The Guardian: “Backlash against Trump migration order grows as Obama issues warning”

President Donald Trump’s executive order signed last Friday halting the US refugee program and banning travel from seven Muslim-majority countries has led to chaos at airports, legal challenges, protests across the country, and worldwide condemnation. It has even led to former President Barack Obama weighing in, warning that “American values are at stake.”

The travel ban was immediately challenged in courts, and on Saturday night, a federal judge granted an emergency stay for citizens of the affected countries who had already arrived in the US as well as those in transit and who hold valid visas, ruling that they were allowed to enter the US. The federal judge in the Eastern District of New York ruled on a habeas corpus petition filed by the ACLU on behalf of Hameed Khalid Darweesh and Sameer Abdulkhaleq Alshawi, who were both denied entry and detained after landing at JFK airport. Darweesh worked in Iraq as an interpreter and engineer for the US military for ten years and had been granted a visa after extensive background checks. Alshawi had been granted a visa to join his wife and son who are already permanent US residents.

The executive order affected numerous travelers and refugees, many who had waited years and undergone extensive vetting to come to the US. The order also affected a grandmother visiting her family in the US, an Iranian medical researcher, and an MIT student, among many others. A second temporary stay, more broad than the New York order, was also issued by two federal judges in Boston on Sunday. Their ruling puts a seven-day hold on enforcement of Trump's executive order, and states that no approved refugee, holder of a valid visa, lawful permanent resident or traveler from one of the seven majority-Muslim nations affected by the ban can be detained or removed anywhere in the US for the next seven days due solely to Trump's executive order.

On Monday, acting Attorney General Sally Q. Yates, a holdover from the Obama administration, ordered the Justice Department not to defend President Trump’s executive order in court. “I am responsible for ensuring that the positions we take in court remain consistent with this institution’s solemn obligation to always seek justice and stand for what is right,” Ms. Yates wrote in a letter to Justice Department lawyers. “At present, I am not convinced that the defense of the Executive Order is consistent with these responsibilities nor am I convinced that the Executive Order is lawful.” Although this decision was mainly symbolic—she was immediately fired by President Trump and Dana J. Boente, the US attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia who was appointed to serve as attorney general until Congress acts to confirm Senator Jeff Sessions, rescinded her order—it illustrates the divide at the Justice Department as well as the haphazard nature in which the executive order was signed. Officials at the Department of Homeland Security were only permitted to view the order on Friday.

As demonstrations, legal challenges, and criticism mount—including from the business community—the White House continues to defend the order, insisting that only 109 travellers—a figure that is not entirely accurate—had been “inconvenienced” over the weekend. Within the State Department, a draft memo circulated around foreign missions strongly opposed to Trump’s executive order. “We are better than this ban,” the memo says, arguing that the ban will backfire and make the US less safe from terrorism. The draft memo states: “A policy which closes our doors to over 200 million legitimate travelers in the hopes of preventing a small number of travelers who intend to harm Americans from using the visa system to enter the United States will not achieve its aim of making our country safer. Moreover, such a policy runs counter to core American values of nondiscrimination, fair play and extending a warm welcome to foreign visitors and immigrants.”

After a weekend of confusion, the Department of Homeland Security is now saying that the order does not apply to lawful permanent residents noting that the “entry of lawful permanent residents is in the national interest. Accordingly, absent significant derogatory information indicating a serious threat to public safety and welfare, lawful permanent resident status will be a dispositive factor in our case-by-case determinations.” UK Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson reported on Sunday night that he had received assurances from the White House that the “Muslim ban” would only apply to UK dual nationals traveling from the listed countries directly to the US; however, the US Embassy in London contradicted this claim noting that no visas would be issued to any dual nationals of the countries listed under the “Muslim ban,” though this page has since been taken down.

"It's working out very nicely," President Trump told reporters Saturday. "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." Adam Schiff, the senior Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, strongly disagrees, telling CNN. "This order contravenes the principles of religious liberty, equality, and compassion that our nation was founded upon in its discriminatory impact of Muslims. It also plays into the Al Qaeda and ISIS narrative that the West is no place for Muslims and that we are engaged in a war of civilizations."

The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) and the attorney general of Washington State each filed lawsuits on Monday against President Trump’s executive order, calling it an “an unconstitutional religious test.” We will provide additional updates as we receive them.

UPDATE FEBRUARY 4, 2017: A judge in Seattle ordered a nationwide halt on Friday to the travel ban after a Boston court refused to extend a stay. The ruling from the Seattle judge, James Robart of the Federal District Court for the Western District of Washington, an appointee of President George W. Bush, is the most far-reaching ruling to date, though courts around the country have stayed certain aspects of President Trump's travel ban.

