostly being done), because of how ineffectual that will be in obtaining results.
It certainly appears that the protests today had some effect. It at least increased awareness. Don't dismiss protests with specific purposes out of hand. The MLK Jr and others of the Civil Rights Movement were very effective when doing just that. And there are those on HN today that participated.
In terms of money, I've read numerous comments where members have made donations to the ACLU and other organizations.
I agree with you that there should have been more done to roll back the infringements on civil liberties that go back all the way to at least the Patriot Act. There were people that did, even though it was very difficult to do so without being cast as unpatriotic. I don't see how it does anyone any good to say "Well, you missed your chance then! Just wait until you get a president you like, you can protest then!"
As for "fawning over a liberal president", have you noticed the contortions some are bending themselves into reconciling the many blatant mistruths and inconsistencies uttered by Trump during the campaign? For goodness' sake. Not everyone on either side fits in either category, but there are those who do. Focusing on that and using such pejorative language does nothing to help the situation.
Certainly people should remain critical of even the politicians they vote for. With a limited number of parties, it's unlikely that any one candidate is going to align perfectly with anyone's particular set of values. But to admonish people to stop now because they weren't adequately righteous in the past is just asinine.
And there are those of us who aren't really happy put in one party or the other, but have issues we care strongly about. Do we get categorized as a Democrat when we happen to align with them and a Republican on other issues? What are we supposed to do, regardless of which party the President aligns with, or which party holds a majority in which chamber of Congress? Let people work together on the issues they care about, regardless of party affiliation.
Unless you have another agenda.
I ask you again: Do you support the Executive Order?
We really need to move beyond this binary division. Yes, there are partisan cheerleaders on both sides that will only parrot opinion that matches their sides. So what? They can be safely ignored.
Personally, I saw plenty of articles sources that criticized the NSA snooping, including liberal sources (also more libertarian ones). I saw plenty of articles criticizing the Syrian bombing (and articles that wanted more intervention, again from various viewpoints). I also saw criticism of the refugee ban.
I personally lean moderate left, and yet there is a lot in Obama's presidency that I didn't care for one bit.
I am hoping that there is enough on the right that cares more about civil liberties vs. partianship too, and is appalled by Trump's actions.
Because it has nothing to do with what Obama did. Any country has the right to decide who they accept on their soil or not. But only authoritarians remove that right at the stroke of a pen without due process to those who have obtained it legally and have never committed a crime.
Essentially, what the administration is saying now is that it doesn't matter if a person has a certain right granted to them in accordance to the law, this right can be removed unilaterally by the President. If you don't care about that, wait until they come for you or your family.
This is affecting all the major tech companies directly, and many others' personal lives. This is definitely tech-related and important to many in the tech community.
It totally would be, it could be Mr. Rogers and it would still be the top story. Your tech employee with a green card, and hence a global tax obligation, is no longer allowed in the country? That is really just messed up. And as you know in our industry, a lot of our coworkers are on these visas.
The only thing is, a sane president would never have done that. They might have banned new refugees or new visas from those countries, but preventing the entry of current visa holders...nope. If it were not Trump, this story wouldn't even exist.
A huge number of stories on the front page were about civil liberties / US politics, with titles like
- CIA Agents Were Embedded With NYPD And Had “No Limits”
- U.S. Government Surveillance: Bad for Silicon Valley, Bad for World Democracy
- U.S. bugged EU offices, computer networks
- Memories of Stasi color Germans’ view of U.S. surveillance programs
- The Criminal N.S.A.
- WikiLeaks Volunteer Was a Paid Informant for the FBI
- SSL: Intercepted today, decrypted tomorrow
- Two Senators Say the NSA Is Still Feeding Us False Information
When Obama threatens the ability of tech to get things done, his politics end up on HN. When Trump threatens the ability of tech to get things done, his politics end up on HN.
Tech companies tend to hire a lot of foreign workers. A lot of those foreign workers are suddenly being screwed, and the ability for American companies to hire such people has just taken a big hit. It's quite relevant here.
I think Trump supporters will see this as a welcome side effect.
