Monthly Archives: January 2017

Corbyn: May will be failing Britons if Trump visit goes ahead

The Guardian reports: Jeremy Corbyn has told Theresa May she will be “failing the British people” if she does not cancel Donald Trump’s state visit in the wake of the US president’s ban on people from seven Muslim-majority countries entering the US.

Corbyn told the Guardian the summer visit should be called off if Trump’s indefinite ban on Syrian refugees remains in place, even if time-limited restrictions put in place have lapsed by then.

“Donald Trump should not be welcomed to Britain while he abuses our shared values with his shameful Muslim ban and attacks on refugees’ and women’s rights,” he said.

“Theresa May would be failing the British people if she does not postpone the state visit and condemn Trump’s actions in the clearest terms. That’s what Britain expects and deserves.”

With Tim Farron, the Liberal Democrat leader, also calling for the visit to be cancelled, May was under pressure on Sunday to make a stronger condemnation of Trump’s ban, which has brought global condemnation and prompted travel and legal chaos within the US. [Continue reading…]

BBC political correspondent, Susana Mendonca, writes: Before all the hand holding and pally smiles, Theresa May promised the world she would not be afraid to tell Donald Trump what she thought when she disagreed with him. It didn’t take long for her to stumble at the first hurdle.

Downing Street later said the prime minister didn’t agree with Mr Trump’s approach. And her Chief Secretary to the Treasury also said she was not the kind of politician to “shoot from the hip”.

But this tougher stance only came after wide criticism of her failure to condemn the president in the first place.

Iraqi-born MP Nadhim Zahawi said he would also be banned from the US; fellow Conservative Heidi Allen said she didn’t care how “special” the relationship was, some lines shouldn’t be crossed.

And that’s the trouble for Theresa May. Donald Trump is bound to cross yet more lines, and if she doesn’t criticise him she’ll look like the weak partner obeying the powerful one.

The real question for her will be whether keeping Mr Trump sweet in the interests of getting a good trade deal for Britain is worth the backlash she’ll get for not being candid enough when she and Britain disagrees with him.

Labour Mayor of London Sadiq Khan said he was pleased the prime minister “has now said she and the government do not agree” with the policy – which Mr Khan described as “shameful”.

“As a nation that, like the USA, values tolerance, diversity and freedom, we cannot just shrug our shoulders and say: ‘It’s not our problem’.”

Labour’s former deputy leader Harriet Harman told the BBC: “I was horrified when he announced this ban on people from Muslim countries.

“And three times – once, twice, three times – [Mrs May] said: ‘Oh it’s nothing to do with me.’ Well, it is to do with us, as we all know. And she obviously has to be careful as prime minister – but she needs to be strong as well. So I was really disappointed – I hope she’s learnt some lessons.”

Meanwhile, an appeal to raise funds for a Glasgow vet caught up in the American flight ban has raised enough to pay for her tickets home just a few hours after being launched. [Continue reading…]

The Guardian reports: Hamaseh Tayari, a UK resident who holds an Iranian passport, has been on holiday in Costa Rica with her boyfriend for the last week. She was due to fly back to Glasgow, where she works as a vet, this morning but was denied entry onto the flight because her flight went via New York and she would need a transit visa, which was revoked.

Tayari, who grew up in Italy, has never experienced anything like this. She says: “This has really shocked me. We just discovered [what Trump did] at the airport when we went to check in. I want people to know that this is not just happening to refugees. I am a graduate and I have a PhD. It has happened to a person who is working and who pays tax.”

Tayari and her boyfriend are trying to find an alternative route home. A flight to Madrid on the 30 January will cost them £2,000 and they’ll still have to find a way from there to Glasgow. “We had been saving for months for this holiday and it will cost me a month’s salary just to get home,” she said.

“I am destroyed. I did not know that I could cry for so long. It feels like the beginning of the end. How this is possible? I am really afraid about what is going on.”

