Using Obama's "Iraq refugees ban" to justify Trump's action was a weak argument anyway, but the time window for the argument's viability has passed hours ago.

Now you will have to find out cases when Obama ordered government officers to ignore court order.

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/jan/29/customs-bord...

> Customs and Border Protection (CBP) agents defied the orders of federal judges regarding Donald Trump’s travel bans on Sunday, according to members of Congress and attorneys who rallied protests around the country in support of detained refugees and travellers from seven Muslim-majority countries.

"Using Obama's "Iraq refugees ban" to justify Trump's action was a weak argument anyway"

Instead of providing supporting argument for your above statement, you conveniently change the subject to another, only loosely related matter.

Whataboutism at its best :-)

And the support for your argument was "Obama did it"?

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/fact-checker/wp/2017/01/...

But you feel like "Obama did it" is an apt corollary to the scale, scope and circumstances of this week's events? Because of an actual event, and the resulting review and re-examination of existing Iraqi refugees which caused a slowdown in the acceptance of new Iraqi refugees for several months, you know because of finite resources... and no explicit orders or stop immigration that equates close enough to Trump's EO? I mean there's just no way to discuss that rationally with someone who wants to make that comparison. It's intellectual laziness and textbook false equivalence. If Obama did nothing he would have been crucified for that by Republicans. And because Obama did the most benign thing possible he was likely crucified for that by Republicans. And because the thing he did had tangible consequences, but wasn't unreasonable, that's now justification for Trump's EO? Forget double dipping, some people are triple dipping.

But let's compare anyway. A review of existing refugees which caused the slower acceptance of new refugees in response to the discovered failure in the system.

VS

Trump picked some countries seemingly at random from a large pool of Muslim countries in order to fulfill a "campaign promise" regardless of actual need or circumstances. The countries he picked haven't been a hotbed of terrorism against the U.S. He selected no countries that he has business interests in, even if they have had citizens who've carried out attacks against the U.S. His executive order effected people with green cards and visa's people we've already researched and vetted, not just new immigration.

Yeah, they're the same event all right /s. So is your BS ignorance or dishonesty?

Yes, let's compare:

Obama: implemented quietly, no official ban, limited to one country

Trump: implemented through executive order, covers 7 dangerous countries.

Apart from style and scope, the effect was/is the same: stop certain groups of people from coming here for a period of time, until better checks are implemented.

Except for Iran, the countries he has picked ARE on the list of the most terrorist-ridden places in the world [1][2].

[1] http://www.worldatlas.com/articles/the-global-terrorism-inde...

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_Terrorism_Index

When your coworker is being disruptive and you ask HR to intervene, and when someone else wants to argue that other people in the company did something similar in other (different) situations, it is not whataboutism to point out that our disruptive coworker just punched a security guard.

How is this really relevant to the argument?

> You know that Obama de facto stopped - or at least severely limited - Iraqi immigration for 6 months in 2011. There was no outright ban, but the flow of Iraqis slowed significantly.

The comparison barely pasts muster when you consider the circumstances. First of all, Obama's 'ban' was based on an intelligence report that stated that terrorist had already gotten into the US through the immigration program, and wanted to know why that was the case. They limited, not banned, Iraqis to make sure that the new processes were working. Here, there was a clear and present cause and effect to show why these steps were taken.

Trump's ban is a straight outright ban, based on a list, granted, that was made by the previous administration, but unless I've missed the report/statement/briefing, that honestly doesn't have anything to do with a specific policy or situation, other than keep them out. Otherwise, why would long-standing US green card holders also have to warned not to leave the country for fear of not getting back into the US??

> Would you call it a hateful act as well?

I would call what Obama did sad, both for what he did and the reactions he received, but nobody ever thought he did it because he wanted an entire nation kept out of the country, let alone just a particular reason. (This is all hearsay, but considering what the man has previously stated publicly, lends some truth to this rumour, but apparently this is as legal as they could get to keep Muslims from the Middle East out of the country.)

US Green card holders are NOT affected by this. This was either mis-communicated, or a mistake (that should have never been made).

I don't see it as anti-Muslim decision, 87% of the world's Muslim population are not affected. I see it as anti-terrorism decision, targeted at the top 7 most terrorist-ridden countries in the world [1].

Yes, it sucks for law-abiding citizens of these countries who would like to visit the US in the next 120 days. But it is only temporary.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_Terrorism_Index

No, Trump's inner circle purposely decided to not exclude green card holders from the Executive Order even after the Homeland Security Secretary suggested they should do so (https://www.nytimes.com/2017/01/29/us/stephen-bannon-donald-...). They could have easily crafted a better policy, so I think it is naive to call this a mistake.

> Yes, it sucks for law-abiding citizens of these countries who would like to visit the US in the next 120 days. But it is only temporary.

This assumes that the other countries will comply with the administrations requests for information on the individuals, otherwise it will be extended indefinitely. Iran doesn't have a US embassy and they don't officially have relations with the US, you think they're going to suddenly start handing over information to the US? If anything, this gives them more reason to say, "See how the US is treating us like shit?" which further stirs up anti-US sentiment among them.

Also, yes, green card holders ARE affected by this. My wife won't be able to leave the country without fear of being denied entry upon her return despite her being a valid green card holder.

Another way to look at this is if you are from a country exporting large amounts of terrorists then nobody wants to play with you due to the whole guilt by association thing. Some modern examples are americans paying reparations for slaves, no american alive today had anything to do with that. I also remember walking through Nagasaki as an american, you talk about hate and I had nothing to do with the bomb.

So guilt by association is definitely real and is definitely used by various other groups and countries to enrich their lives.

As far as the green card goes, I know quite a few people over dramatizing the effects of Trumps legislation primarily due to their hatred for them. My wife is Mexican and has a green card. Just this past weekend she left the US for a short trip to MX, and is already back. Her parents, daily, drive to Mexico for their job and drive back to the US where they live. If your wife is finding it difficult to re-enter the country, then from my perspective at least, there may be other reasons.

Depends on where you were born. Mexican-Americans are less likely to be affected, because very few were born in these 7 countries (which are not close to Mexico). However, I'm Greek-American, and many of us are affected, because we or family members were born in one of these countries. Many Greek-Americans are in the U.S. precisely because we fled from the Middle East, as the Greek communities that used to exist in cities across the former Ottoman Empire, ranging from Alexandria to Damascus to Istanbul, were coming under attack and becoming untenable to maintain. If your Greek passport says place of birth "Damascus" on it, suddenly you now have problems, even if you have a green card, while previously this was never an issue. As a result, many Greek-Americans are not happy with this move, even those who are usually politically conservative.

Well, he slowed down the processing of new Iraqi refugees.

Trump immediately stopped the entry of all foreign nationals, including green card holders returning from vacations and people who already had vaild visas.

That's very different. You could argue that the Administration didn't intend for the order to apply to GC holders, but the fact that the implementation of an executive order was different from its intention proves that it was poorly thought out.

There is a massive difference between suspending immigration and detaining existing immigrants/permanent residents.

Stop parroting these bullshit alternative facts. In substance and impact, Trump's EO is far more expansive than anything Obama did.