tl;dr if I'm reading right: Texas and 26 other states sued the federal government over Obama's DAPA executive order. The district court said Texas had standing and issued a preliminary injunction against DAPA. The court of appeals also said Texas had standing and affirmed the injunction, and SCOTUS 4-4 did not reverse them. (Alas, poor Merrick!)
States get "special solicitude" in the standing analysis when they sue over federal policies that affect their interests. The Supreme Court recently affirmed that idea in Mass. v. EPA, which held states had standing to challenge EPA regulation of greenhouse gasses.
Microsoft has a Vancouver office which is set up to handle H1B candidates that miss the cut on a given year. I wonder if they believe that is at risk as well.
Cubans are trying to escape a repressive regime and face real consequences if caught or sent back. Obama sides with the regime and starts sending the refugees back, unilaterally changing longstanding US policy in the last week of being in office.
All I heard was crickets.
In this case, we have 7 countries already designated as requiring enhanced vetting due to terrorist concerns.
I assume you are referring to the ending of the "wet foot, dry foot" policy, which gave automatic admittance to Cubans who arrived by boat and managed to get at least one foot on land before being caught, and sent back those who were caught before they reached shore?
If so, you are greatly overstating the bad effects of ending that policy.
First of all, that was not the only way Cubans could apply for refugee status. All other paths to refugee status are still open to them. All that is ending is giving them a special path.
Second, its use had dropped way off over the last several years. Most Cubans who come to the US without visas, as refugees or otherwise, come over land through Mexico now. (Cuba has greatly eased travel restrictions).
Third, most Cubans who come over now are not coming as refugees. They are coming for jobs, or to visit family, or access American welfare programs. In short, they are coming for the same reasons that Mexicans come. If they use "wet food, dry foot" it is more likely to be as a way to jump the line than as a way to escape oppression.
This is a little disingenuous. The largest part of the outrage is because these are people who have already gone through enhanced vetting and in many cases have lives and family in the US.
The Cuban repressive regime isn't all the repressive any more. You can't have a blanket automatic acceptance of refugees when there are direct flights between Cuba and the US. Quitting old refugee policy is a part of renormalizing relations between our countries.
We think, and rightly so, that we can do more for Cubans by opening our economies now than we can by continuing the status quo. Part of that is shutting off the valve for refugees.
The US is so polarized now that no one looks at an action's merits any more, just whether or not the red team or the blue team did it, and then they either express maximum outrage (always maximum, never anything less), or do mental backflips to justify it, depending on whether it's "their" team doing it or not. Political discussions are reduced to spewing hate at anyone or anything perceived as being attributable to the "other" team. Nuanced thought is not tolerated.
Things have been heading this way since the end of the Cold War. Once the Berlin wall came down, there was no longer an external "enemy" to rally against, so a new one had to be invented. Unfortunately, that ended up being an "other" internal to the same country. It feels like this internal schism finally reached a boiling point in the most recent election. People I normally think of as reasonable are angry and unwilling to listen to rational thought. There is nowhere left to turn for cooler heads. I am afraid of where it all is going from here.
I've seen restrictions on a visa waiver compared to preventing green card holders from returning to their homes. Here I'm seeing total admission to the country if you can get here compared to banning people who already have visas and have completed the extreme vetting required.
I know people who have to fly back to their home country yearly as part of the process of maintaining their visa, and live in fear it won't be approved. And they aren't even from the mid-east, where the standards are harsher. It's not a fair comparison.
this is a purely emotional appeal with no basis in fact. There were plenty of people and media attention on Obama's move and its geopolitical nature of locking Trump into the Cuban reapproach.
American left is willing to "forgive" and even embrace murderous "communists" like castros and che guevaras of the world for a variety of [misguided in my book] reasons so no wonder.