British Conservative MP Nadhim Zahawi, who was born in Iraq, interviewed on the BBC:


Sadly, it’s a bit late in the day for Zahawi to have recognized the importance of freedom of movement. Last March, sounding very much like Trump, the MP tweeted in support of Brexit:


Another Brexiter, now Britain’s foreign secretary, Boris Johnson, is now speaking out in defense of freedom of movement:

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Trump gives National Security Council seat to ex-Breitbart chief Steve Bannon

The Guardian reports: President Donald Trump granted controversial adviser Steve Bannon a regular seat at meetings of the National Security Council on Saturday, in a presidential memorandum that brought the former Breitbart publisher into some of the most sensitive meetings at the highest levels of government.

The president named Bannon to the council in a reorganization of the NSC. He also said his chief-of-staff Reince Priebus would have a seat in the meetings.

Trump also said the chairman of the joint chiefs of staff and the director of national intelligence, two of the most senior defense chiefs, will attend meetings only when discussions are related to their “responsibilities and expertise”. Barack Obama and George W Bush both gave the men in those roles regular seats on the council.

In an interview with the New York Times this week, Bannon called the press “the opposition party” and said it should “keep its mouth shut”. He has previously described himself as “a Leninist” and an “economic nationalist”.

Before he caught the ear of Trump while the businessman was a candidate, Bannon oversaw Breitbart news, a website that has featured racist and sexist articles. Like Trump, he entered government with no experience in public service. [Continue reading…]

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Sir Mo Farah tells family ‘Daddy might not be able to come home’ after Trump travel ban

The Telegraph reports: Sir Mo Farah, the British Olympic hero, has attacked Donald Trump and said he fears he may now be separated from his family because of the American president’s immigration crackdown.

The four-times Olympic gold medal winner said the Queen had made him a knight, but Mr Trump had apparently now made him an ‘alien’

The long distance runner said he would be forced to tell his children “that Daddy may not be able to come home” because of the ban preventing any citizen of seven mostly-Muslim countries from entering the US for 90 days. The ban extends to those with dual British nationality.

In a damning statement, the long distance runner who was knighted last month said Mr Trump’s new policy was “from a place of ignorance and prejudice.” [Continue reading…]

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Judge blocks part of Trump’s ban on Muslims entering U.S.

The New York Times reports: A federal judge blocked part of President Trump’s executive order on immigration on Saturday evening, ordering that refugees and others trapped at airports across the United States should not be sent back to their home countries. But the judge stopped short of letting them into the country or issuing a broader ruling on the constitutionality of Mr. Trump’s actions.

Lawyers who sued the government to block the White House order said the decision, which came after an emergency hearing in a New York City courtroom, could affect an estimated 100 to 200 people who were detained upon arrival at American airports in the wake of the order that Mr. Trump signed on Friday afternoon, a week into his presidency.

Judge Ann M. Donnelly of Federal District Court in Brooklyn, who was nominated by former President Barack Obama, ruled just before 9 p.m. that implementing Mr. Trump’s order by sending the travelers home could cause them “irreparable harm.”

Dozens of people waited outside of the courthouse chanting, “Set them free!” as lawyers made their case. When the crowd learned that Judge Donnelly had ruled in favor of the plaintiffs, a rousing cheer went up in the crowd.

While none of the detainees will be sent back immediately, lawyers for the plaintiffs in the case expressed concern that all those at the airports would now be put in detention, pending a resolution of the case. Inviting the lawyers to return to court if the travelers were detained, Judge Donnelly said, “If someone is not being released, I guess I’ll just hear from you.” [Continue reading…]

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Under fire, UK’s May criticizes Trump curb on refugees

Reuters reports: Prime Minister Theresa May said on Saturday Britain did not agree with U.S. President Donald Trump’s curbs on immigration after facing criticism from lawmakers in her own party for not condemning his executive order.

