Tag: immigration

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White House: No Apology For Detaining 5 Year Old Due To Immigration Order

Earlier today, White House press secretary defended the detaining of a 5 year old Iranian boy over the weekend due to President Trump’s immigration order by saying, “To assume that just because of someone’s age or gender or whatever that they don’t pose a threat would be misguided and wrong.”

Via RawStory:

White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer said on Monday that the Trump administration would not apologize for detaining a 5-year-old Iranian boy because it was done to keep the country safe.

Video published by WJLA over the weekend showed the 5-year-old boy being reunited with his mother after he was detained at Washington Dulles International Airport for hours on Saturday.

“The president recognizes that it is his duty and obligation to keep this country safe,” Spicer explained. “And by instituting a process by which we look at these countries over a 90-day period and the process by which the people can come in out of this country to ensure the safety of each and every one of us, I think, is something that makes a heck of a lot of sense.”

“When you look at the 329,000 people [who traveled to the U.S. over the weekend], 109 were inconvenienced for the safety and security of us all,” the Trump spokesman said. “And to make sure that, if they are a 5 year old, that maybe they’re with their parents and they don’t pose a threat.”

“But to assume that just because of someone’s age or gender or whatever that they don’t pose a threat would be misguided and wrong.”

Watch below:

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President Obama: ‘Fundamentally Disagrees’ With Trump Immigration Order

President Obama has issued a statement regarding President Trump’s controversial immigration executive order:

President Obama is heartened by the level of engagement taking place in communities around the country. In his final official speech as President, he spoke about the important role of citizen and how all Americans have a responsibility to be the guardians of our democracy — not just during an election but every day.

Citizens exercising their Constitutional right to assemble, organize and have their voices heard by their elected officials is exactly what we expect to see when American values are at stake.

With regard to comparisons to President Obama’s foreign policy decisions, as we’ve heard before, the President fundamentally disagrees with the notion of discriminating against individuals because of their faith or religion.

While normally former presidents don’t chime in on a new president’s actions, in that the Trump administration has brought up Obama’s name as “having done the same thing” regarding immigration bans in the past, I think it’s fair game for Obama to issue a statement.

In the past 24 hours, Trump representatives have begun pointing to a ban of Iraq immigrants during Obama’s time in the White House.

From CNN:

Trump’s order temporarily banned immigration from Iran, Iraq, Syria, Sudan, Libya, Yemen and Somalia and indefinitely stopped Syrian refugees from coming to the United States.

Though the current White House has compared Trump’s action to what Obama did in 2011 when “he banned visas for refugees from Iraq for six months,” Obama’s move was much narrower in scope. It was crafted in response to two Iraqi refugees implicated in a bomb making scheme and while it did not outright ban refugees from coming to the United States, it did increase the amount of vetting each Iraqi refugee received.

It’s a curious tactic, in my view, for Trump to campaign on a strong message of criticizing everything the Obama administration did, and then once in office and use an excuse of “Obama did it.”

#Weak

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President Trump’s Immigration Policy Could Cause Whiplash

President Donald Trump

Today there are massive protests continuing across the U.S., including in front of the White House, against the president’s executive order regarding immigration which:

• suspends the entry of all refugees to the United States for 120 days

• halts the admission of refugees from Syria indefinitely

• bars entry for three months to residents from Muslim-majority countries of Iraq, Syria, Iran, Sudan, Libya, Somalia and Yemen

It’s understandable that folks have been confused about the reach of President Trump’s immigration plan.

Not only does it affect refugees and residents from the countries listed above, it’s been back and forth whether the decree includes those “green card” holders who are legal permanent residents of the United States.

Apparently, the policy was hammered out by the White House policy team, avoiding the usual interagency process that would normally assist in providing operational guidance.

On Friday, Homeland Security Secretary John Kelly and Department of Homeland Security leadership saw the final details just before the order was finalized, government officials said. Officials at DHS determined that the executive order’s restrictions did not apply to green card holders.

On Saturday night, the Department of Homeland Security reversed, saying that the president’s order did apply to green card holders who were traveling to the United States from the seven countries affected.

Later, White House officials announced that green card holders from the seven countries would need a case-by-case waiver to return.

White House Chief of Staff Reince Priebus told NBC News’ Meet The Press: “As far as green card holders, moving forward, it doesn’t affect them.” He later added: “If you’re traveling back and forth you’re going to be subjected to further screening.”

Saturday afternoon in the Oval Office, when asked about the rollout, Trump said all governmental agencies were “totally prepared.”

“It’s working out very nicely,” Trump told reporters. “You see it at the airports. You see it all over. It’s working out very nicely and we’re going to have a very, very strict ban, and we’re going to have extreme vetting, which we should have had in this country for many years.”

