Trump changes plenty, in the past it was assumed that the USA would honor visa once they were issued, now it turns out not to be the case.
Essentially this is breach of contract.
Essentially this is breach of contract.
What do you mean by "honor"? A visa don't guarantee entry. It simply gives you a path to enter the country which includes inspection by immigration control. They make that very clear on the USCIS website and all the visa forms.
A U.S. visa in his/her passport gives a foreign citizen permission to apply to enter the United States. A visa by itself doesn’t authorize entry to the U.S. A visa simply indicates that your application has been reviewed by a consular officer at a U.S. Embassy or Consulate, and that the officer determined you’re eligible to travel to a U.S. port-of-entry for a specific purpose.....
At the port-of-entry, a U.S. immigration officer of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) decides whether to allow you to enter and how long you can stay for any particular visit, as part of the Admission process. Only the U.S. immigration officer has the authority to permit you to enter the United States."
[1]https://travel.state.gov/content/visas/en/general/visa-expir...
That expectation has been violated by recent actions, because green card holders with no black marks were turned away or prevented from even coming on the whim of the president. That devalues something like a green card dramatically because it could be rendered meaningless one day by fiat.
Immigrants have always be at the whim of immigration officials when it comes to entering the US. Read some of the US immigrations forums. It's not unusual for people to not return home for years for fear they can't get back in because of some change in policy.
Timescale, drastic impact, unclear, possibly not legal what else is there to criticize?
Not that making it predictably horrible isn't, well, horrible. And the green card thing is sheer lunacy.
And in the vast majority of the cases, it is. Immigrants from the 7 countries that Obama designated in the Terrorist Travel Prevention Act of 2015 [1], and authorized suspension of entry for, make up a tiny fraction of visas.
[1] https://www.niacaction.org/update-frequently-asked-questions... https://sethfrantzman.com/2017/01/28/obamas-administration-m...
That said, would you agree that the way this is being handled shakes confidence for visitors from other countries that haven't been banned? For green card holders who've moved their lives to the US?
The actual action, if given "we love Obama" levels of media attention rather than "we hate Trump" levels (c.f. how little attention the Terrorist Travel Prevention Act was given), would have shaken confidence to a much lesser (but still nonzero) extent.
I think this whole thing is pretty dumb. I'm just critiquing misconceptions about how visas work.
would you agree that the way this is being handled shakes confidence for visitors
[1]https://travel.state.gov/content/dam/visas/Statistics/Annual... [2]https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/fact-checker/wp/2017/01/...
You are lumping all of them in the same basket, the chance when you're in the group of 90,000 is about 100%.
Statistics are fun and games as long as you're not in the affected group.
And at NO notice, which means that your worst case isn't just having nothing to show for the thousands of dollars and possibly years of your life you invested in your travel and visa, it's that plus being detained indefinitely with no rights at the US border.
[Edit: Please don't interpret my comment as suggesting I think this is a good idea. If you check my posting history, you'll discover I'm an outspoken proponent of open borders.]
Even so, if my country started to structurally refuse entry to foreigners who had - at their expense and with considerable documentation requirements - obtained a visa in the legal way I'd be quite upset and in fact highly surprised.
See, even though a visa is not a guarantee the general rule is that they are not withdrawn capriciously and if you do that you risk making people from other countries wonder if it is worth applying for a visa in the first place.
I have heard of the US refusing entry to people with visas. I know someone this happened to, in fact. But since Trump (or other similar villain) wasn't the president at the time, no one really cared.
That's along the lines of if something happens to one person it is a tragedy but if it happens to a lot of people it is statistics.
The numbers are now high enough that it has become a statistic, and one worth noticing. It also draws attention because the list of 7 countries could easily be expanded (on a twitter inspired whim no less).
It's the capriciousness and the uncertainty coupled with the numbers that make it an item, not because it is Trump or someone else at the helm, if Obama would have done this it would have resulted in much the same level of pushback.
https://sethfrantzman.com/2017/01/28/obamas-administration-m...
Obama did something similar in 2012 to little protest.
http://content.usatoday.com/communities/theoval/post/2012/03...
Again, I'm against this. But this is hardly unprecedented or shocking - the only shocking thing is that one of our cultural enemies won a popularity contest and then did this.
In particular, nothing in TTPA barred entry to people who have helped American armed forces, or legally enrolled students from those country, which this order does. Again, not by authority of TTPA, but under INA. Taking the executive order at face value, the executive can ban any and all countries. The fact that they used the list from TTPA is political convenience.
I can only imagine the calculus going on in the conservative party at the moment, it must be something along the lines of 'damned if you do and damned if you don't', when the music stops playing it will get ugly.
Maybe I'm being presumptuous, but do you have a Western passport? If so, that buys you a lot of goodwill when it comes to entering a country.
People with passports from developing countries often have a hell of a time getting into the US, even with a visa.
Trump has altered the deal. Pray he doesn't alter it any further.
http://www.pmo.gov.sg/newsroom/pm-lee-hsien-loongs-interview...
That's Trump's MO it seems. In other news today that fit this pattern: http://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2017/02/01/512928851/...
https://www.congress.gov/bill/115th-congress/senate-bill/248
The only people in Congress who'll oppose him are (some) Democrats, who simply aren't numerous enough to make a difference.
You might as well get used to the new reality; Trump has the power to do almost anything he wants, unless it's so bad that it pisses off much of the GOP.
That's not entirely fair. Several Republicans have objected to things he's done on other bases, including the immigration E.O.
The partisan duopoly created by the structure of the electoral system creates an illusion of a simple unidimensional political divide, and partisan tribalism is high, but, still, even conservatives in Congress sometimes have more nuanced policy views than "is it conservative enough?"
Ok, to be fair, out of several hundred Republicans, you're going to find a few here and there who object to many things he does (and the ones who object will be different, based on the issue). Similarly on the Democrat side, you're going to find a few here and there who break ranks with the rest of the Dems and side with him.
But by and large, you're not going to see any unified opposition from the GOP. You might from the Dems, but that doesn't matter much because they're a minority in Congress.