Ajjawi wrote that he spent eight hours in Boston before he was required to leave. Upon arrival, Ajjawi faced questioning from immigration officials along with several other international students. While the other students were allowed to leave, Ajjawi alleges an immigration officer continued to question him about his religion and religious practices in Lebanon.

The same officer then asked him to unlock his phone and laptop, and left to search them for roughly five hours, Ajjawi alleges. After the search, the officer questioned him about his friends’ social media activity.

“When I asked every time to have my phone back so I could tell them about the situation, the officer refused and told me to sit back in position and not move at all,” he wrote. “After the 5 hours ended, she called me into a room , and she started screaming at me. She said that she found people posting political points of view that oppose the US on my friend(s) list.”

Ajjawi wrote that he told the officer he had not made any political posts and that he should not be held responsible for others’ posts.

“I responded that I have no business with such posts and that I didn't like, (s)hare or comment on them and told her that I shouldn't be held responsible for what others post,” he wrote. “I have no single post on my timeline discussing politics.”

The officer then canceled Ajjawi’s visa, informed him he would be deported, and allowed him a phone call to his parents.

He Gave a Bike to a Refugee Girl. 24 Years Later, She Got to Thank Him.

PRESS RELEASE: NISKANEN APPLAUDS BIPARTISAN SENATE LETTER SUPPORTING REFUGEE RESETTLEMENT

---

BY MATTHEW LA CORTE  

WASHINGTON, D.C. August 5, 2019 —In light of recent reports that the Trump administration is considering a fiscal year 2020 refugee ceiling of zero, the Niskanen Center applauds a bipartisan groupof senators for expressing concern and urging action. 

Today, Senators James Lankford (R-OK) and Chris Coons (D-DE) spearheaded a letter signed by 18 senators from across the country. The letter, which is addressed to Secretaries Pompeo, Azar, and McAleenan, conveys dismay about the dangerous consequences of zero refugee admissions:

We urge you to increase the refugee resettlement cap and to admit as many refugees as possible within that cap… America has a responsibility to promote compassion and democracy around the world through assistance to vulnerable and displaced people. 

Since the inception of the refugee program, the U.S. has safely welcomed more than 3 million refugees to communities in all 50 states, resulting in positive economic and social impacts. Maintaining a robust refugee program is also a critical national security and foreign policy imperative.

“Resettling zero refugee next year would devastate the domestic and international refugee resettlement apparatus the U.S. has built over decades, and would jeopardize our own national security and ability to work with foreign governments,”said Kristie De Peña, Niskanen’s director of immigration & senior counsel. She continues, “zero admissions would not only be a catastrophic policy failure; it may potentially violate the law if implemented without proper consultation with Congress.”

Why It’s Immigrants Who Pack Your Meat
What Trump has called an “invasion” was actually a corporate recruitment drive.

This lady gets it...She has a very potty mouth, so unsafe for work, but worth a listen.

Wretched refuse? Fuggetaboutit!
Trump official: Statue of Liberty poem should mean 'poor who can stand on own two feet'

 haresfur wrote:
 

Yep. Expect more shoes to drop.

When can we expect Trump supporters to concede it is not just about illegal immigration?

 steeler wrote:
 
He's been doing that for a while

 steeler wrote:
 
The boat is full!

The other shoes are beginning to drop. As expected, Trump administration is imposing restrictions on legal immigration. 

Venezuelan refugees

Trump just exacerbated a very bad situation in Venezuela by imposing sanctions that will in my estimation:  1) prolong the life of the Maduro regime rather than shorten it, 2) increase the suffering of ordinary Venezuelans (those without political connections) and 3) increase the flow of refugees to neighbouring countries.

Venezuela is a failed state.  People are hungry, starving and exposed to high levels of often deadly violence (political and criminal).  It is not the fault per se of the USA but once again the USA is making things worse not better.

Some of Venezuela's professional and entrepreneurial talent left a few years, the remaining are leaving now.  So some of the neighbouring countries will likely benefit over the longer run from these refugees.   Most will want to return to Venezuela as soon as it is safe to do so and meaningful economic opportunities return.

