Welcome Guest [Log In] [Register]


Welcome to Conversations. We hope you enjoy your visit.


You're currently viewing our forum as a guest. This means you are limited to certain areas of the board and there are some features you can't use. If you join our community, you'll be able to access member-only sections, and use many member-only features such as customizing your profile, sending personal messages, and voting in polls. Registration is simple, fast, and completely free.


Join our community!


If you're already a member please log in to your account to access all of our features:

Username:   Password:
Add Reply
  • Pages:
  • 1
  • 2
  • 10
Trump Signs Executive Order Barring Muslims From Certain Countries From Entering The U.S. (Updated)
Topic Started: Jan 28 2017, 01:39 AM (888 Views)
Webster
Member Avatar
Wasatch Storyteller & Resident Forum Curmudgeon
[ *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  * ]
MSN News: Trump Bars All Refugees, and Citizens From 7 Muslim Nations
Quote:
 
WASHINGTON — President Trump on Friday closed the nation’s borders to refugees from around the world, ordering that families fleeing Syrian carnage be indefinitely blocked from entering the United States, and temporarily suspending immigration from several predominantly Muslim countries.

Declaring the measure part of an extreme vetting plan to “keep radical Islamic terrorists” out of the country, Mr. Trump also ordered that Christians around the globe who are seeking entry into the United States should be granted priority over Muslims, for the first time establishing a religious test for refugees.

“We don’t want them here,” Mr. Trump said of Islamic terrorists during a signing ceremony at the Pentagon. “We want to ensure that we are not admitting into our country the very threats our soldiers are fighting overseas. We only want to admit those into our country who will support our country, and love deeply our people.”

Earlier in the day, Mr. Trump explained to an interviewer for the Christian Broadcasting Network that Christians in Syria were “horribly treated” and alleged that under previous administrations, “if you were a Muslim you could come in, but if you were a Christian, it was almost impossible.”

“I thought it was very, very unfair. So we are going to help them,” the president said.

The executive order suspends the entry of refugees into the United States for 120 days and directs officials to determine additional screening ”to ensure that those approved for refugee admission do not pose a threat to the security and welfare of the United States.”

The order also stops the admission of refugees from Syria indefinitely, and bars entry into the United States for 90 days from seven predominantly Muslim countries linked to concerns about terrorism. Those countries are: Iraq, Syria, Iran, Sudan, Libya, Somalia and Yemen.

Additionally, Mr. Trump signed a memorandum on Friday directing what he called “a great rebuilding of the armed services,” saying it would call for budget negotiations to acquire new planes, new ships and new resources for the nation’s military.

“Our military strength will be questioned by no one, but neither will our dedication to peace,” Mr. Trump said.

Announcing his “extreme vetting” plan, the president invoked the specter of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. Most of the 19 hijackers on the planes that crashed into the World Trade Center, the Pentagon and a field in Shanksville, Pa., were from Saudi Arabia. The rest were from the United Arab Emirates, Egypt and Lebanon. None of those countries is on Mr. Trump’s visa ban list.

Human rights activists roundly condemned Mr. Trump’s actions, describing them as officially sanctioned religious persecution dressed up to look like an effort to make the United States safer.

The International Rescue Committee called it “harmful and hasty.” The American Civil Liberties Union described it as a “euphemism for discriminating against Muslims.” Raymond Offensheiser, the president of Oxfam America, said the order will harm families around the world who are threatened by authoritarian governments.

“The refugees impacted by today’s decision are among the world’s most vulnerable people — women, children, and men — who are simply trying to find a safe place to live after fleeing unfathomable violence and loss,” Mr. Offensheiser said.

The president signed the executive order shortly after issuing a statement noting that Friday was International Holocaust Remembrance Day, an irony that many of his critics highlighted on Twitter.
...continued in next post....
Offline Profile Quote Post Goto Top
 
Replies:
Webster
Member Avatar
Wasatch Storyteller & Resident Forum Curmudgeon
[ *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  * ]
(The Guardian) The ban has already made some people reconsider their plans.

