Constitutional Crisis ?
To Recap what everyone knows now (in case anyone reads this months from now)
On January 27th Donald Trump signed an executive order suspending the refugee admission program for 120 days and blocking US entry for citizens of 7 countries for 30 days.
The order was written without input from the Justice, Homeland Security, State and Defence departments. As written it banned entry for legal permanent residents (with green cards) who were travelling abroad when it was issued. It also banned entry for people who were on airplanes flying to the USA when it was signed.
On January 28th dozens (to hundreds ?) of people were detained in Airports. Tens of thousands of ordinary Americans went to the airports to protest the new policy (there is hope). Also hundreds of lawyers spontaneously went to airports to attempt to represent (pro bono) the people who were detained and at risk of being put on planes returning to the foreign point of departure.
Early January 29, some aspects of the execution of the executive order was temporarily stayed by a judge
Judge Ann Donnelly of the U.S. District Court in Brooklyn granted a request from the American Civil Liberties Union to stop the deportations after determining that the risk of injury to those detained by being returned to their home countries necessitated the decision.
3:00 AM January 29th, the Associated Press reported — something. It is not clear to me if the recent event is a constitutional crisis or just an absurd lie alternative fact.
The Ap reported
Stephen Miller, a senior adviser to the White House, said that nothing in the judge’s order “in anyway impedes or prevents the implementation of the president’s executive order which remains in full, complete and total effect.”
If Miller meant what he said, he has declared that the Trump administration will order the executive branch to ignore the stay (that is the only way the order could remain in “total effect”. If so, there would no longer be rule of law in the USA. There would only be Trump’s orders and the decision by people in uniforms whether to obey them.
I am fairly confident that the US is still a nation of laws. I think that Miller’s statement is a simple blatant lie not the declaration of a coup. I think he is sayign that the Judges order would have no effect even if it were obeyed. I am pretty sure Miller is insisting that Donnelly didn’t order what Donnelly ordered.
In contrast the more official response by the DHS noted that the stay applies only to people in the USA or in the air at the time it was granted.
Also the DHS didn’t mention legal permanent residents. It is very clear that the DHS can’t block their entry to the USA. In fact, it is known that the DHS argued this immediately and was over-ruled by White House staff. The application of the order to legal permanent residents is very clearly blatantly illegal. Arguably, the executive order is completely illegal, but to ignore green cards is very clearly illegal.
Interesting editorial by CATO Institute Trump’s Immigration Ban Is Illegal
“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.”
I was looking around for something Erwin Chemerinksy might have written and found this.
But the order is illegal. More than 50 years ago, Congress outlawed such discrimination against immigrants based on national origin.
Terror attacks or attempts occur in the 1st year as they have since Clinton. In Obama’s 1st year Congress held up his TSA appointment for 3/4 of that year. When the 09 attack failed the Senator who blocked the appointment was the first to blame the FBI & Obama after a failed attack. Then spread rumors that team Obama was behind it all. Notice the contrast and what happens when Republicans control Congress much less the presidency. Treason is reinterpreted.
J. Hanlon:
Welcome to Angry Bear.
Dear Madame CEO Rometty:
I have noted with interest your enthusiasm for the new President and his policies. I am aware of your aggressive posture regarding IBM’s participation in future technology and IT initiatives Trump undertakes, and I realize that some may consider that smart salesmanship.
But now that the new administration has decided to complicate international travel for visa holders and even legal permanent residents, has this altered your disposition regarding Mr. Trump’s policies? Have IBM executives considered this eventuality and planned mitigations for when this policy interferes with existing multi year projects requiring employee travel to and from the US?
If so can you share those plans with your employees and managers? If not can you explain how we expect to succeed under the current circumstances?
It is only “illegal” and “unconsitutional” if the courts–ultimately SCOTUS- say it is and if the majority of members of the House and Senate back up the Courts. The silence by most of the GOP has been deafening with Speaker Ryan applauding the order. I have not seen Mitch’s take on it. I suppose at some point the military could declare it illegal as well, but I can not see a coup provided Trump supplies the military with more resources. Everyone of us has to try and keep the press from being muzzled and hope that facts get through to the non racist Trump and GOP supporters by 2018.
Run,
We’ll before Trump took office it was already US policy to look at people from those countries or traveling to those countries with a jaundiced eye. For example, this from the VWP program:
From: ://www.cbp.gov/travel/international-visitors/visa-waiver-program/visa-waiver-program-improvement-and-terrorist-travel
So we have already been discriminating both in favor and against people based on national origin. And Trump is apparently using the same list Obama was using, but being somewhat stricter about it. I didn’t think it was a problem under Obama and I get what the current President is trying to do too.
Mike:
Ok Mike, you do know the courts came out and said Obama could no long delay the deportation of aliens back to their country which is basically the same as what Trump is doing in reverse. Indeed the courts said Obama does not have the authority to block deportation. Turn it around and a President is blocking Naturalized Citizens, People on Visa, and others who have been accepted to the US after proper vetting (which is a year in length) and still are legitimately in their rights to come to the US. Every person who lands on this soil is also entitled to protection under the Constitution. No one can deny them the right to due process and not even the President can do this.
It bothers me to read your words.
PS:
COS Priebus just said they will not block Green Cards.
You get what the current president is trying to do, Kimel? Really? Does this mean that you actually support it?
Then, at just a minimum, do you support his excluding Saudi Arabia and Egypt from the ban, the nations from which all the terrorists involved in the 8/11 terror attack came, and do you think that this might have anything to do with the fact that the Trump Organization has business relations in those two nations? Is this an example of corruption and do you support it, or do you mereky “get” it? i mean, we can all get that somebody might want to avoid doing something that might cost them some money, even when they are president.
Mike
“And Trump is apparently using the same list Obama was using, but being somewhat stricter about it.” is extremely incomplete. Trump has ordered the supension of refugee admissions from anywhere in the world. This is an extreme act and not confined to alist of countries. i will assume that you meant “regarding the order that people from those 7 countries not be allowed to enter the USA”.
