Immigration - is Trump different from Obama?

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Immigration - is Trump different from Obama?

Post by Bootstrap »

I'm spawning a new thread to avoid distracting from Ernie's thread. His is about how we can respond in a Christlike way. There are a couple of political issues that I would like to respond to - they are less important than Ernie's question, but worth responding to nevertheless.
Bootstrap wrote:[
Robert wrote:Bush and Obama put similar travel restrictions during their time in office. Jimmy Carter did the same.
I don't think so, but an apples-to-apples comparison probably belongs in another thread, because this one is about our response as Christians.
This is that thread. Here is Robert's response to what I said.
Robert wrote:
Bootstrap wrote:I don't think so
You think wrong my friend. The US has always had restrictions on immigration and refugees since at least WW2. Maybe before. FDR even imprisoned Japanese Americans during the war. Now that was something to protest about.

All 109 who were detained have been allowed to enter now. 109 out of 325,000.

Millions still in turmoil because of the US policies in the Middle East.
And some of the refugees are coming here precisely because their homes are no longer safe due to US policies.

Here is a comparison between Obama's action and Trump's.
First, Obama responded to an actual threat — the discovery that two Iraqi refugees had been implicated in bombmaking in Iraq that had targeted U.S. troops. (Iraq, after all, was a war zone.) Under congressional pressure, officials decided to reexamine all previous refugees and impose new screening procedures, which led to a slowdown in processing new applications. Trump, by contrast, issued his executive order without any known triggering threat. (His staff has pointed to attacks unrelated to the countries named in his order.)

Second, Obama did not announce a ban on visa applications. In fact, as seen in Napolitano’s answer to Collins, administration officials danced around that question. There was certainly a lot of news reporting that visa applications had slowed to a trickle. But the Obama administration never said it had a policy to halt all applications. Indeed, it is now clear that no ban was put in place. Even so, the delays did not go unnoticed, so there was a lot of critical news reporting at the time about the angst of Iraqis waiting for approval.

Third, Obama’s policy did not prevent all citizens of that country, including green-card holders, from traveling to the United States. Trump’s policy is much more sweeping, though officials have appeared to pull back from barring permanent U.S. residents.
To me, at least, these are extremely significant differences.
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Re: Immigration - is Trump different from Obama?

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This dissent channel memo is also well worth reading. (The actual draft is here.)
Consider this a major bureaucratic uprising on the part of career foreign service officers against the President on his executive order on refugees.

Numerous Foreign Service officers and other diplomats have drafted a dissent memo expressing opposition to President Donald Trump’s executive order banning refugees and immigrants from Iran, Iraq, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria, and Yemen from entering the United States. ABC reported this morning on the draft, which is likely to be submitted today.

Here’s a copy of the actual draft. We are hearing that literally hundreds of foreign service officers are planning to be party to the dissent memo; it’s still unclear exactly how many. We have redacted all names and personally identifiable information from this document.
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Re: Immigration - is Trump different from Obama?

Post by Valerie »

They are not safe because of ISIS- but being blamed on U.S. Policy-but one needs to educate themselves in regards to Radical Islam, their (false) prophetic time in their history and their 12 Imam, ushering in their prophet and that they are NOW to convert the world to Islam.

Listening to Christian radio and reading writings from 'former' Muslims helps understand and enlighten people to Radical Islam agenda.
What does U.S. policy have to do with the many many Christian martyrs being killed in their own land because they will not convert to Islam?
How about the mother the other day who set her daughter on fire (and killed her) for marrying someone parents didn't approve of?
These are not U.S. policy issues- this is a spiritual battle & 'their time' as they see it.
There's countless examples: we have a mosque here in Ohio, Columbus area. A 16 year old Muslim girl converted to Christianity. Because this mosque in Islam has more radical theology, this girl knew or believed her parents would kill her for her conversion. Therefore she was given asylum in Florida to a Christian family- the courts ruled that she, even as a minor, did not have to go back home because of the threat on her life or safety for becoming Christian.
My mom in California had Muslim neighbors, young ladies who came to talk with her. One was bruised all over because her dad had beat her for dating a boy that wasn't Muslim.
This idea that it is a 'peaceful' religion is simply not true. However President Trump has been made privy to information he was not able to be, before- I remember Obama seemed to have his eyes open more to what he would have to deal with. Same with President Trump. He took action to protect people here- the hysteria by the left was uncalled for, furthering the division in the nation. It was ISIS who claimed they would infiltrate through refugees. DHS has thwarted who knows how many plans/schemes/attacks- and since this is going on in many countries where world leaders warned us, it really isn't about U.S. policy
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Re: Immigration - is Trump different from Obama?

