Why wasn't Tesla part of the 100 Tech Companies Signing against the Travel Ban?

[stopcrazypp]

I still don't see the justification for the hyperbolic outrage over a temporary ban of certain countries. Countries from a list compiled by the Obama administration in fact. Are there inconsistencies? Are the specific aspects of the ban that should be changed or amended? Sure. And the administration has been fairly proactive in making such adjustments. But the level of demonization and outrage isn't simply over issues that can/should be fixed. The preferred narrative by many is that Trump's a racist, bigot, xenophobe that needs to be impeached or worse.

It's clear that the US vetting procedures are woefully inadequate and need to be fixed.

ODNI Confirms Terrorists Tried to Enter U.S. as Syrian Refugees - Judicial Watch

Federal agents are reinvestigating Syrian refugees in U.S. who may have slipped through vetting lapse



It's also clear to me that the outrage of this ban is not so much over the specific aspects of the ban but rather it's because of who's President. There was little if any outrage over prior selective immigration bans. And yes, I understand there's implementation differences and other structural difference with the prior bans but not in a significant way.

I have yet to read or hear any good substantive source of info that outlines the major issues causing outrage. Most criticisms of this temp ban typically devolve into name calling, exaggerations and projections as to what might happen in the future.

In no way was the Trump administration's handling of the ban proactive. Rather it was completely reactive (pared back because of massive public outrage) and poorly planned (the DHS had to go back and forth given unclear guidance and there was no grace period to allow for airlines to prepare). There's been a lot of effort by Trump's defenders to draw parallels to previous restrictions, but the obvious difference is that Trump's has numerous constitutional problems (due process, establishment, equal protection).

You can find the other differences laid out in the article below: much narrower focus, not a ban, response to a specific threat, orderly process, there is far stronger vetting today.
Sorry, Mr. President: The Obama Administration Did Nothing Similar to Your Immigration Ban

The Trump ban can be amended to fix these problems, but as a whole, it was horrible policy and the response by the public was justified.

 

[Tam]

...I still don't see the justification for the hyperbolic outrage..

Your first article talked about 10,000 terrorist Syrians attempts, not actual US entries.

Your second article said Obama's process is imperfect by citing a case that White House Advisor Kellyanne Conway called it as Bowling Green, KY "massacre": 2 Iraqi Terrorists entered the US as refugees which were under surveillance from the FBI who successfully set up a sting that sold them weapons so they could export those to Iraq.

Conway did correct later that there was no actual "massacre" at Bowling Green, KY

The sting was video taped and they were caught red handed and they didn't dispute the sting video and they went to jail.

The outrage is how current executive order has impacted the US business, schools, hospitals, patients and communities.

Remember, during Obama's Muslim ban in 2011 and again in 2015, there was NO disruption of the flow of non-US citizens who had proper paper works.

During Obama's ban, the flow was slowed down but NEVER stopped.

As long as you got paper works from US Embassies, you got your US entry during Obama's Muslim ban even if you came from those specific 7 Muslim majority countries.

That meant US Permanent Residences (Green Cards) were able to get back to the US after their vacations during the Obama's Muslim ban.

Contrast that with current ban, as mentioned above with the Cleveland Medical Clinic doctor who went on her vacation in Saudi Arabia where she was born and raised but she was not allowed to come back to the US during this current ban.

And remember, she was not born nor raised in those 7 Muslim majority countries.

That is the outrage.

Right now, Cleveland Medical Clinic is trying to get her back but the rescue is still up in the legal limbo.

And that is the outrage.

Those stories never happened during Obama's Muslim ban because he properly executed his within the laws.

Currently, so much disruptions and outrage is because this current executive order is unlawful.

Trump says it is lawful because as a President, he has the right to do it.

The Federal judge says his order is unlawful and placed a TRO Temporary Restraint Order on Trump's order.

 

[AnxietyRanger]

Since this topic is discussed, I think it would be fair to add the public reason given for the selection of the countries:

The reason why Saudi Arabia etc. are not included in the list is - as is the fact why this list of countries was compiled already by the Obama administration - basically this:

The 7 countries on the list have been compromised with regards to issuing passports and identification infrastructure, either through state sponsorship or regional instability or civil war, leading to government failures.

Saudi Arabia may well house a lot of terrorist sympathisers or even terrorist as 9/11 showed, but a Saudi Arabian passport and civic infrastructure can be trusted to identify persons reliably. And if you can identify a person reliably, you can link their entry to whatever intelligence you otherwise have.

