Trump created an Immigration Ban. I disagree as to whether it was a Muslim Ban or not simply because there’s room to doubt that and because I don’t think that’s the point of the debate. Also, I disagree with people who say it’s not a Muslim ban simply by saying there are other countries with more Muslim people, countries not on the list, like India. Seriously? India has a billion people and therefore any group is likely much larger than populations of most countries, and since India, INDIA, is not on the list, despite having 176 million Muslims, it must not be a Muslim Ban. Really? You’re messed up.
More importantly, the ban is an atrocious elimination of 134 million people from 7 countries until, as Trump says, we can find a better way to have the good without the bad.
So he proposes “extreme vetting.” What is it?
Well, he’s basically given no details, but my guess is you’d evaluate more deeply the relatives of a particular applicant, perhaps visit those people and study them. Perhaps he’ll adopt a guilty-before-proven-innocent concept in which you have to work harder to find innocence rather than assuming innocence and perhaps overlooking something based on that assumption. Perhaps he’ll seek to detain all immigrants once they arrive in order to start the next step of the investigation, which they could still fail, before they are officially free to leave detention. That may allow for investigators here to do their job in a hands-off interrogation in which the immigrants are grilled for hours during a limbo period during which they are in the U.S., have passed enough tests to enter, but haven’t been issued a visa.
Perhaps they wouldn’t have a visa when they get on the plane to the U.S. and would receive it upon arrival only after passing the final stateside test. If they fail, they wouldn’t get the visa, and without the visa, they’d have to be put back on a plane. To get around the constitutional issues that likely wouldn’t hold him up anyway since the Republican party would vote in his favor and since it’s clear new DHS chief John Kelly would just get fired if he disobeys even once, Trump might declare that any and all geographical areas used for this final step in the process aren’t technically America, in the same way an Embassy of a foreign country technically isn’t America. It would all be messed up, and I think the Constitution would still cover it because our laws follow us wherever we go and because it would be foreign land controlled by the U.S. and not any other country, but in a world where truth doesn’t matter, I guess Trump could do whatever he wants.
Extreme vetting could mean anything, and in some cases, it’s already extreme. For Syrians, it takes nearly 2 years to get a visa. That means you’d have to suffer atrocities, then apply, then wait. You couldn’t predict a war, then apply, then see that you were right, and by the time the war gets really bad, you’d miss most of the suffering because you’d be on a plane out of there. If that were the case, your application wouldn’t be to flee persecution or a war, which gets priority, despite how ironically long they have to wait, despite being on the top of the list of priorities.
In Iraq, it’s also tough in terms of how long you have to wait and the low percentage accepted. However, people from most of the countries on the ban don’t have to wait so long. Someone from Iran could be more extreme vetted, for sure, and I’m not sure that’s such a problem. You need to identify connections with the government, and if none, they can come in. However, I’m sure the guilty-before-prove-innocent process I suggested might be part of Trump’s ideology toward immigration would lead him or his ever-narrowing team of people in charge to determine that there’s evidence of a connection with the anti-U.S. Iranian government. After all, Trump just makes up facts out of thin air. Somalia may be easier because it’s very likely that someone in affiliation with al Shabaab would have an Internet history that easily proves it.
Now, which countries should be more extremely vetted?
It’s a tough world…. I don’t live in USA , but I have lived their for a decade. For the most part, I found people to be more accepting, kind and open than people from my own country (India). I understands Trumph’s concern as well as yours. It hinge’s on peoples personal freedom at the cost of avoiding a national disaster.
I hope that you all come out of this even