Spoiler: it’s a steaming pile of 💩
As has been expressed countless times already, the “Muslim ban” executive order likely makes our country less safe, not more safe. Only 3 of the more than 856,000 immigrants from the banned countries have been involved in attacks, while “a vast majority of the perpetrators of terrorist attacks came from countries not listed in the ban.” The ban plays into ISIS’ narrative that the U.S. is at war with Islam, while also seriously upending the lives of hundreds of permanent residents returning to the U.S. and those with valid visas.
Hopefully, you already knew all that. If not, get informed. And now for some angles:
Go ACLU!
Huge props to the ACLU for successfully getting a federal judge to issue a stay preventing the government from deporting people back to their home countries. Despite many of my friends being in the effective altruism community, I usually don’t donate to causes, but I did donate to the ACLU, and you should too!
Is it accurate to call it a Muslim ban?
Briefly rehashing a debate over semantics with a friend: the EO is being informally referred to as the “Muslim ban,” but that’s not exactly accurate. As the Trump administration likes to point out, if it were a Muslim ban, it would include tons of other Muslim-majority countries that are not on the list. Instead, it’s actually a terrorism ban, which just happens to sweep up lots of Muslims! Then there’s of course that video clip of Rudy saying that Trump asked for a “Muslim ban” but wanted to do it “legally.” And then we get into a debate about intentions vs. the text of the EO. Before we go on, I just have to include this:
Yessss Jake Tapper
Sally Yates
So on intentions: I find it interesting that in drafting her letter ordering federal lawyers not to defend the EO, Sally Yates considered the intention of the administration. This reduces to an argument over whether the intent or the letter of the law matters more.
Bannon in control
CNN has a great investigative piece out on how the immigration EO came to be. Spoiler alert: it’s mostly Bannon’s work. Couple that with reports that Trump downgraded the roles of the JSCs and DNI on the National Security Council and replaced them with Bannon, and it’s really concerning how much power the former Breitbart News editor has. Yikes.
#DeleteUber
Uber’s social media manager must really regret sending this tweet
On Saturday, a taxi union in NYC issued a statement that they would not serve JFK from 6 to 7pm, to stand in solidarity with those denied entry/the protesters. Great. Half an hour later, Uber tweeted that they had turned off surge pricing in the JFK area. The horror! Cue intense backlash and tons of people rushing to delete their Uber accounts for really no good reason. Some people saw Uber as either strikebreaking or trying to get more business, but a) the tweet was sent after the strike, and b) econ 101. If surge pricing is deliberately turned off, demand for rides far outstrips supply (drivers), meaning fewer rides occur, and Uber is earning non-surge rates for rides. Uber would be earning more money had they left surge pricing on. And in fact, they’ve been in hot water before for having surge pricing during disasters (which is why they now turn it off during events like these). It seems like it doesn’t matter whether surge pricing is on or off—users will find a reason to complain about Uber.
Elon Musk backlash
Separately, Elon Musk drew some hate by linking to the text of the EO and asking people to suggest amendments that he could pass on to Trump (since Musk sits on Trump’s economic/business advisory board). As far as I can tell, the issue here is that some people believe that amending the EO legitimizes it: the only option is to have it be rescinded completely. He certainly didn’t help by retweeting a tweet that suggested that the order was not as bad as was being portrayed. Overall though, this seems to be a classic case of letting perfect be the enemy of good, or in this case, letting “less bad” be the enemy of “very very bad”. Or whether political realism vs. idealism should be valued more.
Do we have a constitutional crisis?
There were reports over the weekend that CBP agents were flouting the court ruling that had been handed down. As is eloquently explained here, besides court marshals, the only way our system of checks and balances works is if the executive branch respects the decisions of the judicial branch. The administration has taken the position that they will obey the order, but here’s a darker (slightly conspiratorial) take.
CBP agents doing some really scammy stuff
Customs agents at Dulles forced lawful permanent U.S. residents to give up their green cards this weekend. […]> When they arrived at Dulles Saturday morning, the Aziz brothers were handcuffed and their immigration paperwork was seized, according to the complaint.> They were given documents to sign and allegedly told that if they did not, they would be removed from the United States and barred from coming back for five years. They were not allowed to see attorneys.> Under pressure, their attorneys said, they signed documents they did not understand, giving up their American visas, and agents stamped “cancelled” on those visas.
That’s from this Washington Post article. I hope those attorneys get the Aziz brothers’ green cards back.
What should the Democrats do?
A larger question that extends beyond the Muslim ban to pretty much Trump’s entire agenda: is the right playbook to obstruct or compromise? I don’t know.Alright, those are my hot takes on the Muslim ban! Coming right up, free speech vs. hate speech and a postmortem of the cancelled Milo Yiannopoulos event at Cal.