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President Trump's executive order banning people from seven Muslim-majority countries from entering the U.S. also applies to green card holders from those countries, the Department of Homeland Security said Saturday. "It will bar green card holders," acting DHS spokeswoman Gillian Christensen told Reuters.
Green cards serve as proof of an individual's permanent legal residence in the U.S. A senior administration official clarified on Saturday afternoon that green card holders from the seven countries affected in the order who are currently outside the U.S. will need a case-by-case waiver to return to the U.S. Green card holders in the U.S. will have to meet with a consular officer before departing the country, the official said.
Source: The Hill
At least one case quickly prompted a legal challenge as lawyers representing two Iraqi refugees held at Kennedy International Airport in New York filed a motion early Saturday seeking to have their clients released. They also filed a motion for class certification, in an effort to represent all refugees and other immigrants who they said were being unlawfully detained at ports of entry. Shortly after noon on Saturday, Hameed Khalid Darweesh, an interpreter who worked on behalf of the United States government in Iraq, was released. After nearly 19 hours of detention, Mr. Darweesh began to cry as he spoke to reporters, putting his hands behind his back and miming handcuffs.
[...] Inside the airport, one of the lawyers, Mark Doss, a supervising attorney at the International Refugee Assistance Project, asked a border agent, "Who is the person we need to talk to?"
"Call Mr. Trump," said the agent, who declined to identify himself.
[...] An official message to all American diplomatic posts around the world provided instructions about how to treat people from the countries affected: "Effective immediately, halt interviewing and cease issuance and printing" of visas to the United States. Confusion turned to panic at airports around the world, as travelers found themselves unable to board flights bound for the United States. In Dubai and Istanbul, airport and immigration officials turned passengers away at boarding gates and, in at least one case, ejected a family from a flight they had boarded.
[...] Iranian green card holders who live in the United States were blindsided by the decree while on vacation in Iran, finding themselves in a legal limbo and unsure whether they would be able to return to America. "How do I get back home now?" said Daria Zeynalia, a green card holder who was visiting family in Iran. He had rented a house and leased a car, and would be eligible for citizenship in November. "What about my job? If I can't go back soon, I'll lose everything."
Source: The New York Times
(Score: 4, Insightful) by AthanasiusKircher on Sunday January 29 2017, @08:05PM
I hesitate to interrupt a good flamewar, but I'll just throw another perspective into the mix. If you're going to start citing the decline of the Roman Republic, I really think you need to go back to FDR and the shift of the Democratic Party toward populism. (Teddy R. was also a good populist, but his changes were much less radical than FDR.) Constitutional law changed more during FDR's presidency than any other before or since, particularly with the switch in time that saved nine [wikipedia.org]. Whether or not that was because Owen Roberts actually feared the court-packing scheme or not, the net result was that the U.S. transitioned during FDR's presidency from a federal government with limited powers to one with essentially no limit on its powers.
That changed the nature of the presidency fundamentally, as well as the entire governmental system of the U.S., creating a path whereby future leaders in the U.S. could increase power exponentially. Couple that to FDR's populism and turn to embrace the "working man" in both North and South (rather than the traditional purview of the Democrats, i.e., southern racists), and you have the creation of the modern populist march toward republic decline.
Would we be anywhere near so worried about the damage a new President might do if he had only the pre-FDR powers of the federal government working for him?**
Those sorts of things (increasing powers of the central government, consolidation of power under a single government official, a turn toward populism and rural areas, a tendency to stay in power long than tradition -- FDR was elected for four terms, leading to a Constitutional amendment to prevent that sort of thing, and even stuff like concern over the plight of war veterans) should sound eerily familiar to those with knowledge of the Roman Republic. The Gracchi brothers in particular... except the Roman Senators had the good sense to club Tiberius Gracchus to death when he sought to be elected again.
84 years after the rise of Tiberius Gracchus, Julius Caesar crossed the Rubicon and effectively ended the Roman Republic. FDR was elected in 1932 -- 84 years later, we hailed a new leader in early November, who has continuously threatened attacks on Washington and our existing governmental structure.
I'm not arguing for some sort of mystical historical coincidence here. Just saying the Romans themselves would have viewed this set of coincidences as a very inauspicious omen.
[**I'm not saying FDR's actions as President were necessarily bad, or even that some consolidation in federal power is necessary in a modern world. But the way these shifts occurred and the resulting empowerment of the executive was bound to lead to a Constitutional crisis sooner or later. That's why the Romans fought so hard for centuries to keep power isolated and temporary.]