I mean who in their right mind would be willing to escape the "communist paradise" :)
I know this will be unpopular, but I'm so sick of this topic already. Partly because there has been so much emotion and as a result, misinformation disseminated as part of this action from the media to social media. First, it was alleged that Trump was only banning Muslims from countries he wasn't doing business in. Then, it turns out it's not even a Muslim ban at all, since ~80% of the world's Muslim population is unaffected, and the countries chosen were actually chosen by the Obama administration in 2011. Then, there were major protests that clogged up the airports this weekend, which turned out to be a Delta computer failure that stranded everyone. Then there is the usual parade of cries of fascism and comparison to Hitler, when no evidence can be offered to support those claims. The simple fact is that these 'refugees' have been spat upon by their own countries, neighboring countries and muslim brothers/sisters who have turned them away.
They're desperate and someone should help them, but the US doesn't owe these people anything, so unless we are sending them straight to death camps or shooting them right off the boat/plane, the twitter-verse is making a lot of people act like fools by acting like everyone agrees that these people have all rights outlined in the constitution.
That said, we should help these people as best we can, but a permanent home in the US for any people that have no love for our laws, our people or constitution doesn't do them or us any favors by letting them stay permanently. The question is, who wants to conform to our way of life and who doesn't? Can we keep inviting everyone in unconditionally before we pay a very serious price?
edit: hn didn't show me all the responses that came in as I wrote this -- it may overlap with some others.
Hi -- there's a very important piece of information missing from your take, and I think it might make a difference to you: not only are refugees being stopped from entering the United States. Regular people who already live here legally (many of whom aren't refugees) are being stopped too.
All citizens of the countries listed, even those who have lived in the USA for years legally on visas, even those who are legal permanent residents, are not allowed to enter the USA. They are not even allowed to be routed through it in most cases. These people are detained on entry, handled as criminals, many questioned for hours, and several have been given forms that, when signed, revoke their residence permanently. Then they are sent back.
This means professors, doctors, students, scientists, and lots of regular people who have lived legally in the USA for years, some for decades, many of whom think of themselves as American first. If they're inside the US, they're now effectively stuck inside. If they're outside, they're now stuck outside for 3 months minimum -- it could go longer, if their country doesn't introduce sufficient "vetting" in response, and provided nothing new stops them.
Regular people who aren't trying to escape anything, who aren't trying to join the country, who ALREADY live here, are now homeless, forced to go to other nations, and dealt with as criminals if they try to come home to America.
(also, while there were computer problems again, there were also many real protests at major airports)
except for those Green Card holders and citizens returning from these countries who have a not unreasonable expectation that we gave them that they have a home here (and mostly, already, have a life here), right?
I don't think any US citizens got caught up in this. But yes, dragging people with valid visas and green cards into this is what caused the shit storm.
It's undisputed that the rise as implemented was excluding green card holders. We don't owe random refugees anything, but permenant residency is a legal status that cannot be revoked without due process. It's clear cut unconstitutional.
I agree with that, and after the initial confusion it turns out green card holders are being allowed in, at least if they don't have an extensive criminal record[0].
The words out of government's mouth don't make that so clear cut [1]. I don't see any mention of due-process being mentioned there. Generally speaking, rights outlined in the constitution are reserved for citizens, naturalized or natural born, not necessarily those here on visas or other temporary permits (green-card, even "permanent resident", is not truly so, and a green-card doesn't guarantee you re-entry if you leave).
Rights are based on the jurisdiction of the US. Permanent residents on US soil have almost the same rights as citizens. Even permanent residents who leave cannot be denied reentey without due process. Landon v. Plasencia, 459 US 21 (1982).
So you think there's nothing wrong with permanently deporting a green card holder, with a US citizen spouse and US citizen children, a job and a mortgage, just because they took a two week vacation while Trump was suffering Executive Order Diarrhea?
Because that's not how America advertises itself. But maybe you don't want an America with rights, you want a fascist America that everyone else hates so you can start another "war on terror" and Trump and Bannon can grab even more emergency powers.
1. Rudy Giuliani is on record as saying that Trump asked how to 'legally' implement the Muslim ban he promised in the campaign trail, and that this executive order is the result. Even if the end result isn't a blanket ban on all Muslims, the intent remains.