On a visit to Turkey, she was asked three times to comment on Trump’s move to put a four-month hold on allowing refugees into the United States and temporarily barring travelers from Syria and six other Muslim-majority countries, which he said would protect Americans from violent Islamists.

She replied Washington was responsible for its policy on refugees.

But later, after her return to London, her spokesman said: “Immigration policy in the United States is a matter for the government of the United States, just the same as immigration policy for this country should be set by our government.

“But we do not agree with this kind of approach and it is not one we will be taking. We are studying this new executive order to see what it means and what the legal effects are, and in particular what the consequences are for UK nationals.” [Continue reading…]

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World leaders condemn Trump’s ‘Muslim ban.’ Theresa May take note: the ban also applies to dual nationals

Al Jazeera reports: European leaders, the United Nations and international groups have condemned US President Donald Trump’s measures against refugees and travellers from several Muslim-majority countries.

The chorus of criticism came as passport holders from Arab countries were blocked on Saturday from passing through customs at US airports and others were prevented from boarding US-bound planes.

Trump on Friday signed an executive order that will curb immigration and the entry of refugees from some Muslim-majority countries. He separately said he wanted the US to give priority to Syrian Christians fleeing the civil war there.

The bans, though temporary, took effect immediately, causing havoc and confusion for would-be travelers with passports from Iran, Iraq, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria and Yemen.

The United Nations refugee agency and the International Organization for Migration called on the Trump administration to continue offering asylum to people fleeing war and persecution, saying its resettlement programme was vital.

“The needs of refugees and migrants worldwide have never been greater and the US resettlement programme is one of the most important in the world,” the two Geneva-based agencies said in a joint statement on Saturday. [Continue reading…]

The Wall Street Journal reports: Citizens of the seven countries identified by President Donald Trump for a 90-day visa ban who hold dual nationality also will be barred from entering the United States, the U.S. State Department said in a statement Saturday.

In a statement that the State Department is due to release, which was reviewed by The Wall Street Journal, the 90-day visa moratorium extends beyond just citizens of Iraq, Iran, Somalia, Sudan, Syria, Libya and Yemen.

It also applies to people who originally hail from those countries but are traveling on a passport issued by any other nation, the statement notes. That means Iraqis seeking to enter the U.S. on a British passport, for instance, will be barred, according to a U.S. official. British citizens don’t normally require a visa to enter the U.S. [Continue reading…]

The Independent reports: Theresa May has repeatedly refused to condemn Donald Trump’s ban on refugees and entry for citizens of seven Muslim-majority nations after meeting with Turkish leaders.

She was speaking just a day after meeting the new President in Washington, where the pair pledged their commitment to the “special relationship” between Britain and the US.

After agreeing a controversial £100 million fighter jet deal amid wide-ranging purges and security crackdowns following an attempted coup against President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, Ms May held a joint press conference with Prime Minister Binali Yıldırım.

Their talks were overshadowed by global debate over Mr Trump’s executive order to ban Syrian refugees from entering the US indefinitely, halt all other asylum admissions for 120 days and suspend travel visas for citizens of “countries of particular concern”, including Syria, Iraq and other Muslim-majority nations.

​Faisal Islam, the political editor of Sky News, asked Ms May whether she viewed it as an “action of the leader of the free world”.

The Prime Minister replied that she was “very pleased” to have met Mr Trump in Washington, before evading the question by hailing Turkey’s reception of millions of refugees and Britain’s support for its government and other nations surrounding Syria.

When pressed for a second time for her view by another British journalist, Ms May continued: “The United States is responsible for the United States’ policy on refugees, the United Kingdom is responsible for the United Kingdom’s policy on refugees.” [Continue reading…]

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Trump’s executive order means he is now officially gunning for Muslims

Moustafa Bayoumi writes: Trump’s Executive Order claims that “the United States should not admit those who engage in acts of bigotry or hatred,” including those who perpetrate “forms of violence against women, or the persecution of those who practice religions different from their own.” Fair enough.