Mohammad Saghafi, an undergraduate electric engineering student in Tehran Azad University, told the Khaleej Times that he was thinking twice about trying to pursue further education in the US because of the ban.

“I may continue my education in Canada or Germany,” he said. “Their leaders do not react like teenagers, at least.”

In the days before the order was issued, the Director of CAIR, Nihad Awad, tweeted: “These EOs (executive orders) will not make our nation safer, rather they will make it more fearful and less welcoming.”

The council said that it would hold a news conference on Monday to announce the filing of a federal lawsuit on behalf of more than 20 individuals challenging what it called the “Muslim ban”.

Hooper said it appeared that border officials had been anticipating the order for several days.

We had been getting reports of people being turned away after landing days before the order (was issued). We don’t know what’s going on it’s just a great state of confusion and apprehension. It’s going to be the Wild West out there. People are taking it upon themselves to carry out the indiscrimination that’s in this order.
Offline Profile Quote Post Goto Top
 
Webster
Member Avatar
Wasatch Storyteller & Resident Forum Curmudgeon
[ *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  * ]
(The Guardian) Iranian-British Cyrus Abbasian, who works as an NHS consultant psychiatrist, said he felt discriminated against given that he has lived in the UK since aged 10. “A total ban of Iranian citizens entering US, just because they are Iranian, is not only highly prejudicial and illogical but will defeat its purpose,” he said.

“It will likely only lead to mistrust, division and alienation. It also resonates of the bad old days I thought was well behind us, when minorities were systematically blamed or scapegoated usually with tragic consequences.”

Pooya Ghoddousi, an Iranian PhD student, said “the beginning of the end even started while Obama was still in power when the discriminatory HR158 bill [about dual nationals] was passed by the congress and signed by Obama.” He was referring to measures that targeted dual nationals from Iran, as well as Iraq, Syria and Sudan. Under the 2015 measures, Iranians with dual citizenship from European countries who could previously visit the US for 90 days without a visa must since obtain one.

He said: “I want Americans to know that I do not judge them based on the actions of their government. I want them not to judge me based on the actions of mine.”

Bozorgmehr Sharafedin, Reuters’ Iran reporter, tweeted earlier this week: “I can’t visit my mum in Tehran due to #Iran’s political restrictions & now my mum can’t see my brother in US after #Trump’s executive order!”
Offline Profile Quote Post Goto Top
 
Webster
Member Avatar
Wasatch Storyteller & Resident Forum Curmudgeon
[ *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  * ]
(The Guardian) Twelve nobel laureates are among thousands of signatories to a petition calling on Trump to renounce the ban on refugees and to reconsider the executive order.

The petition says the executive order is discriminatory, detrimental to the national interests of the US and will tear families apart.

It has been backed by academics from the US’s most prestigious universities including several Nobel Laureates, fields medalists, National Academy members, and John Bates Clark medalists.

The petition is found here: https://notoimmigrationban.com/
Offline Profile Quote Post Goto Top
 
Webster
Member Avatar
Wasatch Storyteller & Resident Forum Curmudgeon
[ *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  * ]
(The Guardian) Google would not confirm or deny reports that it has recalled staff travelling overseas back to the US.

Google chief executive Sundar Pichai, in a memo to staff seen by Bloomberg News, said more than 100 company staff are affected by the order.

The company has reportedly told these staff to get back to the US.

The employees in question normally work in the US but happened to be abroad when the order was made. The concern is that even if staff have valid visas, they may still be at risk if they are from one of the seven countries targeted by the order and they are outside the US when the order kicks in.

Google would not comment on whether staff had been recalled. It issued this statement: We’re concerned about the impact of this order and any proposals that could impose restrictions on Googlers and their families, or that could create barriers to bringing great talent to the US. We’ll continue to make our views on these issues known to leaders in Washington and elsewhere.
Offline Profile Quote Post Goto Top
 
Webster
Member Avatar
Wasatch Storyteller & Resident Forum Curmudgeon
[ *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  * ]
(The Guardian) Iraqi and Yemeni migrants barred from entry
--Cairo airport officials reportedly told Reuters seven US-bound migrants, six from Iraq and one from Yemen, were prevented from boarding an EgyptAir flight to New York’s JFK airport.