Leaving out the impact of the EO on people from all the other countries in the world, is a major omission.
“somewhat” is a vague word. However, I think that your use of that word makes your claim 100% absolutely false. Trump’s order is no entry at all. This isn’s ust “somewhat” stricter if the word “somewhat” has any meaning.
Think how your meaning could be changed by deleting “somewhat”. Given the normal interpretation, it is changed from a false to a true claim. Given an extreme interpretation, (somewhat means more than 0) it isn’t changed at all.
Trump’s order restricts the return to the USA of US legal permanent residents with green cards. This would appear to be depriving people of something which is theirs by right without due (or any) process.
His rule applies to people born in those countries who haven’t been in them for 50 years.
More than 2 judges have ordered partial stays of the order judging that plaintiff’s claims that it is inconsistent with the constitution or the INA are likely to upheld.
My post discussed the reaction of the Executive Branch to those stays. IIRC There was no such judicial reaction to the Obama administration policies. This means that, for the purposes of my post, there is no similarity between the two cases.
I honestly don’t understand how someone as intelligent as you could have typled the comment you typed.
On the other hand, I propose that you not waste time explaining what you meant,
FWIW I expect the title of this post should have been “Corporate Crisis” rather than constitutional. It’s not just IBM, most of the Fortune 500 have a lot of H1B workers these days. I doubt too many of them have yet been able to determine how exposed they are if this manages to be upheld or even expanded in some fashion.
And I expect in the main it will be. The Obama administration has already established a broad precedent regarding immigration policies as Mike has noted above. Okay there may be some judicial tinkering to conform to certain theories (e.g. Limiting searches of social media, certain questions regarding faith etc.) but by and large the door has already been left open.
This stay (by an admittedly courageous Judge) reminds me of similar judicial throat clearing around illegal detention, warrantless surveillance, etc. Certain memos were written, opinions were vetted, and voila the policy(ies) continued. And was (probably) expanded by constitutional law scholar President Barack Obama.
He just keeps getting worse. Nice job of cherry picking on his quote. He was able to ignore this paragraph which was two lines above his quote.
“These new eligibility requirements do not bar travel to the United States. Instead, a traveler who does not meet the requirements must obtain a visa for travel to the United States, which generally includes an in-person interview at a U.S. Embassy or Consulate.”
Robert & Barkley,
1. I was responding to Run’s comment that there has never been discrimination by country of origin.
2. If I was Trump, and trying to be more artful to a population that was more educated, I would say something along the lines of: “we want to admit Albert Einstein and at the same exclude Klaus Fuchs. The first time we made that mistake, we almost ended up in a nuclear war. We got lucky, but the stakes are too high to count on luck going forward.”
3. If I was Trump and I wanted to explain what he has in mind to the population he does have to work with, I’d try this: “Over the past generation, we have admitted about 100K refugees from Somalis. Most of them have simply come and tried to make a better life for themselves. But some of them, and some of their children, have joined terrorist organizations like ISIS and Al-Shabaab. A few have even perpetrated attacks on US soil. Unfortunately, the process we used to determine which refugees are safe to admit and which aren’t today is similar to the process we used to vet refugees from Somalia, and clearly that didn’t work. Thomas Jefferson once said: ‘ To lose our country by a scrupulous adherence to the written law, would be to lose the law itself, with life, liberty, property and all those who are enjoying them with us; thus absurdly sacrificing the ends to the means.’ Thus far, we have been lucky. But the smart thing to do would be to separate the wheat the chaff, to separate the refugees who want a better life from those who wish to impose their ideology upon everyone else and do us harm. My executive order is intended to put a temporary halt on immigration until we can find a way to separate out the bad actors.”
Mike:
As I said, the President does not have the authority to do such in denial of deportation which was the ruling so far out of SCOTUS with its tie. Congress has to decide this. This:
“But the smart thing to do would be to separate the wheat the chaff, to separate the refugees who want a better life from those who wish to impose their ideology upon everyone else and do us harm. My executive order is intended to put a temporary halt on immigration until we can find a way to separate out the bad actors.”
is a silly remark as there is no one particular test one can apply which will tell if an applicant is a terrorist or not and your previous posts were strictly based upon economic return. The administration already backed off Green Cards. Next will be H1Bs. Then you will have those who have been vetted. Those who have passports and are on diplomatic or business.
Robert, I just posted a series of tweets on this. They’re at https://twitter.com/BeverlyMann19, should you or anyone else here be interested in reading them. I posted similar comments on Krugman’s Twitter feed.
In my final tweet in that series I said these actions so clearly violate the presidential oath of office and unequivocal statutory law that they may well constitute real grounds for impeachment and removal from office, especially if this conduct continues.
Run,
“is a silly remark as there is no one particular test one can apply which will tell if an applicant is a terrorist or not and your previous posts were strictly based upon economic return.”
As to the last bit – I write about economics. In this instance I was trying to see if I could understand what Trump was doing, and from what I can tell, he isn’t thinking about this from an economic perspective. Otherwise I would have mentioned the number of refugees on food stamps.
Mike:
Here is what Trump is thinking from the comments he made during his campaign:
– He launched his presidential campaign by calling Mexican immigrants to the US “rapists,” and doubled down when criticized
– out of all administrations — sued the Trump Management Corporation for violating the Fair Housing Act. Federal officials found evidence that Trump had refused to rent to black tenants and lied to black applicants about whether apartments were available, among other accusations.
– – In opposition to a casino proposed by the St. Regis Mohawk tribe, which he saw as a financial threat to his casinos in Atlantic City, Trump secretly ran a series of ads suggesting the tribe had a “record of criminal activity [that] is well documented.”
