Canada Refugee Cartoons

Trump signs memorandum to defeat ISIS, executive order to curtail ex-officials from lobbying

Trump's targeting of sanctuary cities sparks debate

President Trump on Saturday signed one executive order and two memoranda -- to lengthen the ban on administration officials working as lobbyists and two related to national security, particularly strengthening efforts to defeat the Islamic State terror group.
The order on the lobbying ban extends the existing one from two years to five years and puts in place a lifetime ban on ex-officials lobbying for foreign countries.
Trump vowed on the campaign trail to make such changes and others, to voters’ chants of “drain the swamp.”
One memorandum attempts to strengthen the country’s National Security Council and Homeland Security Council. The second memorandum instructs the U.S. military’s Joint Chiefs of staff to come up with a plan in 30 days to defeat ISIS.
“Lots of additional safety,” Trump said in signing the actions at his desk. “We’ve been talking about doing this for a long time, many years.”
In Trump’s first nine days in office, he has now issued 15 executive orders.
The others include: multi-pronged orders on border security and immigration enforcement; two on reviving the Keystone XL pipeline and Dakota Access pipeline; withdrawing from the Trans-Pacific Partnership trade deal, a start to dismantling ObamaCare and imposing an immigration ban on refugees and residents of seven Muslim countries.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau says Canada welcomes refugees

Go for it Idiot :-)

Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said on Saturday that Canada will welcome refugees rejected by President Donald Trump.
Trudeau also plans to discuss the success of Canada's refugee policy with Trump.
Trudeau reacted to Trump's visa ban for people from certain Muslim-majority countries by tweeting, "To those fleeing persecution, terror & war, Canadians will welcome you, regardless of your faith. Diversity is our strength. #WelcomeToCanada."
Trump signed an executive order on Friday that he billed as a necessary step to stop "radical Islamic terrorists" from coming to the U.S. A 90-day ban on travel to the U.S. by citizens of Iraq, Syria, Iran, Sudan, Libya, Somalia or Yemen and a 120-day suspension of the U.S. refugee program was also issued.
Trudeau posted a picture on Twitter where he is greeting a Syrian child back in 2015 at the Toronto airport.
Trudeau oversaw the arrival of over 39,000 Syrian refugees soon after he was elected.
"The Prime Minister is looking forward to discussing the successes of Canada's immigration and refugee policy with the President when they next speak," spokeswoman for Trudeau, Kate Purchase said.
Toronto Mayor John Tory weighed in, calling the city the most diverse in the world. "We understand that as Canadians we are almost all immigrants, and that no one should be excluded on the basis of their ethnicity or nationality," Tory said in a statement.
Trump's order singled out Syrians for the most aggressive ban, ordering that anyone from that country, including those fleeing civil war, are indefinitely blocked from coming to the United States.
"We have been assured that Canadian citizens traveling on Canadian passports will be dealt with in the usual process," Purchase said.
Earlier the U.S. State Department said that Canadians with dual citizenship from Iran, Iraq, Sudan, Somalia, Syria, Yemen and Libya would be denied entry for the next three months.
Trudeau also posted a statement on Twitter with the hashtag, "ACanadianIsACanadian."

Federal judge grants stay to allow those with visas to remain, 10 still detained at JFK

Judge Ann M. Donnelly

United States District Court Judge for the Eastern District of New York
Born 1959 in Royal Oak, MI

 

Federal Judicial Service:

Judge, U.S. District Court, Eastern District of New York

Nominated by Barack Obama on January 7, 2015, to a seat vacated by Sandra L. Townes. Confirmed by the Senate on October 20, 2015, and received commission on October 21, 2015.

