Elections have Consequences
Via AFP:
An Iraqi family was barred from flying from Cairo to New York on Saturday after US President Donald Trump signed an order restricting arrivals from seven Muslim-majority countries.
[…]
Fuad Sharef, 51, and his wife and three children were instead forced to board a flight back to Erbil in Iraq’s semi-autonomous region of Kurdistan, he told AFP.
Trump had on Friday signed a sweeping executive order to suspend refugee arrivals and impose tough controls on travelers from Iran, Iraq, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria and Yemen.
“I had sold my house, my car, my furniture. I resigned from work and so did my wife. I took my children out of school,” said Sharef of the family’s preparations to resettle in Nashville, Tennessee under a special immigrant visa.
[…]
“Donald Trump destroyed my life. My family’s life. I used to think America was a state of institutions but it’s as though it’s a dictatorship,” he said.
“For a decision like this to come out and be implemented immediately, and against whom? Against a valid visa holder.”
“I put my life at risk, working with the Americans at a time that it could have gotten you killed,” he added.
The Republicans will never stop Trump on principle. The only way to get through is to keep showing how cruel and destructive his policies are until you have an overwhelming popular tide against them.
Stand by for bill or one of the other knotheads to enter this discussion proclaiming that he has no concern for what is happening to some towelhead and that this man’s situation is exactly why he voted for Trump in the first place.
(Did I mention that Mr. Sharef should just stop his whining and grow a pair?)
From the text of the executive order:
It sounds like the order is being implemented incorrectly. The Sharef family hits nearly every single one of the exception cases, and should not have been sent back before they had a chance to get the two Secretaries to approve them.
The cruelty of the policy is only matched by the incompetence of the implementation.
Further, if we don’t stand by our allies (both countries and people), why would anyone ally themselves with us?
@Hal_10000:
I have a hard time imagining any kind of Congressional Republican mutiny against Trump prior to the 2018 mid-term elections. And waiting on that bus is dicey at best.
I’m of the opinion that the only thing that might cause an early firestorm would be either, (1) disclosure that Trump actually had sleaze bag Russian connections and prior knowledge of the Russian effort to influence our election, and/or (2) his tax returns are leaked and contain evidence of potentially compromising ties to Russian financiers.
He’s an appalling grease ball but Congressional Republicans are looking to run the table with President Queeg at the helm. It’s Kool Aid Time in D.C.
@Gustopher:
That can’t possibly have anything to do with the fact that exceptions require joint action by two woefully understaffed agencies (now also under hiring freezes) that have no administrative mechanism in place whereby they could reach a joint determination about anything. Right?
@DrDaveT: Purely coincidental, I assure you.