The Immigration Ban Is a Headfake, and We’re Falling for It | Hacker News Reader

The Immigration Ban Is a Headfake, and We’re Falling for It

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10 pointselnado28 comments

By "immigration ban", did you mean "90 immigration halt based on countries flagged as dangerous by the previous administration, that has been able to encourage Saudi Arabia to sign up for a Mid-East safe zone for refugees to help keep them closer to their homes and families[0] as well as encourage Pakistan to arrest a known terrorist who killed 100 Indians and has been free for 8 years[1]"?

What Trump did was disruptive and unpopular, but its important to recognise that international politics isn't about whether one lady dies in hospital (which was fake [2]), its about whether hundreds of people die and if countries can work together. Trump has shown that he is not unwilling to play hardball with the international community if it won't start doing its part about cleaning up the mid-East.

[0] - http://www.huffingtonpost.com/michael-hughes/saudis-uae-pred... [1] - https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/asia_pacific/pakistan-f... [2] - https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-nation/wp/2017/02/0...

Banning existing visa holders isn't "playing hardball," it's just downright evil.

A case might be made for shutting down new refugees from those countries, or even new non-refugee visas. But there's no sane case to be made for keeping out people with green cards.

How about this? 'U.S. Visa Process Missed San Bernardino Wife’s Online Zealotry' [1]

She had a visa, but perhaps she should have been further vetted, yes?

[1] https://www.nytimes.com/2015/12/13/us/san-bernardino-attacks...

Too bad she wouldn't have been affected by this ban in the first place.

Edit: that dodges the main point. A better response would be, the other attacker was a US citizen, does that then make a good argument for banning US citizens from entry?

Agreed. Obviously it needs to be expanded. As is often mentioned, Saudi Arabia should be included because of 9/11.

This woman was from Pakistan which suffers terrible internal terrorism problems. While the government of Pakistan is great, there is obviously a terrorism problem in that country. It seems like perhaps that would be grounds to make Pakistan another possible 'country of concern'.

The government is great? Are you talking about the same Pakistan that sheltered Osama bin Laden for a decade and regularly sends terrorists into India?

Yes, the same Pakistan that after harboring another terrorist for 8 years, quickly arrested him to prevent getting put on that same "countries of concern" list.

The migration halt inconvenienced 100 or so people, but it has had a much bigger (almost positive) impact in ways people are ignoring so they can call Trump Hitler.

He isn't exterminating people, he just said "look this area of the world is in crisis, we don't want that here so stop coming" and this is making everyone else pull up and start doing stuff.

That seems like its doing some good, and isn't just "outright evil" as you called it.

Tens of thousands of people had their visas revoked. The only thing that mitigated it was the courts putting a stop to it quickly. Saying it only inconvenienced a hundred people is not only wrong, it wouldn't even be a defense of the order if it was right.

Great, now we're exhorting US government to snoop on online comments.

Well there was also the roughly 100000 who lost visas. This came out when the state of Virginia sued the administration. Nonpartisan news doesn't just mean facts that you agree with, but not facts you don't agree with.

Except all of the actual journalism being done on the Trump administration suggests incompetence, not malice, to be at the heart of its struggles.

    > Except all of the actual journalism being done on 
    > the Trump administration suggests incompetence, not malice

I don't believe the journalists are incompetent. I believe there is actual malice there. No amount of incompetance can explain how they always say "muslim ban" and "7 muslim countries" instead of ever referring to the 'Visa Waiver Program Improvement and Terrorist Travel Prevention Act of 2015' [1], where all of those countries were originally classified as 'countries of concern'.

The 'journalism' shows large amounts of malice. It's not just incompetence.

[1] https://www.dhs.gov/news/2016/02/18/dhs-announces-further-tr...

I think using the President's own words to describe his order is entirely reasonable.

He said that in his signing statement, or in some other speech referring to the executive order? Where's your link?

It was not a public statement, but was used behind the scenes. https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2017/01/29/tr...

Hearsay evidence from Giuliani, as told to us by The Washington Post.

Are you aware that Jeff Bezos controls the Washington Post, and is rapidly anti-Trump? It is clear to many that the Washington Post has a leaning in all of it's political journalism that borders on MSNBC levels of bias.

Got anything else?

I doubt Giuliani was misquoted, or he would have trumpeted it from the rooftops. So your complaints about the Post don't come into it. I think Giuliani can be believed here.

There is a video of Giuliani saying these things, so if you would like to see it, just do a search. In fact, it is a (possibly the) critical argument being made in the legal case this evening.

Giuliani literally said on Fox News. Watch the actual video, don't just complain about media bias. The evidence is right there in the linked article.

“I'll tell you the whole history of it,” Giuliani responded eagerly. “So when [Trump] first announced it, he said, 'Muslim ban.' He called me up. He said, 'Put a commission together. Show me the right way to do it legally.' "

Better source for you?

There's definitely a lot of incompetence, but I don't think it's the whole story. The fact that the White House explicitly clarified to DHS that green card holders were included, for example, suggests malice.

Does it matter if it's evil or extreme incompetence? Grey's law applies - they have the same result.

Previous discussions: https://hn.algolia.com/?query=headfake&sort=byDate&prefix=fa...

I find the idea that this is all some Machiavellian scheme somewhat reassuring. It would imply a level of competence we haven't seen in conservative leadership (this group in particular) in decades.

I mean, it's not like their eventual goal is eating babies or something - they want to grab power & wealth, which they'll do for four years then disappear. I'd pay 1% of the US' GDP to buy them out of that investment gladly.

Sadly, Occam's razor shreds this theory. All signs indicate a plain old regressive cadre of incompetence, with everyone who understands how this "government" thing works having run for the hills / private enterprise. :(

I've thought the same thing for a while. It reminds me of the line from Charlie Wilson's War...

Gust Avrakotos: As long as the press sees sex and drugs behind the left hand, you can park a battle carrier behind the right hand and no one's gonna fucking notice.

DHS is a department created with the intention of being evil and removing freedoms. Before jumping to this massive power grab coup conclusion by potus, people really need to understand how bad DHS is. All the information is out there documenting their abuses of the freedoms of the citizens and noncitizens of the USA. It is not something new with the Trump administration. They routinely ignore courts, even the supreme court, and neither Bush nor Obama could keep them under control. Trump will also not be able to control them. While the Trump order gave them some latitude to run amok with their abuse, historically they have always abused their power and treated all people with distain.

DHS needs to be disbanded.

> and neither Bush nor Obama could keep them under control

The Bush administration created the DHS.

Yes, which is why I listed him. It should underscore the problem with them being out of control when even the president who pushed for their creation couldn't curtail their abuses.

I feel as though Hanlon's Razor applies here, but I'm not quite 100% confident.

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