In the background, the USA has resumed sanctions on Cuba.   Presumably this was done because a) Americans do not really believe in the power of free markets, trade and foreign investment and b) Americans love to promote radical anti-American, anti-capitalism Neo-Marxist national liberation groups because violent conflict is enjoyable and is viewed by ordinary Americans as good for the economy (despite all indications to the contrary).    As long as American citizens are not directly threatened why should Americans care?

Previous regimes were not great;  the Trump administration is the best thing that has happened to violence-prone, Latin American conservative leftists in a very long time.    He is proof in the pudding of what radical left critics of American imperialism have been saying for decades.  

The upshot of this is simply more evidence that Americans do not care about other people just like they do not care about their own under classes.  I expect US multi-national companies in South America to face a chilly reception relative to multi-nationals based in other rich western countries.   The American political memory may be short; it would be a mistake to assume that other people's political memories are that short.  It would also be a mistake to assume that Latin Americans working in the private sector are automatically pro-American. 

 Thanks, Lazy

Sorry for the tardy reply. Had a family reunion to go to and hit an unfortunate browser button that wrecked a lot of typing. This post is impossible to quote so I have to do it a piece at a time, and I've got a life!

kurtster wrote:

It wasn't clear which kind of immigrants you didn't want to allow into the country, but it also looked like you didn't know the difference. It's not the only thing you're confused about

Speaking of conflating legal and illegal immigration...I tried to explain how the current (legal) immigration system works to provide some insight into why people go around it. I'll try again, but first I want to deal with the first point.

I tried to take your repeated claim that the Obama administration added economic hardship to the qualifications for asylum seriously, so I went looking for any kind of reference to that and didn't find it, not even in a right-wing fever swamp like CIS. The conditions for asylum are set by statute (and set quite a while ago) so it seemed dubious that the executive branch could adjust them.

There is no US policy, no law, no executive order, nothing that defines refugee or asylee status to include economic hardship. I'd be happy to argue that point with you (starving people out of their homes ought to qualify, but it doesn't) but I'll just issue this challenge: find that policy and you get 11 Internet points. Here is an analysis by the anti-immigration group Center for Immigration Studies that backs that up. Here's a clip of Obama saying the opposite of what you're claiming. In fact, he sounds a lot like you.

I'm not just bringing this up to embarrass you. This isn't the only time you've fallen back on this trope (that the only reason anybody ever has to leave one country for another is economic) so I'm hoping to move this discussion in a productive direction, and that won't happen until I can bring the dispute back to the universe we actually live in.

The Rohingya are not leaving Myanmar for a paycheck. Teenagers fleeing Salvadoran gangs are not coming to start paper routes. Syrians aren't fleeing unemployment.

You don't get to define what it means to be a refugee. There is no rule that requires someone fleeing one country to not "bypass" another country on the way to safety. If you flee El Salvador by walking thru Guatemala (a country beset by very similar problems of gang violence and political strife) are you "bypassing" Honduras and Belize? How about Brazil? Didn't stop in Kazakhstan either!

The folks arriving at our southern border aren't the only people fleeing other countries. Most of them don't have the means, determination, or desperation to travel that far. We only see the seriously motivated.

Motivated, perhaps, because they have friends or family in the US who can support them while they rebuild their lives—support they wouldn't have in, say, Mexico. Maybe Mexico isn't dealing well with its flood of recent arrivals. Whatever: they don't need to conform to your image of a refugee. There is no such requirement (applying for asylum before you get here) in US or international law. That's an additional hoop the Trump administration is trying to make asylum seekers jump thru, and it probably won't stand up in court.

The last article I posted explained how the existing process works but it didn't go into the numbers. Last year we saw 1.2 million legal immigrants enter the country—about the same number of people as drop out of high school every year.  By comparison we'll graduate about 3.6 million high school students this year. 1.2 million people is about .36% of our population. To put that in a global perspective Jordan, a country with 9.5 million people in 2015, has absorbed about 1.4 million Syrian refugees. Lebanon, which is much smaller and had about 6 million people in 2016, has absorbed about 1.5 million. That's just a taste of the current global refugee crisis.