But, what if such a person learned those heinous lessons while he was already in the United States? And what if such a person ran for office? And what if such a person became the president of the United States? How do we protect America then? [Continue reading…]

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Trump order will block 500,000 legal U.S. residents from returning to America from trips abroad

By Marcelo Rochabrun, ProPublica, January 28, 2017

Update: A spokeswoman for the Department of Homeland Security told Reuters on Saturday morning that the President’s executive order will, in fact, stop green card holders from seven countries from returning to the United States if they travel abroad. “It will bar green card holders,” the spokeswoman said.

——

When details leaked earlier this week about a spate of immigration-related executive orders from President Donald Trump, much public discussion focused on a 30-day ban on new visas for citizens from seven “terror-prone” countries.

But the order signed this afternoon by Trump is actually more severe, increasing the ban to 90 days. And its effects could extend well beyond preventing newcomers from Iran, Iraq, Libya, Somalia, Sudan and Yemen, from entering the U.S., lawyers consulted by ProPublica said.

It’s also expected to have substantial effects on hundreds of thousands of people from these countries who already live in the U.S. under green cards or on temporary student or employee visas.

Since the order’s travel ban applies to all “aliens” — a term that encompasses anyone who isn’t an American citizen — it could bar those with current visas or even green cards from returning to the U.S. from trips abroad, said Stephen Legomsky, a former chief counsel to the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services under President Obama.

“It’s extraordinarily cruel,” he said.

Continue reading →

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Is Canada’s minister of immigration also banned from visiting the U.S.?

The Toronto Star reported on January 10: In 2004, Ahmed Hussen was proclaimed a “Person to Watch” in the country’s biggest city for his community work in Regent Park. He told the Star at the time: “I don’t think I could handle the life of a politician . . . I don’t want to be front and centre.”

Flash forward to Tuesday, and there was Hussen, front and slightly to the right, swearing an oath to serve the Queen in front of a cluster of clicking cameras as he officially joined the reshuffled Liberal cabinet of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau. The rookie MP for York-South Weston has leapt from the backbench of the party to become Minister of Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship, a position made all the more noteworthy for Hussen’s own story. He came to this country as a refugee from war-torn Somalia, settling on his own in a foreign land as a 16-year-old in 1993.

Just hours after formally assuming his new post, Hussen — who has been a lawyer, human rights advocate and community activist — said the trajectory of his life would affect how he approaches the job, just like it would for anyone else.

“I am extremely proud of our country’s history as a place of asylum, a place that opens its doors and hearts to new immigrants and refugees, and I’m especially proud today to be the minister in charge of that file,” Hussen told reporters outside the House of Commons on Tuesday. [Continue reading…]

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Legal challenges mount for Trump’s ban on Muslims entering the U.S.

Yahoo News reports: Civil liberties groups are challenging Donald Trump’s executive order barring all immigration from seven majority-Muslim nations for 120 days, which the president signed Friday evening. Donald Trump also temporarily canceled admissions from the entire U.S. refugee program.

On Saturday morning, the Department of Homeland Security confirmed that legal permanent residents of the United States with green cards are included in the ban, and will not be allowed to reenter the country. Later, the agency said they would decide on a “case-by-case” basis. As officials raced to understand the new executive order, U.S. green card holders from Iran and the six other countries were reportedly kicked off flights, sent back to their country of origin or detained at airports. (The banned countries are Syria, Iraq, Iran, Sudan, Somalia, Yemen and Libya.)

Less than 24 hours after Trump signed the order, at least three lawsuits challenging the ban have been filed or are in the works. The ACLU filed a lawsuit in federal court Saturday on behalf of two Iraqi men who were detained at John F. Kennedy Airport on Friday night. The men were both granted visas before Trump’s order was signed, but were detained upon arriving in the United States, due to the order.

One of them, Hameed Darweesh, was released Saturday afternoon. He was granted a special immigrant visa for his service to the U.S. Army as a translator for 10 years in Iraq. “We know America is the land of freedom,” he said in a brief press conference after his release, adding that he was “grateful” to the country for accepting him.