(source)

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Legal US Residents Included In Trump Immigration Executive Order

Reuters has confirmed with the Trump administration that current green card holders (legal permanent U.S. residents) will be affected by President Trump’s newly signed executive order banning folks from seven Muslim-majority countries in the Middle East and Africa:

People holding so-called green cards, making them legal permanent U.S. residents, are included in President Donald Trump’s executive action temporarily barring people from seven Muslim-majority countries from entering the United States, a Department of Homeland security spokeswoman said on Saturday.

“It will bar green card holders,” Gillian Christensen, acting Department of Homeland Security spokeswoman, said in an email.

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Donald Trump Calls For “Total And Complete Shutdown Of Muslims Entering The U.S.”

Donald Trump’s campaign issued a statement today calling for complete halt to all Muslims attempting to enter the U.S.

Donald J. Trump is calling for a total and complete shutdown of Muslims entering the United States until our country’s representatives can figure out what is going on. According to Pew Research, among others, there is great hatred towards Americans by large segments of the Muslim population.

Most recently, a poll from the Center for Security Policy released data showing “25% of those polled agreed that violence against Americans here in the United States is justified as a part of the global jihad” and 51% of those polled, “agreed that Muslims in America should have the choice of being governed according to Shariah.” Shariah authorizes such atrocities as murder against non-believers who won’t convert, beheadings and more unthinkable acts that pose great harm to Americans, especially women.

Mr. Trump stated, “Without looking at the various polling data, it is obvious to anybody the hatred is beyond comprehension. Where this hatred comes from and why we will have to determine. Until we are able to determine and understand this problem and the dangerous threat it poses, our country cannot be the victims of horrendous attacks by people that believe only in Jihad, and have no sense of reason or respect for human life. If I win the election for President, we are going to Make America Great Again.” – Donald J. Trump

Just so we’re clear: a ban on Muslim immigrants proposed by the frontrunner of the party that claims to stand for religious freedom?

You can’t make this stuff up, kids.

UPDATE: Democratic front-runner Hillary Clinton called the proposed policy from Trump “reprehensible.”

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American Family Association: All Immigrants Should Be Forced To Become Christians

In spite of the fact that we have a US Constitution that all Americans have freedom of religion, Bryan Fischer (anti-gay hate group American Family Association) says that US immigration policy should be based upon the Bible, which means that all immigrants should be required to convert to Christianity.

(via Right Wing Watch)

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Can you pass a US citizenship test?

In a video posted earlier this week, members of the Immigrant Archive Project — an oral history project that collects the stories of American immigrants — did a series of “man-on-the-street” interviews with passersby in Miami.

They asked questions from the US citizenship test that every immigrant is required to take in order to naturalize. All of those questioned were natural born and raised Americans.

The results?  Well, take a look below.

For some context, as of December 2013, 91 percent of immigrants who took the full citizenship test passed it by getting six of ten questions correct. Immigrants are given a list of 100 possible questions and answers to study beforehand, and the ten questions are selected at random. 

Immigration is a hot topic in politics today.  Some in our country feel immigrants should have to work harder to earn a place in the USA.  But could those same folks answer simple 6th grade questions about our country and it’s history?

(via Vox)

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US Citizenship and Immigration Services updates FAQ to include same-sex couples

The USCIS has updated their FAQs page on same-sex marriage. Here are the first two Q & As:

Q1: I am a U.S. citizen or lawful permanent resident in a same-sex marriage to a foreign national. Can I now sponsor my spouse for a family-based immigrant visa?
A1: Yes, you can file the petition. You may file a Form I-130 (and any applicable accompanying application). Your eligibility to petition for your spouse, and your spouse’s admissibility as an immigrant at the immigration visa application or adjustment of status stage, will be determined according to applicable immigration law and will not be automatically denied as a result of the same-sex nature of your marriage.

Q2. I am a U.S. citizen who is engaged to be married to a foreign national of the same sex. Can I file a fiancé or fiancée petition for him or her?
A2. Yes. You may file a Form I-129F. As long as all other immigration requirements are met, a same-sex engagement may allow your fiancé to enter the United States for marriage.

You have no idea how happy it makes me to read that.

Forward.

(via JMG)

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Homeland Security – married LGBT couples will be treated same as opposite-sex couples regarding immigration

The department of Homeland Security today issued a statement affirming that married gay and lesbian couples will be treated like married straight couples for immigration purposes:

“After last week’s decision by the Supreme Court holding that Section 3 of the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) is unconstitutional, President Obama directed federal departments to ensure the decision and its implication for federal benefits for same-sex legally married couples are implemented swiftly and smoothly,” said Secretary of Homeland Security Janet Napolitano in a prepared statement today. “To that end, effective immediately, I have directed U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) to review immigration visa petitions filed on behalf of a same-sex spouse in the same manner as those filed on behalf of an opposite-sex spouse.”

According to The DOMA Project, Julian Marsh and Traian Popov of Fort Lauderdale, Fla., were surprised when they received notification just two days after the repeal of DOMA from Citizenship and Immigration Services officials that Popov’s petition for permanent residency based on his bona fide marriage had been approved.

Forward!

(source)