– Trump publicly pitched what was essentially The Apprentice: White People vs. Black People. He said he “wasn’t particularly happy” with the most recent season of his show, so he was considering “an idea that is fairly controversial — creating a team of successful African Americans versus a team of successful whites. Whether people like that idea or not, it is somewhat reflective of our very vicious world.”
– Just a few years ago, there was a huge national controversy over the “Ground Zero Mosque” — a proposal to build a Muslim community center in Lower Manhattan, near the site of the 9/11 attacks. Trump opposed the project, calling it “insensitive,” and offered to buy out one of the investors in the project. On The Late Show With David Letterman, Trump argued, referring to Muslims, “Well, somebody’s blowing us up. Somebody’s blowing up buildings, and somebody’s doing lots of bad stuff.”
– Trump played a big role in pushing false rumors that Obama — the country’s first black president — was not born in the US. He even sent investigators to Hawaii to look into Obama’s birth certificate. Obama later released his birth certificate, calling Trump a “carnival barker.”
– He called for a ban on all Muslims coming into the US. He has since expanded this ban to include anyone from specific countries, including possibly France and Germany.
– Trump attacked Muslim Gold Star Parents or people who are not white and could not possibly be true Americans? Khizr Khan, the father of the late Army Captain Humayun Khan, spoke out against Trump’s bigoted rhetoric and disregard for civil liberties at the Democratic National Convention on July 28.
– His white supremacist fan club includes the Daily Stormer, a leading neo-Nazi news site; Richard Spencer, director of the National Policy Institute, which aims to promote the “heritage, identity, and future of European people”; Jared Taylor, editor of American Renaissance, a Virginia-based white nationalist magazine; Michael Hill, head of the League of the South, an Alabama-based white supremacist secessionist group; and Brad Griffin, a member of Hill’s League of the South and author of the popular white supremacist blog Hunter Wallace.
Now, we can keep going here and I could do about 50 more of these little commentaries about Trump or comments made by Trump. The man is a bigot, racist, xenophobe misogynist, etc. and it follows into his legislation. He did not change his spots once he became the president Mike. It is pretty obvious what he is doing. His prejudice has followed him and now he is the President believing he can get away with it.
Beverley,
And in what Congress will such impeachment proceedings move forward? Or are you suggesting that The Donald, fool that he can be, has succumbed to some bizarre trap set by Paul Ryan and his more quiet buddy, the Kentucky Colonel?
Amateur Socialist, removing permanent-resident status requires legal action–legal process–against each specific individual. The effect and meaning of permanent-residence status is defined extremely clearly by statute, as is the legal process for altering a permanent resident’s status.
Similarly, the effect of a valid visa is dictated clearly by statute and cannot be altered via presidential edict.
This analogy to Obama’s immigration policies is the type of thing you get from people who don’t know the difference between sch things as statutory legal process and legal rights (i.e., statutory meaning of “permanent-resident status, legal due process, legal grounds for removal) and undocumented-immigrant status.
A week or two ago I clicked on this blog and read what was then this contributor’s most recent post, and saw that he’s still repeating a grossly erroneous line about the breadth of the term “disparate impact” in anti-discrimination law, claiming that anything that has or might have a disparate impact on blacks, Latinos, immigrants violates federal anti-discrimination statutes.
Months ago I painstakingly detailed, a several series of comments to two or three of his posts, that he was flatly wrong in his statements about what they law is. No matter; he repeats the patent misstatements, claiming expertise he has no basis to claim about something that does require expertise to know.
When I read that post of his I decided to stop participating in comments discussions on this blog, and since then have rarely clicked here. But I did click it today and think Robert’s post is spot-on and decided to link here to my own Twitter comments today about the subject.
After I posted that comment I read through the other comments and read yours and decided to note the legally-faulty analogy. I know that doing so with this type of thing is fruitless. It will be, as my mother would say, like pushing back the sands; it will have no effect. But the analogy is indeed a starkly faulty one as a matter of law.
Jack, Ryan and enough of his Repub colleagues want a Pence administration rather than a Trump administration that they’d happily start this ball rolling if they thought they could get enough Dems to participate–which they probably could.
Two years from now there will be massive changeover in House membership, very likely Dem control, and there may well be even primary challenges from moderate Repubs against the Trumpites and possibly even against Ryan. Same probably for the Senate. McConnell would kill to see Trump gone and Pence installed.
The Repubs right now are on a suicide mission, and a lot of them know it.
8 U.S.C. 1182(f)
Whenever the President finds that the entry of any aliens or of any class of aliens into the United States would be detrimental to the interests of the United States, he may by proclamation, and for such period as he shall deem necessary, suspend the entry of all aliens or any class of aliens as immigrants or nonimmigrants, or impose on the entry of aliens any restrictions he may deem to be appropriate.
I’ll take a wild guess here, Warren, and proffer that that does not apply to people who have permanent-residence status, whose status is under a separate statute that provides them with the right of reentry after temporary foreign trips and that provides them with specific due process rights before that status is revoked. Just, y’know, guessing here.
Nor has the president found that the REENTRY of people who already have permanent-residence status would be detrimental to the interests of the United States simply because they happened to be out of the country when this decree was issued.
Bizarre. Sorry, Warren, nice try, but probably no cigar.
But I do want to point out that people who have no familiarity with legal precepts of statutory interpretation tend not to understand that you can’t just look at a single statute and claim it applies, without considering whether there is another, more specific statute that instead applies, or another statute that creates exemptions or circumscribes the it—which means they’re as likely to be wrong as they are to be right.
And that’s apart from Supreme Court jurisprudence interpreting statutes and their interplay with other statutes.
The administration backed off this afternoon on trying to include legal-permanent-status foreigners under the decree. They announced that the order will be interpreted as not applying to green-card holders.
Next up: Visa holders coming here to work in tech or medicine, also who already have been extensively vetted.
Then: Refugees, who as some Repubs in addition to Dems have noted, already have been extremely vetted.
Several prominent Repubs including McCain and Graham are effectively laughing at these circus clowns’ failure to vet this edict before releasing it.