Basically, the U.S. administration says they can not trust persons coming from certain countries are who their papers say are (or they lack additional infrastructure safeguards), at least not without additional independent vetting. Without that vetting in place, even a visa is not a guarantee of who the person is, hence they are re-evaluating everything.

This is the reason articulated by Mike Pence in an interview and pretty much later completely not reported on the media, which has taken a hyperbolic slant on this issue instead.

This is also why a comparison to a Syrian coming in the U.S. the in the 1950s is quite different from a Syrian coming today, when the country is in tatters and the infrastructure in issuing papers and idenfiticating people is equally in tatters.

IMO the reason makes sense. Whether or not one wants to believe this is the only reason I guess goes quite quickly to the partisan bickering side of things I have no interest in. But in fairness this reason needed to be pointed out.

 

[Tam]

...the reason makes sense...

It makes sense to ban terrorists but the question is do you need to violate US laws to do it?

President Trump says he did not violate any laws as what he did is similar to what Obama did. In addition, he claims he does it for the safety of the nation.

Federal judges disagree.

We'll see what 3pm live streaming court hearing will tell us this Tuesday, 02/07/2017.

 

[Ulmo]

A company signing up to be anti-USA and pro-subversive is a huge statement that a lot of companies don't want to make.

We don't need continual undermining of our citizenry by companies that wish to import those who, as proxies of those companies, have ill intent upon us.

Many companies with long views of humanity see that. Only the most immoral and traitorous of companies might be willing to sign a pro-subversive and anti-USA letter about their desire for continued ability to undermine our great nation.

 

[AnxietyRanger]

It makes sense to ban terrorists but the question is do you need to violate US laws to do it?

President Trump says he did not violate any laws as what he did is similar to what Obama did. In addition, he claims he does it for the safety of the nation.

Federal judges disagree.

We'll see what 3pm live streaming court hearing will tell us this Tuesday, 02/07/2017.

I have no idea. The atmosphere is so partisanly loaded, getting a clear picture of what is and isn't is hard.

The fog of cultural war, one might say.

 

[stopcrazypp]

Since this topic is discussed, I think it would be fair to add the public reason given for the selection of the countries:

The reason why Saudi Arabia etc. are not included in the list is - as is the fact why this list of countries was compiled already by the Obama administration - basically this:

The 7 countries on the list have been compromised with regards to issuing passports and identification infrastructure, either through state sponsorship or regional instability or civil war, leading to government failures.

Saudi Arabia may well house a lot of terrorist sympathisers or even terrorist as 9/11 showed, but a Saudi Arabian passport and civic infrastructure can be trusted to identify persons reliably. And if you can identify a person reliably, you can link their entry to whatever intelligence you otherwise have.

Basically, the U.S. administration says they can not trust persons coming from certain countries are who their papers say are (or they lack additional infrastructure safeguards), at least not without additional independent vetting. Without that vetting in place, even a visa is not a guarantee of who the person is, hence they are re-evaluating everything.

This is the reason articulated by Mike Pence in an interview and pretty much later completely not reported on the media, which has taken a hyperbolic slant on this issue instead.

This is also why a comparison to a Syrian coming in the U.S. the in the 1950s is quite different from a Syrian coming today, when the country is in tatters and the infrastructure in issuing papers and idenfiticating people is equally in tatters.

IMO the reason makes sense. Whether or not one wants to believe this is the only reason I guess goes quite quickly to the partisan bickering side of things I have no interest in. But in fairness this reason needed to be pointed out.

Your/Pence's explanation is a mischaracterization/misdirection about the list of countries and that is why the media doesn't cover it.

The 7 countries was actually what was taken out the Visa Waiver Program (currently with 38 countries on the list) under the Obama administration. The Visa Waiver Program allows people from the listed countries to enter the US without applying for a visa.

All that changed is that people from those 7 countries would have to apply for a visa, like the other 147 countries in the world not on the waiver program (nor visa free like Canada). This does not indicate some kind of special passport ID failure that requires banning travel from those countries. For example, China and Russia has the same status as those 7 countries and they certainly have the infrastructure to issue valid papers.

Note that neither Saudi Arabia, Egypt, nor UAE are part of the Visa Waiver Program, so using such a criteria to select a list ensures that whatever EO Trump issued would never include them. This excuse was just a way for the Trump administration to deflect responsibility to Obama in case people bring up the selection of the countries. However, anyone doing more than a cursory examination can easily see past that.