2. International law, and treaties that the US have signed, oblige them to shoulder some of the collective responsibility for refugee resettlement in the international community. Banning refugees based on their country of origin works against that, and may well be illegal.
You can renounce an international treaty easily enough. In fact I'd say the refugee convention is well based it's use by date. I't basically only accepted by the western world when there are many countries that would be better positioned to accept the current refugee population.
Curious. Did Trump promise a Muslim ban on the campaign trail? If so, how does he claim with a straight face that this isn't the Muslim ban he promised? I mean, what do people expect? He's doing basically what he promised to do, as racist as that sounds (because...it's meant to be).
Yes, he is recorded on video as saying it, the most mentioned quote being: "Donald J. Trump is calling for a total and complete shutdown of Muslims entering the United States until our country's representatives can figure out what the hell is going on."
The 1951 Refugee Convention, in particular Article 3.
Legal issues are well beyond the area of my expertise, so I have no idea if Trump's recent actions contravene this per se, but the point is that we do have some obligation to help refugees under international law.
1. Many of these people aren't refugees. They're regular visa holders, often green card holders. One of the people the ACLU and NILC are representing was previously employed by the US military as an interpreter.
2. When Anne Frank's parents tried to get to the US between 1939 and 1941, the US certainly did not send them straight to death camps. The Final Solution wasn't even decided until 1942. Anne Frank wasn't arrested until 1944.
3. If the standard for US residence is love for our laws and conformity to our way of life, we need to come up with a good explanation for the special case where people born in the US are allowed to stay without vetting upon adulthood.
"Then, there were major protests that clogged up the airports this weekend, which turned out to be a Delta computer failure that stranded everyone."
You realize both of these can be true right? I flew out of BWI last night on Delta. There were hundreds of protesters at the airport, but they didn't delay us.
We did have to wait 4 hours for the Delta computer systems in Atlanta to be restored to service.
While I'm pretty sure I disagree with many of your viewpoints (not entirely; I'm very confused these days, intentionally so), I'd just like to commend you for your contributions. I hope you continue in the same vein even if you get downvoted or if your views are or turn out to be unpopular.
If anything, HN benefits from diverse viewpoints as long as they're expressed thoughtfully and respectfully.
It's a 90 day travel ban. How fast can a lawsuit reach the courts? It'll be over before it goes to trial. I guess it could be ready if the ban is extended.
You do realize it can become indefinite right? It is 90 days only if the countries share 'data' which the trump regime poorly defined. And its highly unlikely countries like Iran would accept that.
Legally, it could be, but politically, it probably won't.
This temporary ban is political theatre.
First - migrants from different parts of the world already face very different degrees of scrutiny - this has been ongoing for a very long time, certainly under Obama etc.. - so the issue of 'national discrimination' will hold up under legal pressure, I think.
Second - the commenters point is pragmatically valid because this exec order is a political means for Trump to show that 'he's doing what he said he would do' and to give impetus to his base. That's mostly it. It's not a real operational measure.
After 90 days, Trump will declare that 'we've made changes to the vetting process and have 'extreme vetting' (even though there was already 'extreme vetting' under Obama) - and this will be over.
Caveat - your point about Iran is valid - but Iran is a very different country than the others, and is on the list for different reasons.
I believe that stronger restrictions may be put in place for Iranian citizens after 90 days - this is the beginning of the 're-establishment' of a new Iran-USA relationship which will go in the opposite direction Obama had it going in, for better or worse. Probably worse, but hey. Remember that Trump promised to 'end' the deal that Obama made with Iran - and this ban is going to be part of Trump's 'negotiating process', if you can call it that.
It may be worthwhile to legally challenge the order anyhow - for local political reasons (institutions and governments want to seem like they are 'doing something about this injustice) - but also to make sure that, as you say, this could go on for longer than 90 days - but I doubt that.
Anyhow - it's important to look at this from a political perspective as much as a legal one, because the game that's being played is mostly political.