A federal judge in Brooklyn, New York issued an emergency stay Saturday night that temporarily blocks the U.S. government from sending people out of the country after they have landed at a U.S. airport with valid visas.
The order barred U.S. border agents from removing anyone who arrived in the U.S. with a valid visa from Iraq, Syria, Iran, Sudan, Libya, Somalia and Yemen. It also covered anyone with an approved refugee application. The Department of Homeland Security said that more than 170 people were denied entry to the U.S. as of Saturday night, according to Reuters.
The ruling by Judge Ann Donnelly of the U.S. District Courtfor the Eastern District of New York came during a hearing called after President Donald Trump issued an executive order blocking people from seven Muslim-majority from entering the United States and putting a temporary halt to refugee admissions
Twelve refugees were detained at JFK Airport within hours of Trump's order restricting immigration from seven majority-Muslim nations -- but two were released later in the day -- as hundreds of protesters continued to amass at the busy airport throughout the day and into the evening.
One of the Iraqis, Hameed Jhalid Darweesh, 53, was released by midday Saturday. “I suffered to move here, to get my family here …. I can’t go back,” Darweesh said shortly after his release, according to the New York Post. Asked if he’d be killed in Iraq, he answered: “Yes, yes.”
Hameed Khalid Darweesh, an Army interpreter in Iraq, had been stopped as he traveled with his wife and three kids when agents pulled him aside, according to the New York Times.
The other Iraqi detainee, Haider Sameer Abdulkhaleq Alshawi, 33, was released at about 6:30 p.m. The fate of 10 other refugees, whose nationalities were not immediately known, is unclear.
Reps. Jerrold Nadler (D-Manhattan) and Nydia Velazquez (D-Brooklyn) announced the number of refugees held at the airport. “This should not happen in America. We shouldn’t have to demand the release of refugees one by one,” the two members of Congress said in a statement.
"They have been detained illegally. I am begging you to go and revisit this. It's ill-advised, it's mean spirited," said Velazquez, during a press conference.
Meanwhile, the National Immigration Law Center and other civil liberties organizations have filed a suit in federal court in New York on behalf of the two Iraqi men that seeks to certify the case as a class-action on behalf of other who organizers claim have been detained illegally. Karen Tumlin, legal director at the NILC, issued the following statement:
“Trump’s order keeps some of the world’s most vulnerable people in life threatening danger. ... Many refugees like our client risked their lives to help the United States government. The fact that the government has now decided to turn its back on those who served and protected us isn’t just unconscionable. It’s unconstitutional.”
Virginia Governor Terry McAuliffe (D) held an afternoon press conference in response to Trump's actions to say that we "cannot tolerate this type of activity."
The White House moved Saturday to defend the president’s refugee order, saying Muslims are not being targeted.
“The notion that this is a ‘Muslim ban’ is ludicrous,” a senior administration official confirmed to Fox News.
Other travelers were being stopped from boarding U.S.-bound flights at overseas airports as the Trump refugee ban went into effect Friday night.
Trump on Friday suspended refugee admissions for four months and indefinitely banned those from war-torn Syria, pending program changes that are to ensure refugees won't harm national security.
A U.S. federal law enforcement official says any non-U.S. citizen from Iraq, Syria, Iran, Sudan, Libya, Somalia or Yemen is now barred from entering the United States.
That covers legal permanent residents -- green card holders -- and visa-holders from those seven countries who are out of the United States after Friday, when President Donald Trump signed an executive order with the temporary ban. They cannot return to the U.S. for 90 days.
The official says there's an exemption for immigrants and legal permanent residents whose entry is in the U.S. national interest, but it's unclear how that exemption will be applied.
The official says visa and green card holders already in the U.S. will be allowed to stay. The official wasn't authorized to publicly discuss the details of how Trump's order is being put in place and spoke only on condition of anonymity.
Customs and Border Protection is notifying airlines about passengers whose visas had been canceled or legal residents scheduled to fly back to the U.S., and the airlines are being told to keep them off those flights.
The order also imposes a temporary ban on travelers from Iran, Iraq, Somalia, Libya, Sudan and Yemen.
The lawyers said custom agents wouldn’t let them meet with their clients who they said had valid visas to enter the U.S.
“Who is the person we need to talk to?” asked Mark Doss, a lawyer with the International Refugee Assistance Project.
“Mr. President,” the paper quoted a customs agent as responding. “Call Mr. Trump.”
“President Trump's war on equality is already taking a terrible human toll. This ban cannot be allowed to continue,” the group's Omar Jadwat said.
In Cairo, airport officials prevented seven U.S.-bound migrants -- six from Iraq and one from Yemen -- from boarding an EgyptAir flight to New York.
The officials said the seven migrants, escorted by officials from the U.N. refugee agency, were stopped from boarding the plane after authorities at Cairo airport contacted their counterparts at JFK.
Qatar Airways told passengers bound for the U.S. from the seven newly banned majority Muslim countries that they need to have either a U.S. green card or diplomatic visa to travel.
A statement on the company's website says: "Nationals of the following countries: Sudan, Libya, Somalia, Syria, Iran, Iraq, Yemen ... may travel to the U.S. only if they are in possession of a permanent resident card (Green card) or any of the below visas."
It listed foreign government, United Nations, international organization and NATO visas.
Late Friday, the International Rescue Committee called Trump's suspension of the U.S. refugee resettlement program a "harmful and hasty" decision.
The group’s president David Miliband said, "America must remain true to its core values. America must remain a beacon of hope."
He said the U.S. vetting process for prospective refugees is already robust -- involving biometric screening and up to 36 months of vetting by "12 to 15 government agencies."
“This is no time for America to turn its back on people ready to become patriotic Americans,” he said.