My assumption is that they would see companies being forced/incentivized to employ US citizens over imported workers as a positive, even if it meant that innovation/tech profits would be inhibited.
Since you only comment three times in a year (including this one) I think you may not be the best person to advocate this point of view unless you feel that non-engagement makes you entitled to tell others what they should discuss or not.
It's easy to see how this directly relates to subjects that the general HN readership finds important, including possible ramifications in technology (startups, hiring, logistics, etc) and engineering and scientific academia/research. In the past few days, the amount of links concerning U.S. politics/govt. has actually seemed fairly light, considering the amount of things that could be said.
I'd like to know why anyone thinks America owes anyone anything?
The ban is absolutely necessary. You Americans have a great country but you're going to ruin it if you don't take your time to listen to Trump.
There is no way that unchecked immigration is a good thing for any country in the world let alone America.
I've heard what has been said about how immigration made America what it is today - great. However, immigration should be based on whether the immigrant will add value to your country. If an immigrant is coming to set up a business, do further studies and other positive things like that, then by all means provide them with a way to come in.
However, if there's a threat of terrorism from the immigrant or if they aren't adding value but will instead be recipients of welfare all I can ask is, WHAT THE HELL IS GOING ON?
How can you sustain this? You cannot save everyone in the world. You just can't. The best you can do is help them from a camp in their own country and even then, it's your choice as a country that has fair elections.
Why did you even have these elections if you're going to disallow the president that you yourselves chose in FAIR elections to do his jobs. Is there anything new that Trump is doing that he did not promise his voters he would do? If not, then you're saying that the majority of the people that chose Trump don't deserve to be heard and that only your views matter.
And don't even get me started on that business of, 'we didn't vote for him...he didn't get the popular vote'.
Why is it okay for previous presidents who won in the electoral college to be legitimized but not Trump? This is absolutely UNFAIR and selfish of anti-Trumpians. Remember, you take away California and Trump actually wins the popular vote anyway. To me, this is a clear indication that one state wants to bully the rest of the country into doing things their way and their way only. So UNFAIR.
Without getting into my country of origin, I will tell you this; we too are building a wall to stop illegal aliens from a neighboring Muslim country from getting in. These fundamentalists are really terrible human beings. We have lost so many lives to their suicide attacks. Friends and families losing their loved ones to these actions. I remember a time we were so scared of the attacks that we had to close offices in the daytime when working and verify you knew who was knocking on the door before letting them in. It was a terrible time and with a recent attack, last week to more precise, the fear is coming back. I just wish we had finished putting up our wall by now and that it was as strong as the proposed American one.
People have to be responsible for their own country. They have to build their own countries and stop the fundamentalism.
In what way does the U.S. have "unchecked immigration"?
Edit: also, you have a bizarrely pessimistic view of immigrants' and refugees' potential to contribute to their host country. My parents were part of the flood of refugees that came after the fall of Saigon. Like the incoming Syrians today, they were taken in by American families and lived off of welfare for years. Now they, and their children, contribute to the nation's bottom-line, never mind the goodwill that America incurs by taking in people of need.
There are always trade-offs. For every good immigrants such as your folks, there are those who are utterly destructive. This is just a fact. Therefore, you cannot be careless about who comes into your country. Some people just don't want the same things that you do. They prefer chaos because after death, they will meet their maker and get rewarded for their fundamentalism.
It then becomes a question of, do you accept the downside if the upside is as mundane as perceived goodwill. I think not.
I repeat, not all can be saved and for that matter, not all want to be saved. Some of them actually hate America and as soon as they are in, they will hurt Americans on purpose.
Here's a woman who was travelling from Costa Rica to Scotland. The flight stops in the US. She had a correct transit visa. She was stoppend because of Trump's ban.
How do you suppose you can deal with radicalized immigrants if you're indiscriminate about immigration?
It is a temporary ban first of all.
Secondly, it is not just about security. It is also about welfare.
I'm not a proponent of welfare but if you must have it, then you cannot possibly combine that with unrestricted immigration because the logical outcome of that is a population full of immigrants on welfare voting themselves more welfare. Is that how America was built? No. It was built by hard working intelligent people to a country that is the envy of many today.