No one is going to fix this without someone like Microsoft suing. The republican congress may defect from Trump eventually but it won't be to appear soft on terror.
It's a 90 day ban on certain countries followed by an permanent ban by countries that don't meet as-yet-unspecified information sharing standards.
Plus some other parts (like the complete refugee ban) with different timelines.
> How fast can a lawsuit reach the courts?
Pretty near instantly.
> It'll be over before it goes to trial.
Perhaps (or, more likely, the parameters and legal issues will shift before that happens), but that just means that getting a TRO pre-trial may be as good as prevailing at trial, as far as the initial 90 day ban policy is concerned.
They can (other suits already have in this case) win preliminary injunctions in a matter of days. So sure it'll be over before it goes to trial, but in the mean time the suit can still have a very positive effect.
It would also establish precedent against a new ban of this sort being established.
The ACLU and NILC got the stay of execution Saturday night, about 28 hours after the executive order was signed. I was one of the protestors outside the Brooklyn courthouse; NILC tweeted around 7 PM that they just heard they got a 7:30 PM court date, and wanted supporters. Not all the lawyers got there on time (and it took longer for the NYPD to realize they should have a presence) but the hearing happened.
That was enough to stay execution for people who had already arrived in the US or were in transit at the time of the ruling. If Microsoft gets just a stay for future travelers within even a few weeks, that will be enough to allow them to continue business while fighting the legality of the order itself in the courts.
I'd guess they can also seek penalties or restitution.
"In what is a dark, and fascist time in Trump's America, brave companies like Microsoft and Amazon and standing up to the Orange Dictator in a brave cry for Freedom" and yadda yadda.
Also, they want to make sure they don't lose out on any future prospects to the competition - can't have too many college grads deciding getting a green card in America isn't worth all the vitriol and hatred being spewed at you by the Administration and starting their own companies or going to the competition, I imagine.
Good luck, Trump's executive order is perfectly legal within his delegated executive authority, whether you agree with it or not. The only point of contention is that it's Trump that originated the order instead of when Obama the same thing with Iraq for 3 months, and Clinton called for something similar during his 8 years. The countries that are currently (temporarily) banned are effectively failed states, lack an effective government, or are effectively hostile to the US, and lack the infrastructure or cooperation to provide proper background checks for entry into the US. Entry is a privilege, not a right.
It is not a religious ban, and it's not a blanket ban. Most people so far delayed have been cleared for entry.
An executive agency can be acting within its delegated authority and still be acting unlawfully. An executive action can't violate the subject's* constitutional rights and the Administrative Procedure Act bars "arbitrary or capricious" actions.
Several courts have already found that the ban is likely arbitrary or capricious. In other words, the order appears to have been made on unreasonable grounds or without proper consideration.
*Some provisions apply to "citizen" while others, including the 14th amendment, apply to "all persons."
I think you're referring to Section 1 of the 14th amendment, which does not apply to "all persons", but only to citizens:
"All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the state wherein they reside. No state shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any state deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws."
People not within our borders that are not also citizens are not within the US's jurisdiction, and those are not afforded the same protection under the Constitution.
Washington Post as an impartial fact-checker? Surely, you must be joking. WP has been pretty blazen in disregard in their "facts" during the election and have most blatantly been pushing an anti-Trump agenda under Bezos's guide. Obama most certainly did suspend or slow immigration from Iraq for a period, regardless of religion. Difference is Obama only did it for Iraq for 30 days, Trump has named 9 countries for the "ban" for 90 days, none of which is capable or willing to cooperate with background checks. All 9 countries are countries that were known to the Obama administration as either harboring or sponsoring terrorists. There is no religious test here. There is no racial test. Everyone wanting to the enter the US from these 9 countries are all subjected to the same scrutiny.
Yes, but you distract from the main issue; religious persecution is one of many criteria for asylum. Now it is the only criterion for a waiver grant.
Furthermore, it is not clear that the Sunni/Shia split meets the standard defined in this document (though I agree that it absolutely should).
