For a display of the new “logic” of the Trump administration, I give you section (h) of the new travel ban. A logic by which notable exceptions become the rule.
Here’s the problem as stated by the EO: “More than 300 persons entering as refugees are currently subjects of counterterrorism investigations…”
First of all, just being under investigation does not mean somebody is guilty, but let’s put that aside for now and totally ignore the right to due process.
Second of all, based on Pew statistics, in the 2016 fiscal year (Oct 1, 2015 – Sept 30, 2016) alone, the United States welcomed 84,995 refugees. The EO states that more than 300 people are causing problems. Even if we only used one year of entry as the group size, that’s 0.35% of the people entering the United States. So 99.65% were just fine, but we want to ignore the needs of 84,695 people because of 0.35% might be causing trouble. If we consider that the 300 that are or were under suspicion are from 15 years of refugees, then we are talking about well over 1 million refugees, and more like 0.03% of them have been subjects of counterterrorism investigations.
What the Trump administration is saying is that we’re banning a group because 99.97% of them, literally 99.97%, are just fine.
“Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,” unless only 99.97% of them are OK, then fuck them all.
Nice logic Mr. President. Well done, sir.
Here’s section h as reported by CNN (the President’s words, not mine):
(h) Recent history shows that some of those who have entered the United States through our immigration system have proved to be threats to our national security. Since 2001, hundreds of persons born abroad have been convicted of terrorism-related crimes in the United States. They have included not just persons who came here legally on visas but also individuals who first entered the country as refugees. For example, in January 2013, two Iraqi nationals admitted to the United States as refugees in 2009 were sentenced to 40 years and to life in prison, respectively, for multiple terrorism-related offenses. And in October 2014, a native of Somalia who had been brought to the United States as a child refugee and later became a naturalized United States citizen was sentenced to 30 years in prison for attempting to use a weapon of mass destruction as part of a plot to detonate a bomb at a crowded Christmas-tree-lighting ceremony in Portland, Oregon. The Attorney General has reported to me that more than 300 persons who entered the United States as refugees are currently the subjects of counterterrorism investigations by the Federal Bureau of Investigation.
Hitting Bregma 