What makes you think immigrants just come to vote "themselves more welfare"? Many groups of immigrants and refugees start off poor. I don't know where you learned about America, but we have enough resources that things aren't a zero sum game between immigrants and current citizens.
First of all, anyone can learn about anything now. Everything is everywhere now so you cannot lie to anyone about what America is like or what it isn't like. I suggest you forfeit that line of argument.
Secondly, riddle me this; do more immigrants vote for the party that promises more government welfare or less government welfare? I don't even know where you're going with this.
Finally, no one believes that resources aren't finite and as such it isn't a zero-sum game more than I do. However, when you have speak of how the wealthy/corporations should pay more taxes and those taxes should go to fund more welfare...clearly that's a mindset that says things are scarce and that it is a zero-sum game. One party says expropriate from producers to fund welfare the other says reduce regulation and taxes to incentivise more production. One has a producer mindset, the other has a consumer mindset.
Doesn't that mean something to you? It is no wonder many democrats want even more immigrants. Look at a state such as California...
27% of California's population was foreign born, about twice the US percentage.
Don't you think these politicians are aware of this and it is undoubtedly the reason they want even more immigrants? It has nothing to do with caring for other humans for them. It is all about increasing the number of democrats as much as possible irregardless of whether it is good for the country or not. Don't let them take you for a ride.
>Steve Jobs was the son of Syrian immigrants
These occurrences will be there from time to time but look at how and when these immigrants came to America.
There was a time when it was much harder to come to America and that meant that only the best people went to America. Not just everyone and anyone. The DV lottery program was the beginning of the end for the right kind of immigration to America.
When I look at the caliber of people that actually made it to America from my country before this was introduced, man, they were smart, hardworking and any country losing them to America felt the pinch. Now, the DV program has been sending just about anyone regardless of whether they were adding value to America. It is an indicator that it is on longer understood that even though immigration is good, it is only as good as the caliber of people you let in.
Who should be let in you ask? Those seeking education, expatriates, entrepreneurs, scientists etc. Not everyone.
> There was a time when it was much harder to come to America and that meant that only the best people went to America. Not just everyone and anyone. The DV lottery program was the beginning of the end for the right kind of immigration to America.
The diversity visa lottery program requires that you have a high school diploma and come from a country that has sent very small numbers of people to America. And the DV lottery includes only 50,000 winners. Are you aware of how large America's population is, and how small 50,000 people is relative to the U.S. and to the size of normal annual immigration?
Yes, the point of the diversity visa is to add diversity to the immigrant pool, so that it isn't totally dominated by Asia and Latin America, because the U.S. has had historical success with diversity.
>Are you aware of how large America's population is, and how small 50,000 people is relative to the U.S. and to the size of normal annual immigration?
That is not the point. I'm simply stating that lately America has been less strict with the caliber of immigrants allowed in and the DV program best exemplifies it.
Yes, it is the point. You're claiming that America's DV program is emblematic of how standards have fallen, as if there were a golden age in American immigration. You talk about how America was built by intelligent hard-working immigrants. Yes, it was, but those immigrants wouldn't have been let in with your mentality. How many of the millions of Italian and Irish immigrants during the late 19th century were college graduates? My understanding is that most of them arrived on American shores as extremely poor. Same with the Chinese during that time. Since you aren't American, maybe you weren't aware that one of America's golden ages was in the 1940s and 1950s, and those late 19th century immigrants would have played a large part in that.
Similarly, war refugees from the 1970s through the 1980s were not particularly high "caliber", and certainly not self-sufficient enough to survive without hundreds of millions in American government aid, nevermind the generosity of American families and churches in providing sponsorship.
Again, you're not from America, so maybe it's hard to understand that America is lucky enough to have the resources and geographical placement so that immigration can be a net benefit rather than a zero-sum drag on society. You seem to think that there is no regulation of immigration at all, when in fact, it has been the subject of several laws that specify the annual composition and allowance, and these are things based on the study of history and economic realities. And also, observations that American families are happier when they've been reunited, which is why family-based visas are a large part of the annual allocation [0]
I suggest you understand that just because "anyone can learn about anything now" doesn't mean that you yourself have fulfilled that promise. For example, you seem to misunderstand the notion of welfare. The mindset behind it is not zero-sum, it's quite the opposite. The hope and expectation is that those who need welfare get the helping hand they need to establish themselves. Again, I can speak from personal experience growing up with food stamps, and now living and working in Silicon Valley.