And somehow it seems that, Kellyanne Conway’s protestations notwithstanding, the general public interprets “action” (as in “man of”) as action whose purpose isn’t to show that the man-of-action is a Man of Action, but instead to actually serve the interests of this country.
Which almost every pol/official/former-official who’s commented and who’s not from the WH and who’s not named Paul Ryan does, um, not.
If these folks can’t distinguish between actions whose purpose is to advance the country’s interests and actions whose purpose is to enhance Trump’s image of himself, they’re about to learn the hard way that they should try.
with respect to the alleged intelligence of the author above supporting the Trump initiative…. does anyone know the percentage of participants at the Wanasee conference (regarding the final solution of the Jewish question) who had doctoral degrees?
this is not a matter for intellectual, or legal, debate. it is a matter of right and wrong.
and the stupidity that we will commit crimes against humanity to protect our sweet sacred selves from the remote threat of harm… by those whose relatives we are murdering in foreign lands.
By all means, post a link to some part of the U.S. Code that overrides that which I quoted.
YOU are claiming his actions are illegal, so I quoted the part of the U.S. Code that gives him the authority. Find a part that supports your assertion and show it to us.
Coberly,
Say your goal is to come up with a ranking of countries, where countries are ranked higher the greater the percentage of their population would be in favor of instituting the conclusions of the Wannsee Conference today. You want to rank every country in the world. Could you do better than putting all the countries we are currently discussing at the very top of the list? I guess Saudi Arabia (ethnically cleansed since about 893), Lebanon, and maybe Egypt are missing. Otherwise, it looks a lot like the most vehement supporters of the Wannsee Protocol. Who would you say is missing?
Mike is about common sense. You don’t let into our country from the most virulent jihadist nations without some controls. That you disagree with this is why you lost the election.
Sammy:
No, he is not. You do not malign a population.
Yes, but it was very poorly done. IMMEDIATELY? What do you do with the people in transit? Those who already have tickets for a return trip here?
Very poorly done.
I can see adding questions to the vetting process similar to the ones used to weed communists out (which the forms still contain). exact wording to be worked out but the substance would be of the line is do you favor violence under any circumstances work to change US government policy. (Which of course has resulted in inadmissibility for a long time. Just modify the violent overthrow test used for a long time. )
Lyle:
Do you think bigots respond after voting for Trump, “yes I am a racist.” Not likely . . .
And in the end, no one is talking about his tax returns or the Russian connection.
Linus:
It definitely is a shell game with Trump. Deflect, distract, create dummies, keep the shells moving so you never know what he is doing and not doing. Chaos . . .
Warren,
Did you ever give a thought to reading and researching your little conservative website meme before spouting it?
Probably why people don’t talk to you.
To which “conservative website meme” are you referring, EMichael?
Thanks for weighing in Beverly, we disagree on a lot but not on the facts and I think the biggest danger from several regular posters to Angry Bear is not their opinions but their efforts to twist the facts to support their opinions. That being said, I stand by my comments that something is only illegal or unconstitutional if the courts say it is and the Congress backs up the courts. We both know that judges with the aid of very bright law clerks can come up with interpretations of statutes and the Constitution that seem impossible. As to your views concerning the GOP Congress, you are 100% right that Ryan and McConnell would much prefer dealing with President Pence rather than Trump, but they will take no action against Trump until and unless Trump’s base turns against him and Trump thwarts their agenda to return this country to the 1920’s. Ryan and McConnell and the GOP majorities can not survive if the GOP splits from the deplorables portion of their base and while Pence would be a lot easier to manipulate than Trump, I assume that Trump will not frustrate Ryan and McConnell’s agenda too much because he knows they control whether he gets impeached. The country is in a very bad spot and I hold out little hope that the GOP will do anything to save it. As to 2018, I think the only way it is a wave election is if the GOP actually accomplishes what it wants and does it over the consistent and unified resistance of the Dems. I think Warren “keeping her powder dry” in voting to confirm Carson, was as misguided as Obama trying to reach out to the GOP in connection with the ACA. It is the equivalent of acting like a grownup when children rule.
Okay, in direct response to me two regular commenters here, Sammy and Warren, have claimed respectively that no process exists or vetting refugees before their entry into this country—i.e., that the Refuge Act of 1980 either doesn’t actually exist or that it legislates no vetting process, much less the extensive vetting process that it does enact and that has been profoundly successful—and that the Immigration and Naturalization Act of 1965 (amended several times, most recently, I believe, in the 1990s) does not contain a specific definition of legal-permanent-resident status, doesn’t provide in detail the requirements and process for obtaining it, doesn’t specify the rights that attach to that status and the specific legal due process required before that status is removed, and that alteration of those provisions don’t require legislative amendment by Congress.
So, to Sammy I him a link to a CNN article that states:
“No person accepted to the United States as a refugee, Syrian or otherwise, has been implicated in a major fatal terrorist attack since the Refugee Act of 1980 set up systematic procedures for accepting refugees into the United States, according to an analysis of terrorism immigration risks by the Cato Institute.
“Before 1980, three refugees had successfully carried out terrorist attacks; all three were Cuban refugees, and a total of three people were killed.
“Since the Cato Institute analysis was published in September 2016, a Somalian refugee injured 13 people at Ohio State University in November in what officials investigated as a terrorist attack. No one died.”
http://www.cnn.com/2017/01/29/us/refugee-terrorism-trnd/index.html?sr=twcnni012917us/refugee-terrorism-trnd1050PMVODtopLink&linkId=33905141
To Warren I’ll decline his invitation to identify the section and subsections of the INA that establish and address the specifics of legal-permanent-resident status, and instead just assure him that all those green-card holders didn’t manufacture their own official-looking green-colored cards and that their employers and others wink and nod while treating those as issued by the federal government, and that the INA indeed establishes what I said it establishes.
Good grace.
So, Beverly, the INA says what YOU say it does, but you can give no proof?