No other reason for persecution is stated. Text:
(b) Upon the resumption of USRAP admissions, the Secretary of
State, in consultation with the Secretary of Homeland Security,
is further directed to make changes, to the extent permitted by
law, to prioritize refugee claims made by individuals on the
basis of religious-based persecution, provided that the religion
of the individual is a minority religion in the individual's
country of nationality. Where necessary and appropriate, the
Secretaries of State and Homeland Security shall recommend
legislation to the President that would assist with such
prioritization.
> Surely, you must be joking. WP has been pretty blazen in disregard in their "facts" during the election and have most blatantly been pushing an anti-Trump agenda under Bezos's guide
Can we please not allow HN to become the type of place where garbage like this is allowed? Pointing out bias is one thing, but the campaign against reputable news sources is ridiculous. If you believe they are wrong then provide evidence, any sort of alternative viewpoint.
The wholesale writing off of news (previously reputable) news organizations is nothing more than a brazen attempt to weaken trust in the media and remove their ability to act as a check on government actions. The washington post is "fake news", they can't be trusted, the story they just broke which is clear and reliable evidence of watergate level misconduct is obviously a lie.
If none of these companies hired non US citizen cheap-labor, would they still be suing? Would they still care?
Cheap-labor is the only reason any of these companies gives a rat's-ass about the 90day travel restrictions. President Obama signed heavy travel-restrictions into law in 2015, not a peep from this forum. Not a peep from Microsoft. Not a peep from Amazon.
> In December 2015, President Obama signed into law a measure placing limited restrictions on certain travelers who had visited Iran, Iraq, Sudan, or Syria on or after March 1, 2011. Two months later, the Obama administration added Libya, Somalia, and Yemen to the list, in what it called an effort to address "the growing threat from foreign terrorist fighters."
> The restrictions specifically limited what is known as visa-waiver travel by those who had visited one of the seven countries within the specified time period. People who previously could have entered the United States without a visa were instead required to apply for one if they had traveled to one of the seven countries.
> Under the law, dual citizens of visa-waiver countries and Iran, Iraq, Sudan, or Syria could no longer travel to the U.S. without a visa. Dual citizens of Libya, Somalia, and Yemen could, however, still use the visa-waiver program if they hadn't traveled to any of the seven countries after March 2011.
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Trump's order is much broader. It bans all citizens from those seven countries from entering the U.S. and leaves green card holders subject to being rescreened after visiting those countries.
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President Trump may have enhanced the restrictions, but he's not the President that enacted them. Where were you Armchair Justice Warriors then? You sure weren't here posting about the -exceedingly heavy- restrictions in 2015. Nope, not a single one of you...
In theory, increasing the supply of labor lowers it's value.
In practice, I'm unconvinced. Tech companies succeed when they put quality over quantity, and demand for high-quality engineers simply exceeds the quantity put out by our universities.
We aren't hiring H1Bs for cheap labor, we're poaching the best from other countries. Hiring more lower-quality local talent is not equivalent.
There is a reason why these companies have international branches. Talent leaders are always monitoring international talent pools. If they cannot provide enough supply for an office - and another office has enough of it, granted the quality is high - they'll just move the next projects to the other office. And smaller companies are starting to embrace remote work. So, no more borders and visas.
Armchair economist here. More workers = less competition. Competition affects salary. Simple supply and demand? All of the companies who spoke out like Amazon, Apple, and Google NEED workers to fill those roles to run business, and rely on them heavily because there isn't enough data scientists, or engineers for example, in the U.S. or the world, for that matter.
Because the demand for good workers doesn't go away when the supply of good workers gets decreased. To be clear, I am supportive of immigrants working whatever jobs they want to work and that people will hire them for (and I'd argue that the free market is also supportive of this), I'm just noting that people have a financial motivation to keep people more competent than them out of the labor pool.
(Unless, of course, the replacement of competent workers with incompetent ones causes the economy to shrink, which now that I think about it is pretty likely.)