More details here:
FACT CHECK: Did the Obama Administration Select the Countries Affected by President Trump's Immigration Order?
Visa Waiver Program - Wikipedia

 

[AnxietyRanger]

Your/Pence's explanation is a mischaracterization/misdirection about the list of countries and that is why the media doesn't cover it.

The 7 countries was actually what was taken out the Visa Waiver Program (currently with 38 countries on the list) under the Obama administration. The Visa Waiver Program allows people from the listed countries to enter the US without applying for a visa.

All that changed is that people from those 7 countries would have to apply for a visa, like the other 147 countries in the world not on the waiver program (nor visa free like Canada). This does not indicate some kind of special passport ID failure that requires banning travel from those countries. For example, China and Russia has the same status as those 7 countries and they certainly have the infrastructure to issue valid papers.

Note that neither Saudi Arabia, Egypt, nor UAE are part of the Visa Waiver Program, so using such a criteria to select a list ensures that whatever EO Trump issued would never include them. This excuse was just a way for the Trump administration to deflect responsibility to Obama in case people bring up the selection of the countries. However, anyone doing more than a cursory examination can easily see past that.

More details here:
FACT CHECK: Did the Obama Administration Select the Countries Affected by President Trump's Immigration Order?
Visa Waiver Program - Wikipedia

I disagree with your sweeping dismissal. One of the basic tenets of visa waiver programs is the notion that traveller information from those countries are considered trustworthy. Removal from such a program certainly is a signal of significant change in the status. And, more importantly, the Obama administration in its reasoning agreed the reason was these countries had been compromised.

Mind you, I did not claim the Obama administration made the same conclusion about needs for additional vetting. Obviously they did not, other than in the case of Iraq where a somewhat similar action was taken for six months. Obama administration came to a different conclusion about what to do with this situation.

But IMO this reason of unreliable identification makes sense. It is not hard to imagine reliablie identification of people coming from Libya or Syria is much harder than those coming from Saudi Arabia or Dubai/UAE for example. That is just common sense when one considers the status of the countries, they are in some ways on different planets in that regard.

Are they not?

As for media reporting, they reported the highly speculative Trump business bias angle. In fairness, they should cover this angle at the very least equally, as certainly if that is considered plausible, an objective thinker finds this one plausible too. But then we have no objective medias, we have partisan medias on both sides of the aisle. What is someone in the middle to read? Maybe TMC.

 

[SageBrush]

Most of the trouble makers are 2nd generation immigrants from these same countries and more, with the common fabric of radical Islam.

Wrong, wrong, wrong.

The 1st generation are refugees and are not "radical islamists.". The 2nd generation grew up ostracized in ghettos, and a small fraction have turned to terrorism. Just as a small fraction of disenfranchised Jews, Irish, Italian and Mexican immigrants have turned to organized crime.

One other thing: I am an Israeli Jew, and I am more familiar with terrorism and Islam than you. That includes close to 10 years in the army. Your knee jerk racism is moronic.

 

[SageBrush]

Lets stop with the meme that the nation of Syria raised Steve

There is no 'meme,' and you are as usual ignorant of simple facts available on wikipedia

Job's biological father is a Syrian national who was in the US at a University. He fathered two children: Steve Jobs; and his sister, who IIRC is an author of some renown. A trump ban on visas from Syria, if in effect during the years those two children were conceived, would most certainly have removed them from history.

 

[Tam]

16,000 people are logging in live stream. The hearing is scheduled to start in few minutes.

 

[AnxietyRanger]

One bit of factual correctiong above to @stopcrazypp's message (see there is fake news even on TMC ) - it was pointed out that the 7 countries were not in the Visa Waiver Program under Obama either. Which makes sense, considering places like Libya and Syria were unlikely Visa Waiver Program countries anyway.

What happened (in part, there were other changes too) was that you could lose your visa waiver even if coming from a Visa Waiver country, had you visited one of these 7 named countries during a time period. This was the Obama policy on the Visa Waiver and that part was related to fear that visitors in those countries could be linked to terror, even if they travelled under Visa Waiver country passport.

There were of course some other policies, but just correcting that, err..., alternative fact.

 

[alseTrick]

Donald Trump's views may change. People change, so please be hopeful.

Your advice is willful naivete?

 

[jason1466]

The US has serious educational and skills gaps that are going to take awhile to address, if ever...