Please, this is not hard. Go read the law, and cite the sections that Trump is violating.
Hi, Terry. It is abidingly true that something is illegal or unconstitutional only if the courts say it is, and every bit as true that a fundamental activity of the Conservative Legal Movement judges and justice in the last 35 years has been to baldly ignore or completely rewrite huge parts of federal constitutional and statutory law.
About a month ago I posted something on Twitter saying that the Conservative Legal Movement’s capture of the federal judiciary, teaming in blatant two-step with rightwing “legal foundations”—i.e., nonprofit rightwing law firms—and a tiny group of individual rightwing lawyers, was the canary in the coal mine of Trumpian takeover of the law.
But one thing I can tell you absolutely is that the most critical part of access to court (and certainly to Supreme Court) consideration of serious challenges to constitutional and statutory violations is WHO it is that’s BRINGING THE CHALLENGE: who the plaintiffs are AND WHO THEIR LAWYERS ARE. Another significant determinant, very often directly dependent on who the plaintiffs and their lawyers are, is whether the plaintiffs are able to garner news media attention for the lawsuit.
According to Greg Sargent this morning, the ACLU will be filing a massive class action challenging the entire executive order on a variety of constitutional and statutory grounds. Given the extraordinary breadth and range of the outrage, worldwide but more important here in this country, including from groups such as the Cato Institute, and that it is the ACLU—which still holds real sway—there is just no way that at least most if not all of it will be stricken down.
And there’s another key thing in play here: It’s pretty evident that large swaths of congressional Republicans not named Paul Ryan were shaken to the core by what happened on Friday and over the weekend, including the reports of how the executive order came about—who wrote it, and who (secretaries of Defense & Homeland Security) played no role and were apprised of it as it was being announced and signed—and the concurrent announcement that Bannon has replaced the head of national intelligence and the chief of the Joint Chiefs of Staff on the National Security Council. This isn’t an administration interested in actual national security; it’s interested instead in showing Trump as a fictional-style Action Hero.
I predict that Trump will be removed either shortly before or shortly after the 2018 midterm elections. The Dems presumably will begin very soon to start clarifying that those elections will be a direct referendum on whether or not Trump should be removed from office, the Dems promising outright to remove him if they control Congress. The Dems will be best off if Trump remains in office until just after the 2018 election, so that Pence will never be president while both houses of Congress remain Repub-controlled.
As for my decision to weigh in, it was just because of the specific topic of Robert’s post; I wanted to say that although he has no technical background in law, his post was spot-on accurate. I have no interest in participating generally in discussions on a blog that, I saw yesterday, actually allowed a recent post to remain that warned that if this country continues to allow immigration from countries in which female genital mutilation is legal and common we are in danger of seeing legalization of female genital mutilation in this country, since these immigrants eventually will become citizens and voters.
The author of that post is seriously mentally off. But, with due respect to Robert in his comment above, this writer also is bald idiot.
How else to explain his suggestion in a comment in this thread that the fact that refugees early on often receive food stamps is reason for this country to refuse refugees? Apparently, he doesn’t know that the normal process for large numbers of refugees from a particular country or region, e.g., after WWII; at the end of the Vietnam War, is through refugee-relocation camps in which food is provided free of charge. Suffice it to say that few of the post-WWII Jewish refugees and post-Vietnam War refugees (Mark Zuckerberg’s father-in-law, among them) did not remain on government-issued or government-paid food for very long. He appears not to understand even the concept and nature of “refugee.”
And how else to explain his use of this blog countless times now in the last many months to cite two statistics and pronounce one the cause of the effect, irrespective of the several other obvious facts that also correlate with that time period? He claims to be a statistician, yet can’t himself figure out that absent elimination of the other correlative factors as causes, his statistics citations prove nothing at all. And how else to explain his tic-like immunity to the incredulous warnings of countless others about this over the months?
This writer isn’t merely a Trump apologist; he’s a Trump emulator, in views, tactics and alt-right-fun-house-like derangement.
This isn’t a blog on which I want to participate in discussions. Or even read regularly.
That’s right, Warren! Unless I cite to you the specific sections, the INA Act doesn’t contain provisions establishing such a thing as legal-permanent-resident status, what it means, what the requirements are, how to obtain that status, what substantive and procedural rights accrue to the holder of that status, and what the legal process is for termination of the status and what the status means!
Seriously, Warren? You don’t understand that a statute that creates a legal status and defines what it means, and provides detailed prerequisites and legal process for obtaining it and for the government’s revocation of it, has the actual effect of, y’know, honest-to-goodness binding LAW?
Not gonna help you out further on this. Sorry. Google articles on legal-permanent-resident status–a statutory legal status that, trust me on this, does exist.
Beverly, you are the one making claims about the law without citing the law. You claim President Trump’s executive order is illegal, so cite the law it violates. Why is that hard for you?
Oh, stop, Warren. You are coming off as an idiot.
If you don’t believe that there is a series of subsections in the INA that establishes legal-permanent-resident status, or don’t understand the meaning of the phrase legal-PERMANENT-RESIDENT,” or don’t believe that the statute states specifics about what that means and the legal significance of it and the specific bases and procedures, once it’s attained, for removal of the status–and that it’s not that someone happens to be out of the country when the president decides to sign something not called a statutory amendment, that’s too bad.
But like Trump, while you may be LIKE a smart person, you’re not all THAT MUCH LIKE a smart person. Let alone a smart person yourself.
I will believe that there is a clause in the INA that President Trump’s violates when I see that clause. You claim there is such a clause, so go read the law and cite the clause.
The law is here: https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/8
Excuse me, warren, but … what?? I said nothing about a clause in the INA that says “Presidents have no authority to alter by decree the provisions of this statute that establish legal-permanent-resident status and define, state the process by which to acquire that status and that establish the rights of holders of that status and the legal process and grounds for removing that status from those who hold it.”