The federal government was “arguing that we have to protect the US from individuals from these countries, and there’s no support for that,” Judge Robart said in his decision. The judge's temporary ruling bars the administration from enforcing two parts of President Trump’s order: the ninety-day suspension of entry into the US of individuals from seven Muslim-majority countries—Iran, Iraq, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria and Yemen—and the order's limits on accepting refugees, including “any action that prioritizes the refugee claims of certain religious minorities.”

Initially calling the ruling "outrageous," the White House late Friday issued a revised statement saying it would seek an emergency halt to the judge’s stay to restore the president’s “lawful and appropriate" order. Earlier this week the State Department said 60,000 visas had been revoked. A State Department official tells CNN that the department has "reversed the cancellation of visas that were provisionally revoked following the Trump administration's travel ban—so long as those visas were not stamped or marked as canceled." The Department of Homeland Security also said Saturday it has suspended actions to implement President Trump's executive immigration order. Nationals of the affected seven-Muslim majority countries who intend on traveling outside the US or to the US should consult an experienced immigration attorney. We will continue to provide updates as we receive them.

UPDATE FEBRUARY 15, 2017: A federal judge in Virginia granted a preliminary injunction barring the Trump administration from implementing its travel ban in Virginia, adding another judicial ruling to the previously existing ones challenging the ban's constitutionality. This particular ruling is significant because US District Judge Leonie Brinkema found that since an unconstitutional religious bias is at the root of the travel ban, it violates First Amendment prohibitions on favoring one religion over another.

In her twenty-two-page ruling, Brinkema writes that the "president himself acknowledged the conceptual link between a Muslim ban and the EO (executive order)." She further notes that the president's executive authority is nevertheless limited by the Constitution. "Every presidential action must still comply with the limits set by Congress' delegation of power and the constraints of the Constitution, including Bill of Rights." A Justice Department spokeswoman did not return an email to the AP seeking comment about the ruling, although President Trump has indicated that he may issue a new executive order to replace the one being challenged in court.

President Trump Signs Executive Orders to Build a Border Wall, Dramatically Increase Deportations, and Enact a Temporary Ban on Refugees

On Wednesday President Trump signed two executive orders to begin construction of a wall on the US-Mexico border, increase border patrol forces as well as the number of immigration enforcement officers who carry out deportations. The orders also intend to strip so-called “sanctuary cities” of federal grant funding and establish new wide-ranging criteria that could make many more undocumented immigrants priorities for removal. "Beginning today, the United States of America gets back control of its borders," President Trump told workers of the Department of Homeland Security at the department's headquarters in Washington, where he signed the orders.

Although in the order President Trump directs the "immediate construction of a physical wall on the southern border," funding for the wall would require Congressional approval. Trump has claimed that Mexico will reimburse US taxpayers for the construction costs, most recently suggesting he would obtain the funds by instituting a twenty percent import tax. Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto has denied that Mexico will pay for the wall, and canceled a planned meeting in the US with President Trump in protest.

The executive orders call to increase Border Patrol forces by an additional 5,000 agents as well as for 10,000 new Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officers to carry out removals, again subject to Congress appropriating the sufficient funds. The executive actions also outline new criteria to determine which undocumented immigrants should be prioritized for deportation, potentially placing hundreds of thousands and arguably even millions more people in the federal government's crosshairs to deport. The order states that any undocumented immigrant convicted or simply charged with a crime that hasn't been adjudicated could be deported. (Under former President Obama, only undocumented immigrants convicted of a felony, serious misdemeanor, or multiple misdemeanors were prioritized for removal.) The order also specifies additional new priorities for deportation including undocumented immigrants who abuse public benefits, or simply those who in the “judgment of an immigration officer, otherwise pose a risk to public safety or national security," open-ended criteria that could be applied to many. 

Marielena Hincapié, executive director of the National Immigration Law Center, tells CNN that Trump's actions are "extremist, ineffective and expensive" and says the president is using lies about immigrants to push US policy. “Trump is taking a wrecking ball to our immigration system. It shouldn't come as a surprise that chaos and destruction will be the outcome," Hincapié says, noting that her organization will challenge Trump's moves in court.

