I'm worried that a lot of energy is spent on the most obvious thing, while the more insidious comments are being left behind and being slightly forgotten....while these comments and details might in fact be the real threat and issue.
Then again, I worry since there are so many things going on right now that there are not enough time and people to effectively go through them all so again - some things are missed. Of course, things are missed all the time, and that in itself are usually not an issue. You just need to focus on not missing "the important ones".
As a person who currently holds a visa to stay in the United States to work, the last couple of days have understandably made an impact on me. I have been caught between a few things though, and feeling slightly annoyed that certain things that people are outraged about aren't things that I think are the things to get outraged about. At least not right now. Why? Because they have always been like this. Some of these things are just the way visas work and countries adhere to (even if the general public might not know it).
One example of this is the outrage that "DHS will weigh your visa and application when you stand to enter the country". Maybe I'm naive, but my experience both here and when I was in Canada on a student visa, was that it is clearly written that even though you have your application to the visa and the visa - this will be on the discretion on Immigration at the point of entry to country. (I'm sure you can legally challenge if you get denied but this is another issue. Let's just say that the immigration person (CBP) has a lot of power and the whole system is based on them making the correct decision based on your paper work and their good will.)
I have never been certain I'm allowed to enter with my new visa, just because the process is, imho, arbitrary and you have to be courteous and cute to the immigration officer to not get sent to a special room in the back for further questioning. (Yes, I have done been to a special room.) Then again, I wasn't really certain I was allowed to re-enter with my visa either. Like if you are a scientist and on a working visa and fill in "can you work with radioactivity/anthrax/other things regular people can't...." you end up in a special room, with special people. (Yes, I have done that too.) Or, when you stand in front of the immigration person and they misread the paperwork, declare "this is not valid" and before you have a second they stamp everything with NO in red and ask you to turn away and you fight tears because you were only away for four days and the CBP person misread and the actual date they should look at is the top one and not the bottom one.... (Yes, that happened to me. Took a long time to resolve. Having a big NO on top of your visa in the passport is not helping future entries either.)
This doesn't of course include all the paper work you have to go through before even getting the temporary visa. Or the interview at the embassy or the paper work on your relatives etc ... Not to mention the things you go through when you apply for a green card. If you think the regular temporary visa has a lot of paper work, yeah it's got nothing on the green card. Plus the immigration physical, immunization records, clean bill of health (now here is something we could really talk about, what rights do you have as a non-healthy individual), tax records, criminal records (you shouldn't have any) and more and more. I'd call that vetting. It's already being done. Oh, and did I mention that you need to report where you live to DHS every time you move? There's already a tonne of data collected on green card holders so to issue an Executive Order to stop them from reentering on 12 hours notice is simply a malicious idea to show power.*
Anyhow, this has NOTHING to do with asylum seekers/refugees and their visas and entry to a safe country. Asylum seekers are someone who flees from persecution, death and is something generally accepted as a status in the world. There are treaties based on that we accept the notion that refugees has a right to apply for asylum and while their application is processed they have a right to be in the country awaiting the decision. If denied, they should leave the country. This process takes years for most countries. It's very unfortunately that there is a huge backlog, BUT this is not an excuse to forbid people to seek asylum when at the border to the country. Neither is the idea that you can turn away such asylum seekers, who have been granted visas in an insanely complicated process that USA is engaged in when it comes to agree to certain classes of asylum seekers to complete this process outside of USA**, and get granted asylum and then be allowed to get on the plane to come over. This process on average takes 18-24 months, during which time the asylum seeker is in a third country (who has agreed to let them be there while waiting for the USA vetting process). So they are vetted and the process is tedious and lengthy. Maybe even more than the average asylum seeker to say Europe - since there they are already in the country. And this is not mentioning the asylum seekers from Central America who are currently looking at a back log of more than 3 years, but they are in the country due to the opportunity of walking across land mass. This is also one of the issues that the wall won't solve since asylum seekers have an international right to seek asylum when touching the border (wall)...
Anyway, since this is turning too long and probably less interesting to read - I'll cut to the chase.
- It is a humanitarian right to seek asylum and turning people away at the border when they already have visas in order is breaking international treaties, brings chaos and decreases your credibility.
- To block Permanent Resident Card holders to re-enter with no warning after a short trip based on their country of origin and saying it's because of the safety of the American citizens is nothing short of faulty. It furthermore discredits the process by USA to monitor who gets the green card, if you don't trust the vetting that is already in place.
- Dual citizenship have always been an issue, and more so nowadays when a lot of countries are demanding visas for entries and making distinction between citizens and others, thus making more people dual. There are also countries who don't agree to give up your citizenship. This will not make things easier in the future.
- Real troubling is that people who have given up dual citizenship, gotten a new single one, are presumably targeted by this ban due to their "place of birth". (example a British parliament member who is born in Iraq but only UK citizen being told he is not allowed entry to the USA). This would be very telling of what is the back story... (imho)
And this is not even touching on the Muslim list for domestic use. I wish I could think that someone in congress would state "we don't make lists of citizens and their religion" - and I do hope that the SCOTUS would slam down on this. However, I am scared that immigrants and visa holders (both temporary and permanent residents) will be accepted to be on lists as such, "for the safety of the country" seem to work miracles and bring on short term memory.
I'm going to see what happens tomorrow at my work since we are a research facility, thus having a lot of immigrants working there. Personally I know people who are directly impacted by this and there will have to be some kind of reassurance or at least information from the higher ups what they will do to protect their scientists.
And yes, I'll try not to panic. But it is getting increasingly difficult.
*please note that it says in the information when you get the green card that if you leave the USA for a longer period of time (definetly 12 months and longer, but could be shorter depending on your travel schedule), you might not be allowed to reenter. This will be decided by the DHS/CBP person whom you encounter when you travel back. There's a lot of ifs and maybes, nothing is certain...
**you can read more about USA and refugees here: http://www.unrefugees.org/about-us/ or go to the governmental site https://www.state.gov/j/prm/ra/admissions/index.htm
And this all coming from a "safe country".
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