The officials said the action Saturday by the airport was the first since President Donald Trump imposed a three-month ban on refugees from seven Muslim-majority countries: Iraq, Syria, Iran, Sudan, Libya, Somalia and Yemen.

The officials said the seven migrants, escorted by officials from the UN refugee agency, were stopped from boarding the plane after authorities at Cairo airport contacted their counterparts in JFK airport.

The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorised to brief the media.
Offline Profile Quote Post Goto Top
 
Webster
Member Avatar
Wasatch Storyteller & Resident Forum Curmudgeon
[ *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  * ]
(The Guardian) A legal challenge has been filed against Donald Trump’s executive order, which imposes a three-month ban on refugees from seven Muslim-majority countries and from Syria permanently.

The New York Times reports that lawyers representing two Iraqi refugees detained at JFK airport filed a challenge against the measure on Saturday, demanding their clients be released and proposing a class action in a bid to represent all refugees and migrants affected.

One of the refugees detained was named as Hameed Khalid Darweesh, who is said to have worked on behalf of the US government in Iraq for 10 years. The second detained refugee, Haider Sameer Abdulkhaleq Alshawi, was reportedly travelling to New York to join his wife and young son. They had both arrived in the US on Friday night, travelling on seperate flights.
-Read more: https://www.nytimes.com/2017/01/28/us/refugees-detained-at-us-airports-prompting-legal-challenges-to-trumps-immigration-order.html?emc=edit_na_20170128&nl=breaking-news&nlid=70059035&ref=cta&_r=0
Offline Profile Quote Post Goto Top
 
Webster
Member Avatar
Wasatch Storyteller & Resident Forum Curmudgeon
[ *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  * ]
(The Guardian) The International Refugee Assistance Project, one of the organisations involved in a legal challenge against Trump’s executive order banning refugees from certain countries, has said the policy is “irresponsible and dangerous”.

The organisation said in a statement: “Denying thousands of the most persecuted refugees the chance to reach safety is an irresponsible and dangerous move that undermines American values and imperils our foreign relations and national security.

“IRAP works with hundreds of the most vulnerable refugees – children with medical emergencies, survivors of gender-based violence and torture, and Afghan and Iraqi allies to U.S. forces, to name a few – who will be left in immediate life-threatening danger.

“For many of them, resettlement in the United States is their only option to live safely and with dignity.”

Yousif Al-Timimi, a Case Worker at IRAP and former IRAP client who had to flee Iraq in 2013 because of his service to the US government, said: “Those who helped the U.S. mission in Iraq are thankful to be here in the United States as refugees or through the Special Immigrant Visa program; however, for them, the fear is not over.

“Their families are still in Iraq where they might get hurt or killed just because they have ties to a person with a U.S. affiliation and are looked at as traitors. Many of them, like me, try to help their parents and siblings to get out of the country for safety.”
Offline Profile Quote Post Goto Top
 
Webster
Member Avatar
Wasatch Storyteller & Resident Forum Curmudgeon
[ *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  * ]
How much grief is the U.S. getting for Trump's new Muslim-banning EO? Well, when Dick-Fucking-Cheney says its' un-American, that's a bad sign....
Offline Profile Quote Post Goto Top
 
Webster
Member Avatar
Wasatch Storyteller & Resident Forum Curmudgeon
[ *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  * ]
(The Guardian) Green-card holders will be hit by Trump ban - Homeland Security
--People holding so-called green cards, making them legal permanent US residents, are included in President Donald Trump’s executive action temporarily banning people from seven Muslim-majority countries from entering the United States, the Department of Homeland security has confirmed to Reuters

“It will bar green card holders,” Gillian Christensen, acting spokeswoman for the department, reportedly said in an email.

The order places a 90-day block on entry to the US from citizens from Iran, Iraq, Syria, Yemen, Sudan, Libya. In addition, it indefinitely suspends admission of Syrian refugees. It also caps total refugees entering the US in 2017 to 50,000, less than half the previous year’s 117,000.