Let's look at the US immigration system. I'm going to use numbers from 2017 because I can get them; that year we saw 1,127,745 legal arrivals. The proportions don't change much—the number of refugees went down and the number of asylees went up, but these were always a small part of the mix. Here's how they got in:

Immigration of immediate family members of citizens is unrestricted. Start a family overseas (or marry a Slovenian model) and you will very likely be able to get visas for your spouse, unmarried children, in-laws, or orphans that you want to adopt. If you do you have to demonstrate that you can support them. These made up 46% of immigrants.

There is an additional pool of visas (480,000) reserved for extended family members and immediate families of aliens with permanent residency (on track for citizenship). There's a catch tho—the number of immediate family visas is subtracted from this total. To ensure that immediate family members don't shrink this pool to nothing there is a minimum set by Congress in 1990 of 226,000.  This number is limited by per-country caps that throttle this down further (it's immigration law! It's complicated!) so in 2017 extended family members made up an additional 21% of immigrants. So 67% (755K or so) were family members of people already here.

BTW those per-country caps result in waiting lists. For Mexico the current wait is about 20 years.

Refugees and asylum seekers made up 13%. Refugees were about 5% of total immigration (way down since 2017).

About 12% were employer-sponsored (if you're rich enough and self-employed/run a business you can self-sponsor).

There are a number specialty visas for former Iraqi translators, foreign nationals serving in the US armed forces, and a few others. These are about 2% of all immigrants.

So what's left? If you don't fit into any of those categories, just want to come here to build a better, freer life how do you do it? The remaining 5% (50K) are assigned to the Diversity Visa program—essentially a lottery. You pay your money and take your chances. Doesn't matter how long you've waited, doesn't matter how many times you've tried. Your future is down to dumb luck, and the odds suck—every year over 20 million people apply.

So for the vast majority of the people who want to come here there is no path, and there absolutely, positively is no line you can stand in to wait for a slot. There hasn't been since at least 1990.

About 3/4 of the refugees that make it to the US are women and children. What role do you expect them to play in fighting off Guatemalan gangs, or ISIS, or barrel bombs dropped from a helicopter, or the Venezuelan government?

How much good do you think the Peace Corps would do against Sudanese Janjaweed? Think Myanmar would let them in? Would there be room for them in Dadaab?

This isn't about spending money, at least not much and not for long—and we get to keep the people it would be spent on.


I'll leave that conclusion to historians and your own conscience. I will say this: you don't know what you're talking about.

Because I've read them. And no, they aren't the same for everybody, and there is no line.

That isn't exactly making you look good here.

No, it wasn't. Sorry to keep answering this, but you keep repeating it.

No, you're just confusing the two and talking out your ass about both.

I'm almost certain you just tried to make a point.

You salvage what dignity you can from any source you like. Me, I'm proud of things I did, not what my ancestors did. They get credit or blame for that. This post? That's on you.

 R_P wrote:
 

Not to mention the money they put in the pockets of business people who rip them off on wages and benefits

 black321 wrote:
 
Maybe it's the right's sense of insecurity/loss of privilege, coupled with bigotry that is costing you money (or better yet, that maybe will cost your descendants)...

In the end, because of taxes they paid, refugees and their family members contributed more than $343 billion in revenue to federal, state and local coffers. On balance, refugees contributed $63 billion more than they received in benefits from various programs.

Douglas Todd: Dramatic jump in guest workers hurts Canadians on low wages
Opinion: Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has greatly expanded the country's guest worker programs, largely under the public's radar.

DOUGLAS TODD Updated: July 28, 2019

So where has this great debate gotten us?  A new $4.5b funding bill?  Seems all either side knows how to do is throw $ at a problem...and the right's contention immigrants cost us $ is true, but just not the way they argue it.  

trump's running total addition to natl debt is now well over $4 trillion.  Nice that swamps going to get drained one way or the other.

 sirdroseph wrote: 
(fixed the links)

Yep. 

.
 kurtster wrote: 

The Contradiction at the Heart of Permissive Immigration Rhetoric

 

 

https://www.yahoo.com/news/contradiction-heart-permissive-immigration-rhetoric-003925424.html