Or anything even remotely similar to it.
It is not a CLAUSE, Warren, but the existence of the statutory provisions establishing the category of legal-permanent-resident, that define it and provide the rights that accrue under it, and the grounds for revocation and the legal procedure (due process) that must occur before a legal permanent resident’s status is revoked.
I guess you don’t understand the concept, but Trump’s decree conflicts with THOSE STATUTORY SUBSECTIONS.
GOD. Seriously?
Fine, Beverly, find in the U.S. Code this so-called “right” that President Trump’s executive order violates, and cite it.
How can one possibly understand that the executive order conflicts with those statutory subsections unless you cite the subsections?
Um, yes, Warren, they can. They actually understand what you cannot: that the conference of a legal status = the conference of, y’know, RIGHTS. Honest to goodness specific RIGHTS.
And they also know what you do not: that the statute delineates the specific legal process that must occur before the status–i.e., those RIGHTS–can be removed for reasons stated in the law. And that this process occurs in a similar manner to any other civil proceeding initiated by the government for the purpose of removing an individual’s right to something; e.g., child custody; a driver’s license.
Apparently you don’t know this. But really, most people do, since it’s common knowledge.
Not rocket science, Warren. Really.
Then show us those processes in the statute. I have already provided a link to the statute for your convenience. As you say, it’s not rocket science,
For the record, I _AM_ a rocket scientist.
I sure would not get on that rocket.
Bev, give it up.
He is a proven imbecile.
As you said, there is no reason to talk to him. These people should be excluded from conversations with normal people.
I’m in.
Just cite the law you think the executive order violates.
poor warren
Gather round while I sing you of Wernher von Braun,
A man whose allegiance
Is ruled by expedience.
Call him a Nazi, he won’t even frown.
“ha, Nazi schmazi,” says Wernher von Braun.
Don’t say that he’s hypocritical,
Say rather that he’s apolitical.
“once the rockets are up, who cares where they come down?
That’s not my department,” says Wernher von Braun.
Some have harsh words for this man of renown,
But some think our attitude
Should be one of gratitude,
Like the widows and cripples in old London town
Who owe their large pensions to wernher von braun.
You too may be a big hero,
Once you’ve learned to count backwards to zero.
“in german und english I know how to count down,
And I’m learning Chinese,” says wernher von braun.
Always loved that one! Thank you, coberly.
Any chance YOU know what law that executive order violates?
warren
i am not a lawyer. the few times i tried to act as my own lawyer i had my hat handed to me.
Beverly is right, and she has been trying to tell you.
the law is a complex thing for reasons that are both necessary and potentially evil. i don’t like “it” myself. but you are only managing to sound like a fool by demanding a kind of “proof” that doesn’t exist in the real world. i’m afraid it is very much like the famous newspaper editor (and probably physics teacher of the time) mocking Goddard for expecting a rocket engine to work in space with “only a vacuum to push against.”
i have mixed feelings here because i hate to see a child abused. but i also hate to be dogged by someone’s precocious four year old who hasn’t been told when it’s time to go to bed and stop showing off in front of his parents’ guests.
there are different kinds of intelligence, and while for some people education is liberating, for others it kills the mind. and somewhere along the way you have acquired “ideas” that are so wrong they amount to evil.
i am sorry about that. i used to believe i… even i… could teach people to think their way not only in mathematics but in (out of) the human problems they create for themselves .. individually and collectively. i no longer believe that.
and no, this doesn’t mean i think i am smarter than everyone else.
https://www.uscis.gov/green-card/after-green-card-granted/rights-and-responsibilities-permanent-resident/rights-and-responsibilities-green-card-holder-permanent-resident:
Rights and Responsibilities of a Green Card Holder (Permanent Resident)
Your Rights as a Permanent Resident
As a permanent resident (green card holder), you have the right to:
• Live permanently in the United States provided you do not commit any actions that would make you removable under immigration law
•
• Work in the United States at any legal work of your qualification and choosing. (Please note that some jobs will be limited to U.S. citizens for security reasons)
•
• Be protected by all laws of the United States, your state of residence and local
• jurisdictions
Your Responsibilities as a Permanent Resident
As a permanent resident, you are:
• Required to obey all laws of the United States the states, and localities
•
• Required to file your income tax returns and report your income to the U.S. Internal Revenue Service and state taxing authorities
•
• Expected to support the democratic form of government and not to change the government through illegal means
•
• Required, if you are a male age 18 through 25, to register with the Selective Service
•
For more information, see the “Maintaining Permanent Residence” and “International Travel as a Permanent Resident” pages.
Last Revie
International Travel as a Permanent Resident
On this page you will find information on:
• What documents do I need to travel outside the United States?
• What documents do I need to present to reenter the United States?
• Does travel outside the United States affect my permanent resident status?
• What if my trip abroad will last longer than 1 year?
•
What documents do I need to travel outside the United States?
In general, you will need to present a passport from your country of citizenship or your refugee travel document to travel to a foreign country. In addition, the foreign country may have additional entry/exit requirements (such as a visa). For information on foreign entry and exit requirements, see the Department of State’s webpage.
What documents do I need to present to reenter the United States?
If seeking to enter the United States after temporary travel abroad, you will need to present a valid, unexpired “green card” (Form I-551, Permanent Resident Card). When arriving at a port of entry, a U.S. Customs and Border Protection Officer will review your permanent resident card and any other identity documents you present, such as a passport, foreign national I.D. card or U.S. Driver’s License, and determine if you can enter the United States. For information pertaining to entry into the United States, see U.S. Customs and Border Protection’s webpage.
https://www.uscis.gov/green-card/after-green-card-granted/international-travel-permanent-resident
Does travel outside the United States affect my permanent resident status?