The ACLU is going forward with its lawsuit on behalf of the other detained man. It seeks an immediate injunction barring the Trump administration from blocking immigrants based on his executive order, arguing that the order is illegal based on a a 1965 law banning discrimination in immigration based on national origin. [Continue reading…]

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Trump betrays Iraqis who helped the U.S.

The Wall Street Journal reports: Iraqi interpreter Laith al-Haydar received multiple death threats for working with the American military at the height of the war in his country. In return for helping the U.S., he and tens of thousands of other Iraqis were promised U.S. immigration visas.

Nearly four years after he applied, the 41-year-old father of two is still waiting for a visa — and now faces a new setback: President Donald Trump signed an executive order suspending immigration from several countries with a Muslim majority, including Iraq, and a temporary ban on all refugees.

Mr. Haydar is among roughly 58,000 Iraqi applicants for U.S. immigrant visas and refugee resettlement under federal programs that promised to fast-track entry for Iraqis who worked with the U.S. government and other institutions deemed critical to the U.S.-led effort in Iraq, according to the State Department. A similar program for Afghans who’ve worked with the U.S. government may also be at risk.

At least one Iraqi and two Afghans who worked with the U.S. government and also qualify for expedited immigration visas were turned away from American ports of entry on Friday and Saturday, a State Department official said, adding that several more were prevented from boarding planes to the U.S. [Continue reading…]

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Top Republicans denounced Trump’s Muslim ban on the trail. Now they support his executive order

Jeff Stein reports: Key congressional Republicans who denounced Donald Trump’s proposed “Muslim ban” during the campaign have refused to condemn the president’s executive order barring immigrants of seven Muslim-majority countries.

On Dec. 2, 2015, Trump called for a “total and complete shutdown of Muslims entering the United States.” That proposal was repeatedly repudiated by key leaders in the Republican Party, including House Speaker Paul Ryan and Vice President Mike Pence,


What Trump signed on Friday is not the full-scale “blanket ban” he once proposed — it temporarily prohibits immigrants and visa-holders from the seven Muslim-majority countries, rather than targeting Muslims specifically. Since Muslims from other countries will still be able to enter the US, Republicans are arguing it’s substantially different from the initial “Muslim ban” — and that there’s therefore no contradiction between their two positions.

But critics say that’s ignoring the intent of Trump’s executive order. Not only does Trump’s action only affect Muslim-majority countries, but it also gives Christians and refugees of other minority religions priority over Muslims — establishing a religious test for admittance, according to The New York Times.

For now, the Republicans publicly infuriated by the “Muslim ban” appear to have no public objections to that. And that could allow Trump to continue to dramatically reduce refugee flows, free of interference from Congress. [Continue reading…]

Last July, Politico reported: On Trump’s call for a ban on Muslim immigrants, [Gen. James] Mattis [the new Secretary of Defense] — who rarely gives media interviews — was also sharply critical, saying that such talk prompts U.S. allies to think “we have lost faith in reason.”

Asked about the reaction in the Middle East to Trump’s suggestion, Mattis said, “They think we’ve completely lost it. This kind of thing is causing us great damage right now, and it’s sending shock waves through this international system.” [Continue reading…]

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Anxiety about Muslim refugees is stoked online by the far-right media

The New York Times reports: Type the word refugees into Facebook and some alarming “news” will appear about a refugee rape crisis, a refugee flesh-eating disease epidemic and a refugee-related risk of female genital mutilation — none of it true.

For the months leading up to the presidential election, and in the days since President Trump took office, ultraconservative websites like Breitbart News and Infowars have published a cycle of eye-popping stories with misleading claims about refugees. And it is beginning to influence public perception, experts say.

That shift was evident on Friday, as many Americans heralded the news that the Trump administration intended to temporarily curb all refugee resettlement and increase the vetting of Syrians.