How do you suppose you can deal with radicalized immigrants if you're indiscriminate about immigration?
I don't think it's fair to describe the current situation as indiscriminate. There are existing limits. One can reasonably argue whether they're appropriate or adequate or effective, but to imply that there are no limits or vetting at all is disingenuous.
It may not be so as it is but left to the devices of Trump's detractors, the ultimate goal is to be as limitless as you can.
Even if that isn't the case, can you honestly say we live in times where we can ignore that more needs to be done? To me, it is absolutely binary; either you think more should be done or you don't.
The real debate here is whether Trump's ban constitutes doing what's necessary and I say yes.
If you expect others to engage you in nuanced discussion, you need to do so yourself, which not only means being more careful with language like "indiscriminate", but also includes avoiding sweeping generalizations like "left to the devices of Trump's detractors, the ultimate goal is to be as limitless as you can."
All around are accusations of "they're not listening to us", "they don't really understand the problem", "they don't realize the logical conclusion of their positions". A lot of people are barely talking at each other, much less actually with each other.
I can — and do — honestly say we live in times where we need to spend a lot more effort in listening and understanding each other, as people, as opposed to partisans.
Like I said, it's a temporary ban to allow the President and his team to figure things such as these out.
It is also an edge case that can be overlooked because there are other routes to get to her desired destination.
She is an Iranian. You and I don't know her. We cannot speak to her credibility. We cannot even speak to the credibility of an actual American who goes to Iran and comes back after a spending some time there let alone hers. How can you know whether she is radicalized unless you're absolutely careful about who comes into your country? These things are happening and cannot be sugarcoated or denied any longer. Something must be done and I for one am glad that Trump is setting such a great example for all other countries.
You're insane. Could you kindly point out any terrorist acts in the US by any citizen of any of the nationalities now banned?
If you want Trump to "be an example for other countries", how should the woman ever get to Costa Rica, considering Costa Rica <-> Iran is probably not popular enough to warrant a direct flight?
How exactly is a woman that is not allowed to exit the terminal, and has been through three metal detectors a risk to America?
Considering there has been no single incident with any terrorists from the nations in the last 30 years (yeah, I just spoiled the answer for the first question, sorry), would I be expecting too much when asking why nobody thought to pick up the phone and ask immigrations "If I were to ban people from country X, is there anything I should keep in mind". After all, it took DHS less than 6 hours to identify ambiguities with regards to green cards and visas.
No name calling please. I'm very much sane and the furthest thing from a deplorable so to speak.
Please tell me we're not ignoring that most terrorism is Muslim affiliated.
That, coupled with the fact that there have been many attacks all over the world by Muslim terrorists leads me to ask a simple question, does it then not make sense to ban people from largely Muslim countries until more can be done to thwart these attacks?
Should nothing be done according to you?
As for that woman, that is an edge case and it can be tolerated for now until travelers on transit can be isolated more carefully in the future. For now, the ban must be employed because more important things are at stake here i.e. security.
>How exactly is a woman that is not allowed to exit the terminal
>If you want Trump to "be an example for other countries", how should the woman ever get to Costa Rica, considering Costa Rica <-> Iran is probably not popular enough to warrant a direct flight?
I would suggest that they be stopped before coming to America in the first place. Let them use another route until authorities can figure out what the hell is going on. America is after all high on extremists' target priority lists.
Don't use this small instance of this woman to discredit the entire ban on these 7 nations' emigrants.
Not sure if you're aware of this but America has a Department of Homeland Security as well as USCIS, both funded to the tune of billions of dollars to provide screening of the immigration process. There is a lot more than "nothing" that has been done to regulate immigration before Trump's executive order.