Because if they couldn't get me, they'd be forced to hire the next best person from my interview cohort. That would reduce the pool available to all the other companies.
Or keep looking until they find someone else. They aren't just going to hire someone unqualified. If they find someone qualified they will also try to find a place for them, because it's hard to find qualified people.
Ultimately they need people. At some point they will be forced to hire somebody. This happens today with C/C++ knowledge. Ideally somebody joining to work on a massive C++ code base would know the language. 10 years ago it was practically a requirement to get hired. But very few people are coming out of university with that knowledge these days.
Interview tip: Come in knowing C++ and your interviewer will be impressed (assuming the team uses it).
because apparently we (people on visas) are getting horribly underpaid. Trump supporters keep trumpeting this despite the fact that I don't remember showing any of them my pay stubs.
I'm sure Brin showing up in person at the protests was totally because a couple hundred google employees getting screwed is going to drastically raise salaries.
As for people less competent then me. Maybe they should focus more on improving their skills than on how they are getting fucked by immigrants. Guess what, you'll still be whiny losers if they toss out the H-1Bs tomorrow. You'll still be whiny losers if they start tossing out green card holders.
You know why? Because you whine instead of going out and figuring out what you actually need to do in order to get a job.
That was a nice comment. Just like rednecks yelling dumb immigrants fix your own country instead of coming here. In the end, all the people, left or right, are dumb ignorant, bigoted.
Except that it's quite not true that all people are dumb, ignorant, and bigoted. Dumbness (or more precisely intelligence) has a distribution over the population, and selective ignorance and bigotry in certain ways is correlated with politics.
In particular, eligibility for work visas actively selects for non-dumbness: you have to get hired for a job. Eligibility for birthright citizenship does not. So there are solid reasons to believe that immigrants to a country (any country) are statistically less dumb than native citizens.
Immigrants also necessarily have more life experiences and more personal knowledge of people of different backgrounds and origins, which makes them less likely to be ignorant and bigoted, too.
How was it racist? At worst it was discriminatory, but then there is literally no way to hire without some degree of discrimination (even if the measure is a perfectly legitimate 'more qualified for the job').
Increasing the supply of labor, and accepting lower wages and worse working conditions than natives.
Edit because I hit the post limit, in response to a comment on the idea that they are mostly poaching top talent from other countries: In reality, most are either low pay low skill workers for contracting companies like Infosys (largest employers of H1Bs), or fresh grads that are cheaper and less risky to train (because they, in a sense, own them).
Edit edit for serge2k: If you're so great, then I'm sure they won't mind paying extra for you when the visa party is over.
I work for Microsoft and while I am not personally affected by this executive order, we all received an email which stated that there are a number of Microsoft employees who are.
So it's no surprise that Microsoft are coming out on the side of their employees, and indeed on the benefits of immigration in general - I know from being tangentially involved in some of the hiring process that it's exceedingly difficult to fill certain positions without looking abroad, as the talent is spread globally.
> it's exceedingly difficult to fill certain positions without looking abroad
Why not train people to fill those positions? That then creates a process for filling the positions again in the future, instead of having to constantly return to the job market.
It also gives employees a career track and aspirations, instead of having outsiders ( irrelvant whether from other companies or countries ) air-dropped into juicy positions.
You could have chosen to have a productive and civil conversation about the immigration restrictions and how they're related to actions taken by President Obama. Instead you chose to make blanket accusations, inane assumptions about everyone here, and resorted to unnecessary name-calling. Why?
I for one welcome economic interests on the side of right. Certainly doesn't make this order any less bad, and certainly makes it easier to fight with powerful allies.
Meh. We were hiring people in US /AND/ abroad - when getting an H1b was easier and not connected to luck (= random lottery). Since H1b are hard to get now (= random lottery) we are only hiring abroad and remotely, but most likely not in US. I see more and more companies doing this.
Immigrants from these countries are not a significant source of labor in the tech industry. Moreover, while Obama set the framework in place, it was Trump that was responsible for the disasterous implementstion that excluded existing visa holders and green card holders with no process.