Permanent residents are free to travel outside the United States, and temporary or brief travel usually does not affect your permanent resident status. If it is determined, however, that you did not intend to make the United States your permanent home, you will be found to have abandoned your permanent resident status. A general guide used is whether you have been absent from the United States for more than a year. Abandonment may be found to occur in trips of less than a year where it is believed you did not intend to make the United States your permanent residence. While brief trips abroad generally are not problematic, the officer may consider criteria such as whether your intention was to visit abroad only temporarily, whether you maintained U.S. family and community ties, maintained U.S employment, filed U.S. income taxes as a resident, or otherwise established your intention to return to the United States as your permanent home. Other factors that may be considered include whether you maintained a U.S. mailing address, kept U.S. bank accounts and a valid U.S. driver’s license, own property or run a business in the United States, or any other evidence that supports the temporary nature of your absence.
What if my trip abroad will last longer than 1 year?
If you plan on being absent from the United States for longer than a year, it is advisable to first apply for a reentry permit on Form I-131. Obtaining a reentry permit prior to leaving the United States allows a permanent or conditional permanent resident to apply for admission into the United States during the permit’s validity without the need to obtain a returning resident visa from a U.S. Embassy or Consulate abroad. Please note that it does not guarantee entry into the United States upon your return as you must first be determined to be admissible; however, it will assist you in establishing your intention to permanently reside in the United States. For more information, see the “Travel Documents” page.
If you remain outside of the United States for more than 2 years, any reentry permit granted before your departure from the United States will have expired. In this case, it is advisable to consider applying for a returning resident visa (SB-1) at the nearest U.S. Embassy or Consulate. An SB-1 applicant will be required to establish eligibility for an immigrant visa and will need a medical exam. There is an exception to this process for the spouse or child of either a member of the U.S. Armed Forces or civilian employee of the U.S. Government stationed abroad on official orders. For more information on obtaining a returning resident visa, see the Department of State’s webpage on returning resident visas.
Additionally, absences from the United States of six months or more may disrupt the continuous residency required for naturalization. If your absence is one year or longer and you wish to preserve your continuous residency in the United States for naturalization purposes, you may file an Application to Preserve Residence for Naturalization Purposes on Form N-470. For more information, please see the “Continuous Residence and Physical Presence Requirements” page.
https://www.uscis.gov/green-card/after-green-card-granted/international-travel-permanent-resident
Warren: your issues, such as they are, are being addressed presently in multiple Federal District Courts. Their opinions, as they are released, may be instructive for you.
Nice try, Beverly. Now, the LAW says that, “Whenever the President finds that the entry of any aliens or of any class of aliens into the United States would be detrimental to the interests of the United States, he may by proclamation, and for such period as he shall deem necessary, suspend the entry of all aliens or any class of aliens as immigrants or nonimmigrants, or impose on the entry of aliens any restrictions he may deem to be appropriate.”
https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/8/1182
8 U.S. Code § 1182(f)
The LAW does NOT say, “except those who have permanent resident status,” it just says, “any aliens or class of aliens.”
I am very interested in hearing their arguments, Jack. Of course, we may end up with something similar to, “It’s not a tax, so we can rule on it; but it IS a tax, so it’s constitutional.”
“[You] are only managing to sound like a fool by demanding a kind of ‘proof’ that doesn’t exist in the real world.”
The reason that such proof does not exist is that the law they seem to think President Trump’s executive order violates does not exist.
Wonkblog: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2017/01/31/the-basic-error-of-trumps-draft-order-targeting-immigrants-on-welfare/?utm_term=.00b70af7e52c
“The basic error of Trump’s draft order targeting immigrants on welfare”
By Christopher Ingraham January 31 at 7:23 PM
“The Trump administration appears to be considering whether lawful immigrants should be deported after receiving a certain amount of public assistance, according to a draft of an executive order obtained by The Washington Post.
“Such a move would represent a departure from current practice but would be consistent with the goals of Trump advisers Stephen K. Bannon and Stephen Miller, who, in the words of the Los Angeles Times, “see themselves as launching a radical experiment to fundamentally transform how the U.S. decides who is allowed into the country.”
“The draft order appears to be premised on the notion that immigrants place an untenable burden on the economy through their use of public assistance. It asserts that immigrant households are “much more likely than those headed by citizens to use Federal means-tested public benefits,” which include Medicaid, SNAP, housing assistance, supplemental security income, TANF, and general assistance. However, it offers no evidence for that claim.
“On the contrary, an extensive 2011 Harvard Business School review of the economic literature on the effects of immigration found that “on average, immigrants appear to have a minor positive net fiscal effect for host countries.” Economists generally agree that the typical American citizen would be better off if more foreign workers were let into the country each year, regardless of skill level.
“Moreover, the assertion that immigrant households are more likely to use federal benefits appears inaccurate. A 2013 analysis by the Cato Institute, a libertarian think tank, found that poor, noncitizen immigrants actually use public assistance at a lower rate than low-income native-born citizens across a wide array of federal programs.
[Graph omitted.]
“Strict eligibility guidelines that prevent many immigrants from receiving federal aid are one of the primary drivers of these differences, according to the Cato Institute report. Undocumented immigrants and workers or students on temporary visas are generally not eligible at all. Lawful permanent residents are eligible only after five years.
“Moreover, “the average value of benefits per recipient is almost always lower than for the native-born,” the report finds. “For Medicaid, if there are 100 native-born adults, the annual cost of benefits would be about $98,400, while for the same number of noncitizen adults the annual cost would be approximately $57,200.”
“Among children of noncitizens, the discrepancy is even larger: “For children, a comparable calculation for 100 non-citizens yields $22,700 in costs, while 100 citizen children of citizen parents cost $67,000 in benefits.”
“Not all researchers agree on these numbers. The Center for Immigration Studies, a group that favors more restrictions on immigration, finds that overall, immigrant households are more likely to rely on public assistance than nonimmigrant households.
“But as the Cato authors point out, this is simply because immigrant households are more likely to be low-income households. When you adjust for income, as in the Cato study, immigrant use of public assistance is actually lower.
