I am trying to make heads or tails of the Friday executive order on immigration from Iraq, Iran, Somalia, Syria, Libya, Sudan and Yemen. I've read the whole executive order. Not just what the media is trying to tell me is in it and I really want to have a rational conversation about it but I can't find one liberal right now that isn't just completely going bonkers. I'm not even going to say I like everything in it (and I will point this out below), but my gosh...
First, this executive order applies to both immigrants, refugees and asylum seekers from those seven countries listed above. No one else. And only for a limited time.
Now it's important to separate what an immigrant is vs. a refugee as they are very different application processes and allowable numbers into our country.
It is also worth noting that while most countries have an allowable "short-term visit" without any paperwork (i.e. tourist), Obama created the list of these 7 countries in 2011 and specifically stopped tourist visits, 2-week visits, family visits, etc. from these 7 countries on security reasons. From my understanding the 7 countries Trump picked were the same 7 Obama picked for this executive action back in 2011.
With that said, a normal immigrant falls under the "work visa" application/approval process. This is done through our embassy in each country. The homeland security website lists the following "legal immigrants" that have been born from these 7 countries from 2013-2015:
2013 - 35,398
2014 - 45,956
2015 - 52,365
Note many of these come through OTHER embassies and not their place of birth embassy. But that just gives you an idea of the numbers we're talking about as far as work visa and normal immigrants.
Trump's executive order at first was interpreted that anyone with a legal work visa could not regain entry into the country, but I think Homeland Security has stopped that over the weekend. Trump's executive order DOES stop the issuance of new work visas to these seven countries for 90 days.
A refugee is defined by our immigration policy as anyone fleeing persecution based on account of religion, race, nationality, social grouping, or political opinions. Just fleeing a war zone does not seem to qualify under this definition, but seems to be commonly accepted as also gaining some degree of refugee status in our country.
That said, refugees gain entrance to our country as follows: normally once displaced from their homes, they can find United Nations Refugee Agency to start the process of relocation. It is the U.N. that takes a majority of information about people and tries to "match them up" with a host country.
The United States BY FAR offers more refugee slots than any country in the world via the United Nations program. Over that last 15 years, we have averaged about 60,000/year. Canada and Australia are next at about 10,000/year.
Now Obama DID enact a new executive order last year before he left office to increase our 2016 and 2017 refugee number, first to 85,000 cap in 2016 and then a 110,000 cap in 2017.
President Trump's executive action capped the refugee number to 50,000 for 2017. And he suspended the whole process of recommendation from the U.N. to our refugee program (the USRAP) for 120 days. There are some interesting caveats to this suspension (this applied to ALL refugees, not just the 7 countries listed above). First, he wants Homeland Security, National Intelligence and the Secretary of State to review USRAP processes and report back to Trump.
Another interesting provision Trump adds (and this might be unconstitutional by the way) is that he directs that after this 120 day wait, when the USRAP program starts up again, refugees fleeing persecution on the basis of RELIGION should be given priority.
Now according to the executive order, these "suspensions" are put in place for a reason. Trump wants the Department of Homeland Security, FBI and his Secretary of State (who has not been approved yet) to create reports on how we are getting information from home countries about people applying for refugee status (i.e. whether we can verify who they are, etc.). He also asks for recommendations if some/all of the countries listed should be removed or added to.
Lastly, the only country the above applies to indefinitely is Syria. Trump himself will have to decide when this executive order ends.
Now that is the way I am interpreting this document and I try to put it into context with reality and what happens.
First, total refugees will go down by HALF of what Obama enacted with his executive orders but very close to the amount of refugees we allowed (on average) from 2001-2015. And that refugee program is on hold for 120 days and then after than 50,000 people will likely be relocated through the U.N. and USRAP programs. Just because we are not allowing a refugee in from Syria does not mean another refugee to fill his place will not be let in. All refugees are created equal. And since this is after the 90 moratorium on Iran, Iraq, et. al. it is likely some of those 50,000 refugees we allow into our country will be from these countries.
So I guess what I want to debate/discuss is why this moratorium on immigration is such a threat to our democracy exactly? What part do you consider unconstitutional or drastically different in design from our history?
I fully admit the application of this executive order of the weekend was a cluster **** as there were approximately 500 people "in transit" that got involved in this and put on hold/in limbo while lawyers got involved. There was also some bad confusion about what to do with existing green card holders (that should have been much better defined).
But now that we know green card holders are allowed back. Now that we know the courts ruled those "in transit" have to kind of follow the old rules. What is the issue exactly?
The country is still going to allow refugees into our country. 50,000 this year in fact. The country will still allow work visa applications up to a certain level (like always), just on hold from these 7 countries for 90 days (and Syria indefinitely). So what's exactly the big deal to you that you think the Statue of Liberty is crying or our constitution is crumbling?