Almost 500,000 people from the seven countries have received green cards in the past decade, according to news site ProPublica allowing them to live and work in the US indefinitely.
Offline Profile Quote Post Goto Top
 
Webster
Member Avatar
Wasatch Storyteller & Resident Forum Curmudgeon
[ *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  * ]
(The Guardian) Trump’s order banning migrants and refugees from entering the US is illegal, argues an immigration policy expert.

Writing for the New York Times, David J Bier, an analyst at the Cato Institute’s Center for Global Liberty and Prosperity, says that more than 50 years ago, Congress outlawed such discrimination against immigrants based on national origin.

The Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965 banned all discrimination against immigrants on the basis of national origin, Bier writes.

The act was drawn up in response to laws creating a so-called Asiatic Barred Zone, banning immigration from China, Japan and other Asian countries.

Trump points to a 1952 law allowing the president the ability to “suspend the entry” of “any class of aliens”, says Bier, but this ignores restrictions placed by Congress in 1965, stating no person could be “discriminated against in the issuance of an immigrant visa because of the person’s race, sex, nationality, place of birth or place of residence”.

While presidents have used their power dozens of times to keep out certain groups of foreigners under the 1952 law, no president has ever barred an entire nationality of immigrants, says Bier.

While courts rarely interfere in immigration matters, they have affirmed the discrimination ban, he adds.
-Read more: https://www.nytimes.com/2017/01/27/opinion/trumps-immigration-ban-is-illegal.html?action=click&pgtype=Homepage&clickSource=story-heading&module=opinion-c-col-left-region&region=opinion-c-col-left-region&WT.nav=opinion-c-col-left-region
Offline Profile Quote Post Goto Top
 
Webster
Member Avatar
Wasatch Storyteller & Resident Forum Curmudgeon
[ *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  * ]
(The Guardian) Ali Abdi, an Iranian with permanent residency of the US, is in limbo in Dubai.

He can not go to Iran because he has been outspoken about human rights violations there, he can not return to the US because of the visa bans and he can not stay longer in Dubai as his visa will run out. He said on his Facebook page: I am an Iranian PhD student of anthropology in the US. Doing fieldwork is the defining method of our discipline. I left New York on January 22nd, two days after he was sworn in. Now in Dubai, waiting for the issuance of my visa to enter Afghanistan to carry out the ethnographic research. The language of the racist executive order he just signed is ambiguous, but it is likely to prevent permanent residents like me from returning to the country where I am a student, where I have to defend my thesis.

Meanwhile, it’s not yet clear whether the consulate of Afghanistan in Dubai would issue the visa I need in order to stay in Kabul for a year, and I cannot stay in Dubai for long or my UAE visa would expire. It’s not wise to go to Iran either.

This is just one story among thousands.
Offline Profile Quote Post Goto Top
 
Webster
Member Avatar
Wasatch Storyteller & Resident Forum Curmudgeon
[ *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  * ]
(The Guardian) Iraqi soldiers - who have been backed by US-led air support, training and other assistance - have decried Trump’s travel restrictions, AFP reports.

In Mosul, where Iraqi forces are at the forefront of the war against jihadists, soldiers told reporters the move would prevent them from visiting their families.

“It’s not fair, it’s not right. I should have the right to visit my family,” said Assem Ayad, a 23-year-old soldier deployed in Mosul who has three cousins living in Texas.

“This decision was made because there are terrorist groups in Iraq. But there are also innocent people” including those who are fighting against jihadists, said Ayad, who carried an American-made assault rifle.

Haider Hassan, 45, another soldier in Mosul, said his cousin lives in the United States and that he had wanted to visit.

Referring to US military personnel deployed in Iraq, Hassan asked: “Why would they ban us from coming to America when they are in my country and have bases here?”