Clearly whatever is being done is insufficient and that's why there are attacks by Islamists. As such Trump has decided to be more proactive. He needs more support and accolades for being brave enough to do what's needed even though it is controversial.
Do you want America to be like France where because of insufficient immigration controls they get an attack every so often from these Islamic immigrants?
> Clearly whatever is being done is insufficient and that's why there are attacks by Islamists.
If, as the parent is hinting, there have been few-to-no attacks by immigrant Islamists (and few attacks by Islamists of any stripe) in the US, I don't see how it's remotely clear that "whatever is being done is insufficient". What the hell does "sufficient" look like?
> Do you want America to be like France where because of insufficient immigration controls they get an attack every so often from these Islamic immigrants?
Personally? Maybe. If the cost of getting rid of it was zero, then no, of course not. But I choose to bear much higher risks because I don't like the trade-offs necessary to eliminate them. There is no reason this should be different.
But its been established, nothing is going on. Except for fear-mongering at the highest levels. Its a circus, designed to distract from the real crimes, which are stealing the entire US economy out from under us.
Okay, I'm with you. A lot of Trump's behavior during the campaign and leading up to the inauguration can be interpreted in this way as well.
from the real crimes,
It's been (just over) a week since the inauguration. I'm sure I could have missed something. The only thing I can think of right now is the emoluments-related matters, and other conflicts of interest. The Executive Order stuff is pretty nasty as well, and looks to be the beginning of a judicial (and perhaps congressional) fight, arguably a crime, but that remains to be seen.
which are stealing the entire US economy out from under us.
Okay, now I'm not following at all. What am I missing? I plead naiveté and ignorance and throw myself at the mercy of the court.
After soaking up 99% of American wealth in the last 20 years, the new cabinet consisting of Wall Street executives (among the friends and family) is designed to scrape up any morsels left to the rest of us.
>which are stealing the entire US economy out from under us.
How so?
The only stealing going on is that targeted at the wealthy. High taxes and innumerable regulations are an atrocity. Inflation is even more atrocious.
However, here's what Keynesian economics proponents never get; even though you try to rob the rich by currency devaluation, you end up doing quite the opposite and that is actually hurt the poor who are the worst affected by inflation all while saying that in the end, we're all dead anyway.
Why would I ask that? Because I wonder if you actually know. You said you weren't from America, so I can understand if most of your knowledge about America comes from the news, rather than a view of the facts over a timeframe longer than last week.
I mean, to equate America with France, as if geography and economics had nothing to do with immigration, makes me think that you come in with flawed assumptions about how the world works.
>You said you weren't from America, so I can understand if most of your knowledge about America comes from the news, rather than a view of the facts over a timeframe longer than last week.
Surely that's a low blow or as Watson might phrase it, a wang bang and you know it.
I already said I'm not an American. I do however support Trump. I read many of his books right out of high school and I'm re-reading The Art of the deal.
I see a global shift to the right wing going forward. I mean can you believe that in France the Socialist party stands no chance because even the French, yes the French cannot stand what the left has done.
I'm glad people from all races have woken up and are saying no to unrestricted immigration, no to excessive taxes and regulation, no to welfare states, and no to egalitarianism. Luckily, this transcends racism. It is about reason as Ayn Rand would put it.
Yes but all others weren't legitimized because of the popular vote. It was because of the electoral college. If ever there was a problem with the current system, you should have fixed it then and not complain now that Trump won.
If anyone thinks that this ruling is a surprise to the Trump administration, think again. I have no doubt that he conferred with his AG about his executive order and discuss possible outcomes such as a judge blocking his order. Maybe he expected this outcome?
Trump added Breitbart's Bannon to the National Security Council, and demoted the Director of National Intelligence and the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff from it to make room.
It's fairly obvious from a reading of the text that Trump (or more likely Bannon) didn't consult any kind of lawyer or national security officer while crafting the order.
Many of you are probably watching the horror show unfold and wondering what tangible thing you can do. Joining or contributing to the ACLU is one small but important, specific way to help: https://action.aclu.org/secure/become-freedom-fighter-join-a....
https://twitter.com/seligerj/status/825529092414046208