Later this week or next President Trump is also expected to sign executive orders to block refugees from Syria and suspend the US refugee program for an initial 120-day period to ensure no admissions are made for those who “pose a threat to the security and welfare of the United States.” The order comes despite the fact that Syrian refugees already undergo intense screening processes that often last eighteen to twenty-four months. The orders, still in draft form, also stipulate that when the refugee program is resumed, it prioritizes refugees who have undergone religious-based persecution, “provided that the religion of the individual is a minority religion in the individual’s country of nationality.” For Muslim-majority countries this would presumably mean Christians, Yazidis, and other religious minorities, even though the majority of those killed, persecuted, and displaced by the Islamic State are Muslims. The total amount of refugees admitted also will total 50,000, decreased from 110,000 that the Obama administration had planned to accept.

The draft order calls for an immediate thirty-day halt to all immigrant and nonimmigrant entry of travelers from certain countries—including Iraq, Iran, Syria, Yemen, Sudan, Libya and Somalia—whose citizens “would be detrimental to the interests of the United States.” The order would allow those with visas to be turned away at US airports and other entry points. Additional provisions under the order would require all travelers to the United States to provide biometric data on entry and exit from the country, instead of current entry-only requirements, and suspends a waiver system under which citizens of certain countries where US visas are required do not have to undergo a face-to-face interview at a US Embassy or Consulate. The draft executive order also calls for visa applicants to be screened for their ideologies. “In order to protect Americans, we must ensure that those admitted to this country do not bear hostile attitudes toward our country and its founding principles,” it reads.

To justify the order, the action claims “hundreds of foreign-born individuals have been convicted or implicated in terrorism-related crimes since September 11, 2001.” The Washington Post notes, however, that most terrorist or suspected terrorist attacks since 9/11 have been carried out by US citizens. Moreover, the 9/11 hijackers hailed primarily from Saudi Arabia, as well as the United Arab Emirates, Egypt, and Lebanon, all which are US allies and not affected by the proposed ban.

Immigrant advocates and human rights groups have criticized the announced actions. “To think that Trump’s first 100 days are going to be marked by this very shameful shutting of our doors to everybody who is seeking refuge in this country is very concerning,” Marielena Hincapié tells the New York Times. “Everything points to this being simply a backdoor Muslim ban."

UPDATE JANUARY 27, 2017: This afternoon President Trump signed the executive order, “Protecting the Nation from Terrorist Attacks by Foreign Nationals,” that according to a draft released earlier this week enacts a temporary ban on refugees and suspends visas to immigrants from seven Muslim-majority countries.

UPDATE FEBRUARY 4, 2017: A judge in Seattle ordered a nationwide halt on Friday to the travel ban after a Boston court refused to extend a stay. The ruling from the Seattle judge, James Robart of the Federal District Court for the Western District of Washington, an appointee of President George W. Bush, is the most far-reaching ruling to date, though courts around the country have stayed certain aspects of President Trump's travel ban.

The federal government was “arguing that we have to protect the US from individuals from these countries, and there’s no support for that,” Judge Robart said in his decision. The judge's temporary ruling bars the administration from enforcing two parts of President Trump’s order: the ninety-day suspension of entry into the US of individuals from seven Muslim-majority countries—Iran, Iraq, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria and Yemen—and the order's limits on accepting refugees, including “any action that prioritizes the refugee claims of certain religious minorities.”

Initially calling the ruling "outrageous," the White House late Friday issued a revised statement saying it would seek an emergency halt to the judge’s stay to restore the president’s “lawful and appropriate" order. Earlier this week the State Department said 60,000 visas had been revoked. A State Department official tells CNN that the department has "reversed the cancellation of visas that were provisionally revoked following the Trump administration's travel ban—so long as those visas were not stamped or marked as canceled." The Department of Homeland Security also said Saturday it has suspended actions to implement President Trump's executive immigration order. Nationals of the affected seven-Muslim majority countries who intend on traveling outside the US or to the US should consult an experienced immigration attorney. We will continue to provide updates as we receive them.

New York Times: “Ailing Vermont Town Pins Hopes on Mideast Refugees”

In late 2015, when thirty governors from states across the country announced they didn’t want to resettle Syrian refugees, Christopher Louras, the mayor of Rutland, Vermont, sent the state’s Democratic governor a text. That text was to see if they could bring refugees to Rutland, a small town in rural Vermont. In September last year the State Department officially selected the city as a resettlement site. “I saw that as an opportunity to grow our population, bring in individuals, families, new Americans from Syria who have a strong work ethic, who were fleeing for their lives and looking to rebuild those shattered lives,” Louras tells the New York Times.