Live in an affluent area with public schools about the equivalent of private elsewhere. Just learned my rising 9th grader has to enter a lottery to be selected to take Computer Programming 1 in high school. They only allow 2 classes of 30 students for a school with well over 2000 students. I wonder why it so hard to find American tech hires. I will train him myself if I must, but how many kids in this country miss out on potential STEM careers due to rationing of "modern" education. Truly sad.

 

[sitter_k]

Since this topic is discussed, I think it would be fair to add the public reason given for the selection of the countries:

The reason why Saudi Arabia etc. are not included in the list is - as is the fact why this list of countries was compiled already by the Obama administration - basically this:

The 7 countries on the list have been compromised with regards to issuing passports and identification infrastructure, either through state sponsorship or regional instability or civil war, leading to government failures.

Saudi Arabia may well house a lot of terrorist sympathisers or even terrorist as 9/11 showed, but a Saudi Arabian passport and civic infrastructure can be trusted to identify persons reliably. And if you can identify a person reliably, you can link their entry to whatever intelligence you otherwise have.

Basically, the U.S. administration says they can not trust persons coming from certain countries are who their papers say are (or they lack additional infrastructure safeguards), at least not without additional independent vetting. Without that vetting in place, even a visa is not a guarantee of who the person is, hence they are re-evaluating everything.

This is the reason articulated by Mike Pence in an interview and pretty much later completely not reported on the media, which has taken a hyperbolic slant on this issue instead.

This is also why a comparison to a Syrian coming in the U.S. the in the 1950s is quite different from a Syrian coming today, when the country is in tatters and the infrastructure in issuing papers and idenfiticating people is equally in tatters.

IMO the reason makes sense. Whether or not one wants to believe this is the only reason I guess goes quite quickly to the partisan bickering side of things I have no interest in. But in fairness this reason needed to be pointed out.

If the problem is purely identity verification and not based upon racial or bigoted views why still allow Christians from those countries just not Muslims?

 

[AnxietyRanger]

If the problem is purely identity verification and not based upon racial or bigoted views why still allow Christians from those countries just not Muslims?

The travel ban itself does not include exceptions. It is the same for all. A Christian traveller would have been equally affected.

There is a clause for minority religions for the refugee limitation, which is different. Refugees go through different vetting than travellers.

Just correcting the facts. Opinions on this may be better suited to a non-car forum.

 

[msnow]

The travel ban itself does not include exceptions. It is the same for all. A Christian traveller would have been equally affected.

There is a clause for minority religions for the refugee limitation, which is different. Refugees go through different vetting than travellers.

Just correcting the facts. Opinions on this may be better suited to a non-car forum.

True but in an interview with Trump as the EO was being released he said there would be an exception for Christians in Syria who were being persecuted. So not in the words of the order but is in the intent and execution of the EO.

 

[McRat]

If the problem is purely identity verification and not based upon racial or bigoted views why still allow Christians from those countries just not Muslims?

Wow. You think Christian is a race. Amazing. I thought you needed Diversity Classes today, I guess I was wrong. Heads up, most Christians are NOT Caucasian.

They are killing Muslims because the shells hit them or they are captured in battle.

They are killing Christians because it's illegal to be Christian per their religious laws.

And the Christians are being vetted anyhow.

If there were Hindus, they'd be killing them also, along with Atheists.

 

[AnxietyRanger]

True but in an interview with Trump as the EO was being released he said there would be an exception for Christians in Syria who were being persecuted. So not in the words of the order but is in the intent and execution of the EO.

Again, that is an exception to the refugee limitation. Not to travel where identification/vetting is a different type of matter.

The question was whether or not traveller identification was a plausible concern with problematic countries whose papers may be compromised. I just pointed out religion makes no difference there.

It can make a difference, I agree, in refugee allowance. Refugees often have no papers at all.

 

[sitter_k]

Wow. You think Christian is a race. Amazing. I thought you needed Diversity Classes today, I guess I was wrong. Heads up, most Christians are NOT Caucasian.

They are killing Muslims because the shells hit them or they are captured in battle.

They are killing Christians because it's illegal to be Christian per their religious laws.

And the Christians are being vetted anyhow.

If there were Hindus, they'd be killing them also, along with Atheists.

Sorry referenced racial or racist not in relation to Christians but because those countries on the Muslim Ban list tend to have people who would be considered minorities in the US, and there's probably a strong correlation between people who hate Muslims and people who are racists, even if Islam isn't a race.
Chalk it up to Internet short form, as I would call people who make slurs or derogatory comments about "Chinese", "Orientals" or Pakistanis racist as well even though none of which is a race, but I know what they are trying say I guess...