“Defenders of the policy might argue that income-adjustment is irrelevant here, since the overall burden derives from the sheer number of low-income immigrants, rather than their rates of program use. But the same standard could be applied to any demographic group with higher-than-average (14.8 percent) poverty rates: children (21.1 percent), the black population (26.2), non-high school graduates (28.9), people living in rural areas (16.5) or people living in the South (16.5), for instance.
“In reality, Trump’s draft order, were it to come into effect, would reduce public assistance use for people who are less likely to rely on it than the typical American citizen, once you adjust for income.”
A few points here: First, Bannon and Miller, by admitting to whoever they admitted it to that they “see themselves as launching a radical experiment to fundamentally transform how the U.S. decides who is allowed into the country,” have conceded that their stated motive for last Friday’s executive order—national security—was pretext and that their purpose was unrelated to national security.
The ACLU is about to file a comprehensive challenge to the executive order as unconstitutional in more than one respect and as violating the IMA. This leaked acknowledgment of the true motive should suffice to refute the national security pretext and place this squarely into the category of violation of separation of powers AND the provisions of the IMA.
Second, there is no conceivable interpretation of the Constitution by which the president has the authority to launch via executive order a radical experiment to fundamentally transform how the U.S. decides who is allowed into the country. The claim that the president has this authority is profoundly radical indeed.
And there is no conceivable way that an executive order announcing the deportation of immigrants who receive public assistance benefits, at all or for more than a designated length of time, would not stricken down as an obvious violation of separation of powers and of the IMA. Amusingly, Neil Gorsuch’s claim-to-fame-shtick is precisely a very vocal criticism of the use of executive authority to override the actual content of statutes. Apparently, these idiots had no clue that that is so. But it is so.
Finally, this: Anyone associated with this blog who doesn’t acknowledge (at least to himself) the likelihood that the idea for this proposed executive order and the assertions of statistical fact, some outright-false, some overtly misleading, came courtesy of the recent and persistent posts by an alt-right contributor here is being dishonest. This blog presumably has received new readership as a result of its listing a week or two ago on some website as a top economics blog whose contributors actually know what they’re talking about, and some posts by people like Robert Waldman, Steve Roth, Sandwichman and New Deal Democratic who actually do know what they’re talking about. It would have taken exactly one alt-right person to add it to a Facebook or Twitter feed for this to shoot right to Stephen Millar or Stephen Bannon.
The two people who run this blog have, unremittingly for many months now, provided this platform for the dissemination not merely of blatantly vile alt-right views but for the invocation of baseless and sometimes outright false assertions of various sorts regarding data.
Even those of us who’ve registered dismay that these folks value personal loyalty and casual friendship enough to provide a platform for virulent Bannonism—I am among, I’d guess, 10-12 readers who’ve used the comments threads to plead that they end this, and am among (I believe) four readers who’ve made our pleas also via personal email—only to be pointedly ignored or, worse, attacked ad homonym—could not have predicted the direct assistance this blog now has provided to the cause of white supremacy.
CORRECTION: INA, not IMA. Immigration and Naturalization Act.
Oh, dear Lord. Does NO-ONE read the LAW:
8 U.S.C. §1227(a)(5) Public charge
Any alien who, within five years after the date of entry, has become a public charge from causes not affirmatively shown to have arisen since entry is deportable.
8 U.S.C. §1227(a)
https://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/USCODE-2011-title8/html/USCODE-2011-title8.htm
Yes! Some of us do!
https://www.uscis.gov/news/fact-sheets/public-charge-fact-sheet
Hey. Some of us even know that terms used in statutes are defined in other subsections of … that statute. And that what determines what a statutory subsection pertains to or means usually depends on other, related subsections of … that statute.
Including statutory definitions and court opinions that address the interplay between related or interdependent statutes or related interdependent subsections of a single statute.
God.
Once again, Beverly, that is not LAW. USCIS “guidance” is not LAW. And guess what?! That “guidance” can be changed by the new administration.
Warren:
You are arguing just to argue. Bev is an attorney. I think or believe she like Jack D know quite a bit about the law.
“Public charge has been part of U.S. immigration law for more than 100 years as a ground of inadmissibility and deportation. An individual who is likely at any time to become a public charge is inadmissible to the United States and ineligible to become a legal permanent resident.” Read the first paragraph.
i’m also sort of amused at the idea that immigrants who work at minimum-wage jobs–fast-food, hospitality, Walmart, gardening, whatever–are public charges if they receive SNAP or Medicaid or housing assistance.
Trump’s Labor Sec’y nominee is a fast-food-industry billionaire who both objects to increases in the minimum wage AND to SNAP, Medicaid and housing subsidies.
Actually, the administrative agency regulations–i.e., guidance–ARE law. And there is a prescribed set of requirements to change it, including public notice of proposed changes and a legally specified period of time allowed for public comment.
But the fact remains that the assertion of fact that immigrant households are “much more likely than those headed by citizens to use Federal means-tested public benefits,” which include Medicaid, SNAP, housing assistance, supplemental security income, TANF, and general assistance, is flatly unsupported by, and in fact contradicted by, actual evidence.
It’s a false claim that this blog has provided a megaphone for, repeatedly now, for many months. Why? Who the hell knows?
Good grief, a lawyer who does not understand the difference between a LAW, a REGULATION, and AGENCY GUIDANCE.
Warren:
Again, arguing just to argue . . .
Um, Warren, I’m sort of guessing that you think “guidance” means determining what a policy will be. Actually, agency guidance simply instructs the agency employees on how to navigate sections of, e.g., the INA in conformance with the interpretation of those sections by the ALJ (the administrative law judge) in individual cases and in accordance with actual judicial interpretations.
The guidance does not tell ALJs what to do; it tells agency employees how a section of the statute, or interconnected sections or subsections, or sections of the agency’s regulations, has been interpreted by the relevant judicial officers (ALJs and federal judges and the Supreme Court).