Rutland, with a population of 15,824, has lost residents since 2000. Some Rutlanders including Mayor Louras see refugee resettlement as an economic remedy to their shrinking city, while others are concerned about whether the city can absorb the newcomers. “Rutland’s demographic condition right now is not just one of a declining population, but it’s also a graying population,” says Louras, who became the mayor as a Republican, but is now an independent. “We need people.” 

The plan has divided the city. Rutland First, an organization opposed to the refugee resettlement, says that they “are a group of sympathetic and deeply concerned Rutland residents, who understand the sufferings and displacements not only of Syrians but of other in strife-torn areas of the world” but that nevertheless “do not think this decision should be based on feelings of kindness.” They explain: 

We are aware of burdens experienced by some communities who have accepted refugess as well as difficulties of those resettled. We think we must understand facts that have not been forthcoming and must consider the consequences of refugee resttlement in our City. Rutland has numerous unaddressed problems.

Members of Rutland First claim their concerns are strictly economic. “We’re kind of stuck out here, with our level of economic depression, with our level of crime and drug issues,” Timothy Cook, a doctor and an Army Reserve colonel who is part of Rutland First, says. “We’re the ones who are gonna have to foot the bill for this.” There are, of course, others who oppose Syrian resettlement. President-Elect Trump made a campaign process to suspend the resettlement of Syrian refugees in the US.

Rutland isn’t the only city welcoming refugees and immigrants for economic reasons. Cities in the Rust Belt, such as Pittsburgh and Dayton, Ohio, as well as in Maine and upstate New York, have set up services and organizations to connect immigrants and refugees with job opportunities. “Over the last couple of decades, especially in the last ten years, places have started to develop strategies to attract and retain immigrants and resettle refugees in order to boost their economic activity,” Audrey Singer, a senior fellow at the Urban Institute who has studied refugee resettlement in American cities, tells the New York Times. “We’ve seen a few neighborhoods kind of turn around because of immigrants and refugees moving in,” Melissa Bertolo, the coordinator for Welcome Dayton, says. She says that cities in the Rust Belt are “all looking at how immigrant integration plays a part in the revitalization of a city.”

“I think we’re right on the beginning of the cusp of serious, serious labor problems,” Art Woolf, an associate professor of economics at the University of Vermont, says. He believes that the state’s unemployment rate, at 3.6 percent, is a sign of trouble to come. “We’re low because there’s nobody available to work.” Additional population loss could potentially make it more difficult for the remaining major employers, including General Electric plants that make aircraft engine parts and the Rutland Regional Medical Center, to stay. Resettlement, says Lyle Jepson, the executive director of the Rutland Economic Development Corporation, is “supporting people when they need help.” But he says: “Frankly, we need help. We need people to join our community.”

Refugees Welcome

Madrid's Gothic City Hall (formerly the post office) in Plaza de Cibeles has a sentiment that we should all support this coming year. With 60 million refugees worldwide, the world is facing the largest refugee crisis since the end of World War II, and "it is more important than ever that communities around the world open their hearts and doors to refugees seeking safety and a chance to rebuild their lives."

NPR: "How One US Group Turns Migrants Into Employees"

When Almothana Alhamoud, a thirty-one-year-old Syrian data analyst, arrived in Chicago two years ago after fleeing the Syrian war, he took the first job offered him: a nightshift cashier at a convenience store. "When I came over here I just want to find anything to survive," he tells NPR over dinner with his family, who followed him to Chicago and are now applying for asylum. "It was cold and it was the worst winter I ever seen in my life. I was struggling there.”

Although Alhamoud holds a bachelor's degree in computer engineering and had a career as a data analyst for Syria's Agriculture Ministry, he discovered his degree was not recognized in the US. At job interviews in Chicago he struggled with his English.

It’s common for many refugees and immigrants to the US to face difficulties in their professional life as they adjust, and many take low-paying and low-skill jobs that are not commensurate with their education and experience. According to a new report from the Migration Policy Institute in Washington, nearly 1.5 million college-educated immigrants were employed in low-skill jobs between 2009 and 2013. Commonly referred to as “brain waste,” Michael Fix, the Migration Policy Institute’s president, tells NPR that these workers in low skill jobs represent a tremendous loss to the US economy. In terms of income, these workers "lost 40 billion dollars a year, or about the same amount as the entire profit of the airline industry." He adds that the increase in their income would translate into almost $10.2 billion more in federal, state, and local taxes.