DHS will continue to enforce Trump's travel ban

The Department of Homeland Security issued a statement early Sunday saying that they plan on continuing to “enforce all of the president’s executive orders in a manner that ensures the safety and security of the American people.”
The DHS said the court order would not affect the overall implementation of the White House order and the court order affected a small number of travelers who were inconvenienced by security procedures upon their return.
“The president’s executive orders remain in place—prohibited travel will remain prohibited, and the U.S. government retains its right to revoke visas at any time if required for national security or public safety,” the statement said.
A federal judge issued an emergency order Saturday night temporarily barring the U.S. from deporting people from nations subject to President Donald Trump's travel ban, saying travelers who had been detained had a strong argument that their legal rights had been violated.
Stephen Miller, a senior adviser to the White House, said, "Nothing in the Brooklyn judge's order in anyway impedes or prevents the implementation of the president's executive order which remains in full, complete and total effect."
U.S. District Judge Ann Donnelly in New York issued the emergency order after lawyers for the American Civil Liberties Union filed a court petition on behalf of people from seven predominantly Muslim nations who were detained at airports across the country as the ban took effect.
The order barred U.S. border agents from removing anyone who arrived in the U.S. with a valid visa from Iraq, Syria, Iran, Sudan, Libya, Somalia and Yemen. It also covered anyone with an approved refugee application.
Homeland Security said the order affects a small amount of people traveling internationally.
The DHS said the order was the “first step towards reestablishing control over America's borders and national security.”
Trump’s travel ban sparked protests around the country at several international airports. Demonstrators ranged from a few dozen people to thousands.
Under Trump's order, it had appeared that an untold number of foreign-born U.S. residents now traveling outside the U.S. could be stuck overseas for at least 90 days even though they held permanent residency "green cards" or other visas. However, an official with the DHS said Saturday night that no green-card holders from the seven countries cited in Trump's order had been prevented from entering the U.S.
Trump billed his sweeping executive order as a necessary step to stop "radical Islamic terrorists" from coming to the U.S. It included a 90-day ban on travel to the U.S. by citizens of Iraq, Syria, Iran, Sudan, Libya, Somalia or Yemen and a 120-day suspension of the U.S. refugee program.
Trump's order also drew support from some Republican lawmakers who have urged more security measures for the refugee vetting program.
The DHS said in the statement that they “will faithfully execute the immigration laws, and we will treat all of those we encounter humanely and with professionalism.” They also added that they plan to ensure the safety of the American people by making sure those entering the U.S. pose no threat.