“There really is a kind of cultural battle going on,” said Cecillia Wang, the deputy legal director for the American Civil Liberties Union. “There’s no question that kind of xenophobic or anti-Muslim bias is infecting our political discourse about refugees.” [Continue reading…]

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Trump’s big mistake on Syria refugees

Peter Bergen writes: On Friday, President Donald Trump signed an executive order that effectively suspends the entry of Syrian refugees into the United States indefinitely. As he signed the order, President Trump said that this was “to keep radical Islamic terrorists out of the United States.”

This order will achieve absolutely nothing because there is no evidence of terrorists among the Syrian refugees who are settling in the United States.

All the lethal acts of jihadist terrorism in the States since 9/11 have been carried out by American citizens or legal residents, and none of them have been the work of Syrian refugees.

That shouldn’t be too surprising, because the United States has accepted only a minuscule number of Syrian refugees, even though the Syrian civil war is one of the worst humanitarian crises since World War II and has generated a vast outflow of nearly 5 million refugees from Syria.

The United States has taken only around 15,000 Syrian refugees, amounting to a tiny 0.2% of the total number of refugees, the large majority of whom are women and children.

Not only are these Syrian refugees not terrorists, but they are fleeing the brutal state terrorism of the Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad and the brutal non-state terrorism of ISIS.

The refugees are the victims of terrorism, not the perpetrators of terrorism. [Continue reading…]

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Global resistance to Trump rises

Huffington Post reports: Time Magazine has used its February 8 cover to drive home the significance of the Women’s March on Washington. The cover, complete with the headline “The Resistance Rises,” features a striking image of the now-infamous pink “pussy hat.”

The cover is a strong comment on powerful resistance that has formed in response to President Donald Trump, with a specific focus on the influence the Women’s March ― which close to 3 million people are estimated to have attended worldwide ― has had on public consciousness.

“There is no precedent in U.S. history for the show of collective outrage that answered Trump’s Inauguration,” wrote Time’s Karl Vick in the magazine’s cover story. “But then, there is no precedent for Trump.”

Vick pointed out that the strength of the march lay in the fact that organizers made the march less about Trump and more about empowering women and all marginalized communities.

“Protest organizers actually calculated that framing the march as pro-women rather than anti-Trump would work wonders,” Vick wrote.

And he’s right. As Women’s March co-chairs Linda Sarsour, Carmen Perez, Bob Bland and Tamika D. Mallory emphasized, the march was not about protesting one man. Rather, it was about justice for every marginalized group, as per the march’s policy platform, and about resisting the bigotry and misogyny that have already come to characterize the Trump Administration. [Continue reading…]

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Pope Francis: ‘Jesus was a refugee’

The Huffington Post reported on June 23, 2014: Pope Francis made a poignant appeal on behalf of the world’s refugees during his Wednesday general audience, reminding all listening that Jesus, too, encountered times of hardship and danger.

“We believe that Jesus was a refugee, had to flee to save his life, with Saint Joseph and Mary, had to leave for Egypt,” Pope Francis said, according to Zenit. “He was a refugee. Let us pray to Our Lady who knows the pain of refugees.”

The pope made his petition to the Church, which he defined as “all of us,” not limited to “priests, bishops, or the Vatican,” reported Asia News.

World Refugee Day is on June 20. “The number of these brother refugees is growing and, in these past few days, thousands more have been forced to leave their homes in order to save their life. Millions of families, millions of them, refugees from many countries and different faiths, experience in their stories tragedies and wounds that will not likely be healed,” said Pope Francis. “Let us be their neighbors, share their fears and uncertainty about the future, and take concrete steps to reduce their suffering.” [Continue reading…]

Amanda Erickson reports: As the man bobbed in the water, onlookers pulled out their smartphones.

“Go on, go back where you came from,”one man yelled. “Africa!” shouted another. “He is stupid. He wants to die,” said a third, caught on film. Someone in a nearby water bus threw out a life vest, but the man in the water didn’t grab on. Spectators began to wonder if he was suicidal. One woman suggested to a neighbor that he was just pretending.