Isis overran large areas north and west of Baghdad in 2014, sweeping aside military and police units that were ill-prepared to combat the offensive.
Offline Profile Quote Post Goto Top
 
Webster
Member Avatar
Wasatch Storyteller & Resident Forum Curmudgeon
[ *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  * ]
(The Guardian) Iran vows reciprocal action to refugee ban
--Iran has condemned its inclusion alongside six other predominantly Muslim countries in the US visa ban as an “open affront against the Muslim world and the Iranian nation” and vowed to retaliate.

A Foreign Ministry statement carried by state media said Iran “would take appropriate consular, legal and political measures” against the ban, which was announced by President Donald Trump on Friday.

“The decision by the United States to impose travel restrictions on Muslims - even if it is limited to three months - is an explicit insult to the Muslim world, particularly the great people of Iran,” the statement read, according to the semi-official Tasnim news agency.

“Instead of countering terrorism and protecting American people, these measure will be written in history as a gift to extremists and their supporters.”

Tehran said it was closely watching the developments on the visa bans. “We respect people of American and we differentiate between them and their government but because of supporting the rights of our citizens and until these insulting restrictions have been lifted, we would reciprocate.”

Also on Saturday, Iran’s president Hassan Rouhani said: “Today is not the time of wall-raising between nations. Have they forgotten that the Berlin Wall collapsed years ago?”

According to Press TV, Rouhani aded: “Today’s world is not a world where one can create distances between the nations and peoples of different territories. Today is a day of neighbourhood. We have become neighbours in cultural, scientific, and civilisational terms, and also, the world of communications and communications technology have shrunk distances...No one can fight globalisation today.”
Offline Profile Quote Post Goto Top
 
Webster
Member Avatar
Wasatch Storyteller & Resident Forum Curmudgeon
[ *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  * ]
(The Guardian) Murtadha Al-Tameemi, 24 is a software engineer for Facebook from Iraq who lives and works in Seattle. He was in Canada when he got a “frantic call” from his immigration attorney telling him to immediately cross the border back into the US.

Tameemi’s family live just three hours away in Vancouver but he doesn’t know when he’ll see his family again. He says: “I have been traveling back and forth between the US and Canada on almost weekly basis for a few years. I was in Vancouver to attend the opening night of my little brother’s first play when I got the call but there was no way I was going to miss that.

“I didn’t want to make a big deal because it was a happy night for our family but I told my mum the situation and that I didn’t know when I would see her again. She told me everything is going to be alright and that it would all work out.”

Posted Image

After the play he rushed to the airport. He says: “I showed up five hours before my flight this morning to race against any executive order and get through immigration before the potential ban could take effect.”

Tameemi, who first came to the US as an exchange student, also had to cancel a planned business trip to Africa. “It certainly doesn’t feel like the America that welcomed me 10 years ago with open arms and hearts.”
Offline Profile Quote Post Goto Top
 
Webster
Member Avatar
Wasatch Storyteller & Resident Forum Curmudgeon
[ *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  * ]
(The Guardian) More travellers turned away from flights
--Dutch airline KLM says it has had to turn away seven would-be passengers because they would no longer have been accepted into the US under Trump’s ban on immigration from seven Muslim-majority nations.

Manel Vrijenhoek, at KLM’s press office, said: “We would love to bring them there. That’s not the problem. It’s just that this is what the US sprang on the rest of the world that these people are no longer welcome.”

She said the seven were due to fly with KLM from different airports around the world. Vrijenhoek said she had no specifics on their nationalities. She confirmed they were from countries affected by the three-month immigration ban: Iraq, Syria, Iran, Sudan, Libya, Somalia and Yemen.

Meanwhile, Air Canada is reportedly blocking any travellers with passports from the seven countries from boarding flights to the US.
Offline Profile Quote Post Goto Top
 
1 user reading this topic (1 Guest and 0 Anonymous)
ZetaBoards - Free Forum Hosting
Create a free forum in seconds.
Learn More · Sign-up Now
Go to Next Page
« Previous Topic · Politics · Next Topic »
Add Reply
  • Pages:
  • 1
  • 2
  • 10

Aquös by tiptopolive of the ZB Theme Zone