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Valerie wrote:Same with President Trump. He took action to protect people here- the hysteria by the left was uncalled for, furthering the division in the nation.
It sure would help if he would identify a credible threat that he was responding to. And it would help if he could convince his own State Department, which has issued a public dissent - see the document in my previous post.

None of the attacks they have cited would have been prevented by this action. None of the terrorist incidents since September 11, 2001 would have been prevented. The countries where terrorists have actually come from aren't even mentioned.

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Re: Immigration - is Trump different from Obama?

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He was made privy to information, that we are not. But he chose the countries, that Obama had already chose- did you not see that in the news?
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Re: Immigration - is Trump different from Obama?

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Valerie wrote:Listening to Christian radio and reading writings from 'former' Muslims helps understand and enlighten people to Radical Islam agenda.
The refugees I'm involved with are victims of the radical Islamic agenda. Refugees are screened very carefully, the process takes 18-24 months.

I agree that we need to take measures to protect ourselves against terrorists trying to come into our country. Hundreds of State Department employees and at least 20 Republicans have now issued public statements saying that this order doesn't do that.
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Re: Immigration - is Trump different from Obama?

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Valerie wrote:He was made privy to information, that we are not. But he chose the countries, that Obama had already chose- did you not see that in the news?
Yes - and Obama already instituted extreme vetting for those countries - that's what the list was all about. Which is why none of these countries has managed to send a terrorist to the United States yet.

The State Department memo goes into this. Those are some of the people who would provide the information he is privy too. He doesn't seem to have convinced them. He hasn't mentioned any new and specific threat that required emergency action.
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Re: Immigration - is Trump different from Obama?

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Bootstrap wrote:
Valerie wrote:He was made privy to information, that we are not. But he chose the countries, that Obama had already chose- did you not see that in the news?
Yes - and Obama already instituted extreme vetting for those countries - that's what the list was all about. Which is why none of these countries has managed to send a terrorist to the United States yet.

The State Department memo goes into this. Those are some of the people who would provide the information he is privy too. He doesn't seem to have convinced them. He hasn't mentioned any new and specific threat that required emergency action.
So, you think he's just bored or something?
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Re: Immigration - is Trump different from Obama?

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Valerie wrote:So, you think he's just bored or something?
I suspect he is trying to make a lot of dramatic, emotional decisions to control the narrative. I also think he's testing the limits of his power as president, seeing just how much he can do by executive order.

I don't think he's the kind of guy who reads books or sits in long, complicated policy and intelligence meetings and asks lots of questions. He doesn't even attend the daily security briefings that all other presidents get. That's pretty astonishing.
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Re: Immigration - is Trump different from Obama?

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Valerie wrote:So, you think he's just bored or something?
This question reminded me of something that the author of The Art of The Deal said in an interview last year:
“He has no attention span.”

In those days, Schwartz recalls, Trump was generally affable with reporters, offering short, amusingly immodest quotes on demand. Trump had been forthcoming with him during the New York interview, but it hadn’t required much time or deep reflection. For the book, though, Trump needed to provide him with sustained, thoughtful recollections. He asked Trump to describe his childhood in detail. After sitting for only a few minutes in his suit and tie, Trump became impatient and irritable. He looked fidgety, Schwartz recalls, “like a kindergartner who can’t sit still in a classroom.” Even when Schwartz pressed him, Trump seemed to remember almost nothing of his youth, and made it clear that he was bored. Far more quickly than Schwartz had expected, Trump ended the meeting.

Week after week, the pattern repeated itself. Schwartz tried to limit the sessions to smaller increments of time, but Trump’s contributions remained oddly truncated and superficial.

“Trump has been written about a thousand ways from Sunday, but this fundamental aspect of who he is doesn’t seem to be fully understood,” Schwartz told me. “It’s implicit in a lot of what people write, but it’s never explicit—or, at least, I haven’t seen it. And that is that it’s impossible to keep him focussed on any topic, other than his own self-aggrandizement, for more than a few minutes, and even then . . . ” Schwartz trailed off, shaking his head in amazement. He regards Trump’s inability to concentrate as alarming in a Presidential candidate. “If he had to be briefed on a crisis in the Situation Room, it’s impossible to imagine him paying attention over a long period of time,” he said.
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