Finally, tourists at Venice’s Grand Canal began to laugh as 22-year-old Pateh Sabally of Gambia drowned in the canal’s icy waters.

Sabally came to Italy two years ago and was living in the country legally. Last year, according to Italian media outlets, he traveled to Switzerland to look for work. He wanted to travel closer to his family in Mexico, but Swiss officials sent him back to Italy.


His death, which has rippled across social media, is a bleak reminder of how deep tensions run between local citizens and migrants, particularly in countries like Italy and Germany, which are on the front line of Europe’s refugee crisis. Last year, 181,000 migrants traveled to Italy’s shores, a 20 percent jump from 2015. Some come from Syria, others from Libya and Eritrea. [Continue reading…]

In reaction to President Trump’s Executive Order to effectively prevent refugees from seeking resettlement in the USA, Salil Shetty, Secretary General at Amnesty International said:

“President Trump’s Executive Order effectively blocking those fleeing war and persecution from war-torn countries such as Syria, from seeking safe haven in the USA are an appalling move with potentially catastrophic consequences.

“Some of our worst fears about the Trump administration have already been realised. With the stroke of a pen, President Trump has put his hateful xenophobic pre-election rhetoric into action by singling out people only of the basis of their religion.”

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Support for refugees is not charity; it contributes to the global stability on which all nations depend

David Miliband, president and chief executive of the International Rescue Committee, writes: President Trump’s executive order suspending the entire resettlement program for 120 days and banning indefinitely the arrival of Syrian refugees is a repudiation of fundamental American values, an abandonment of the United States’ role as a humanitarian leader and, far from protecting the country from extremism, a propaganda gift to those who would plot harm to America.

The order also cuts the number of refugees scheduled for resettlement in the United States in the fiscal year 2017 from a planned total of about 110,000 to just 50,000. Founded on the myth that there is no proper security screening for refugees, the order thus thrusts into limbo an estimated 60,000 vulnerable refugees, most of whom have already been vetted and cleared for resettlement here. The new policy urgently needs rethinking.

Refugees coming to the United States are fleeing the same violent extremism that this country and its allies are fighting in the Middle East and elsewhere. Based on recent data, a majority of those selected for resettlement in America are women and children. Since the start of the war, millions of Syrians have fled not just the military of President Bashar al-Assad but also the forces of Russia, Iranian militias and the Islamic State.

There are also thousands of Afghans and Iraqis whose lives are at risk because of assistance they offered American troops stationed in their countries. Of all the refugees that my organization, the International Rescue Committee, would be helping to resettle this year, this group, the Special Immigrant Visa population, makes up a fourth. [Continue reading…]

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Trump’s immigration ban is illegal

David J. Bier writes: President Trump signed an executive order on Friday that purports to bar for at least 90 days almost all permanent immigration from seven majority-Muslim countries, including Syria and Iraq, and asserts the power to extend the ban indefinitely.

But the order is illegal. More than 50 years ago, Congress outlawed such discrimination against immigrants based on national origin.

That decision came after a long and shameful history in this country of barring immigrants based on where they came from. Starting in the late 19th century, laws excluded all Chinese, almost all Japanese, then all Asians in the so-called Asiatic Barred Zone. Finally, in 1924, Congress created a comprehensive “national-origins system,” skewing immigration quotas to benefit Western Europeans and to exclude most Eastern Europeans, almost all Asians, and Africans.

Mr. Trump appears to want to reinstate a new type of Asiatic Barred Zone by executive order, but there is just one problem: The Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965 banned all discrimination against immigrants on the basis of national origin, replacing the old prejudicial system and giving each country an equal shot at the quotas. In signing the new law, President Lyndon B. Johnson said that “the harsh injustice” of the national-origins quota system had been “abolished.” [Continue reading…]

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