One organization looking to solve this problem is Upwardly Global, a nonprofit with headquarters in New York that helps immigrants and refugees rebuild their careers in the US. Over the past ten years, this organization has successfully placed 3,700 applicants in their first professional positions, says executive director Nicole Cicerani, with jobs that pay approximately $45,000 to $50,000 per year. "In all of our employer partnerships, nobody has agreed to hire our candidate. They agree to interview them and they hire them because they wind up being the best candidate for the job," says Cicerani. "That's really something when you think about it—the top candidate was somebody who was working as a hot dog vendor six months prior." 

Cities are starting to take notice. St. Louis, Cincinnati, Detroit, and Pittsburgh are either looking into or starting job initiatives aimed at refugees and immigrants. The Mosaic Project in St. Louis encourages business leaders to hire more international talent, fosters immigrant entrepreneurs, and connects refugees and migrants with professionals for career advancement. Cicerani says that while it is normal in the immigrant experience to "come to this country and sacrifice everything for the next generation," including education and professional advancement, her organization is showing it doesn’t have to be that way. "This is a postindustrial, skills-based economy and the idea is that we want people to do the jobs that we actually need in our economy."

Alhamoud signed up for job workshops at Upwardly Global's Chicago office. He was assigned a mentor, who helped him revise his resume and practice his interviewing skills. After seven months of workshops, Alhamoud found a job with Cox and Kings Global Service working as an IT help desk support technician for a company that processes visas for the Indian consulate in Chicago. "To learn to sell yourself, that's the hard part, it's the work culture thing here," he says. Now, he plans to spend his nights as a student and seek an advanced American degree.

TIME: “US and Australia Might Be Close to a Deal on Refugee Swap”

The United States and Australia are arranging a deal to “swap” refugees from each country’s extraterritorial refugee centers. Australia has approximately 1,800 asylum seekers in camps on the islands of Nauru and Papua New Guinea, many of whom have fled conflict or extreme economic poverty from countries including Pakistan, Iraq, Iran, Sri Lanka, and Afghanistan. Critics have labeled these camps Australia’s “Guantanamo Bay,” and alleged that refugees have been mistreated in the camps. Australia announced at President Barack Obama’s global migration summit that it would exchange their own migrants for those in US-backed detention camps in Costa Rica.

The resettlement process will be administered with the United Nations refugee agency UNHCR, and US authorities will conduct their own assessment and review of refugees along with security checks. The need to resettle these refugees has become a priority for the Australian government because of Papua New Guinea’s order to close the Australian-run detention center and ruling stating that the refugees were held there illegally. Australia has a strict policy to never settle asylum seekers who arrive by sea, in order to deter human smugglers bringing over refugees to Australia by boat, typically from Indonesian ports. The refugee exchange with the US will be a way around this law, and will allow the government to deal with the refugees at these detention centers and potentially close them.   

Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull says that the responsibility to “stop the boats” has fallen to his government, and that this refugee swap wouldn’t be repeated or extended to asylum seekers not already in camps, although the Australian government has previously arranged with other foreign governments to accept asylum seekers. “Our priority is the resettlement of women, children and families. This will be an orderly process [and] it will not be rushed,” Turnbull says in the Wall Street Journal. 

UN Special Rapporteur on the Human Rights of Migrants Francois Crepeau, who says that refugees at the detention centers on Nauru have experienced cruel, inhuman, and degrading treatment or punishment, welcomes the refugee exchange with the US.  “We don’t know how it’s going to develop, but I certainly hope that it develops in a way that offers refugees and asylum seekers solutions, and if it succeeds at emptying Manus and Nauru, I think this will be a great achievement,” Crepeau tells reporters in Canberra, Australia.

The refugee agreement could potentially be opposed by President-elect Donald Trump, who during his campaign called for tighter immigration controls and spoke of banning Muslims from immigrating to the US. Mark Krikorian, executive director of the anti-immigration Center for Immigration Studies, predicts a "firestorm" of opposition from anti-immigration activists regarding the refugee exchange. "It's so difficult to justify," he tells Fairfax Media. "I don't expect any Republicans will defend it. I can't see a lot of Democrats defending it either. My sense is that when the word gets out on this, it'll be dead on arrival." Other governmental figures are more optimistic the deal will go through. Senior Australian government minister Christopher Pyne believes the deal can be finalized during Obama’s term. "There certainly is time—two and a half months is plenty of time—and if that's the case, it will be a great achievement for the Turnbull government," Pyne tells Nine Network television.

Regarding the pending deal, Amnesty International says in a statement that it is concerned about the lack of information provided by the Australian government around the timeline of the deal as the exact numbers of people who will be given the opportunity to settle in the US.