This is the sort of thing that I actually expected, given Trump’s history and statements. He’s never read the Constitution, he doesn’t care about it, and he doesn’t even care about the law. As Jonathan Adler writes, he may have hired “the best people” (and he does have many good picks), but he apparently relied on idiots for this:
Whatever one thinks of the underlying policy, the degree of administrative incompetence in its execution is jaw-dropping. . . .
Under normal circumstances, I believe that the policy embodied in the Trump EO is lawful under existing precedent and would survive judicial review. That is, I believe the executive branch may decide to identify specific countries from which immigrants and others seeking entry into the country must receive “extreme vetting” and that the President may order a suspension of refugees from particular places (as Obama did with Iraq in 2011). Despite some of the President’s comments during the campaign about wanting a “Muslim ban,” this EO does not come anywhere close to effectuating such a ban, as it largely focuses on countries that were previously identified as sources of potential terror threats.
I stress “under normal circumstances” because these are not normal circumstances. The cavalier and reckless manner in which this specific EO was developed and implemented will likely give judges pause — and with good reason. Courts typically give a degree of deference to executive branch actions under the assumption that polices are implemented after serious consideration of relevant legal and policy questions. Indeed, the more serious the government interest allegedly being served, the more serious one expects the government’s internal review to be (unless, of course, there are exigent circumstances necessitating immediate action, but that was not the case here).
I’d like to think that he’ll learn from this, but I doubt it. He completely lacks impulse control. The good news is that, at some point (particularly if he continues to ignore court orders), the real Republicans are likely to decide that Mike Pence will be a better president.
Meanwhile, while it was a huge screw up, it’s driven the Left completely around the bend:
Trump’s order is, in characteristic Trump fashion, both ham-handed and underinclusive, and particularly unfair to allies who risked life and limb to help the American war efforts in Iraq and Afghanistan. But it is also not the dangerous and radical departure from U.S. policy that his liberal critics make it out to be. His policy may be terrible public relations for the United States, but it is fairly narrow and well within the recent tradition of immigration actions taken by the Obama administration. . . . Trump isn’t making this up; Obama-administration policy effectively discriminated against persecuted religious-minority Christians from Syria (even while explicitly admitting that ISIS was pursuing a policy of genocide against Syrian Christians), and the response from most of Trump’s liberal critics has been silence.
And this is something I’ve been noting every day on Twitter:
If you are horrified by what you see Trump doing, is it because when Obama did things like that you just didn’t see? Or did everything look different because it was Obama doing them?
And yes, Obama is much more of a Big Brother figure than Trump could ever hope to be. But the Left is blind on this issue.
[Update a while later]
“Scrap this half-baked immigration order and start over“:
This isn’t anywhere close to rational anti-terrorism policy. This is, rather, incompetence and ignorance by a White House inexperienced in government and deliberately insulated from those with experience. If it is additionally tainted with bigotry or cruelty, that would make it worse.
“Half-baked” is too kind. The batter is still in the bowl.
[Update a few minutes later]
“The president tramples innocent people in his rush to fulfill an ill-advised campaign promise.”
Trump is turning out to be as terrible and stupid as I predicted, but putting her in power was still too high a price to avoid him.
— Rand Simberg (@Rand_Simberg) January 30, 2017
[Late-morning update]
Separating fact from hysteria on the immigration order. There’s sure been a lot of hysteria.
Rand
It looks like you are buying the leftist lies on this topic wholesale
First a personal note that opened my libertarian eyes on this topic.
My brother, his wife and my two young nieces were murdered by an immigrant truck driver in a canadian national park 4 years ago. He did not know or did not care how to control his 18 wheeler’s engine braking in the rain and burned them all to death with his fuel tank. He is now serving a 3 year term for neglect.
The husband of the San Bernadino pair of islamic shooters was in our country because his father was imported to be an American truck driver in the 80’s. Were we short on truck drivers? Are we now? Is that job (that will disappear in the next 10 years) a rare skill in need of exceptions? What will all the immigrants we are jamming the country with now be doing as automation eliminates more and more of their jobs?
It looks to me like nature is smarter than we are. Just as any society gets to the point were automation starts to replace the need for manual labor it suddenly starts to reduce its birthrate. What are we gonna do with 10s of millions of people with totally different and antithetic traditions and values when there are no jobs for them but are now as much citizens as you or I.
Question: who is gonna be better off in 20 years as automation rolls on and robots take over war fighting and native populations continue to shrink, Japan/China (who take no immigrants for all practical purposes) or the USA on its current open borders course?
Where is it written that we have to take anyone who wants to come, no matter their un-american beliefs or lack of skills. The age of consent in Mexico is 12, see any problems in the offing? How about honor killings or Clitoridectomies? Sharia law? What would the politicians who voted for the 1965 immigration act say now in hindsight?
How does it benefits US citizens? Lower wages? Diluted votes? Our traditional freedoms pruned away one by one over security concerns. You either have a big wall around the country or you are gonna require a million walls within it as Zuckerberg and Madonna have already purchased with their billions and millions.
And if I hear one more person babble about how much we need immigrants to expend our restaurant menus I am gonna lose it!
I would love to see you explain this post to the family members of the victims of the Muslim massacres of San Berdoo, Fort Hood, Orlando, etc, how their loved ones should have been sacrificed on the alter PC playacting.
All Green card holders are innocent? Tell that to the 3000 9/11 victims. http://cis.org/HowTerroristsGetIn
I starting following your blog 2 years ago for interesting content about space priorities and as a source to interesting links about both Climate Globalony and new developments in space.
Trump is not going far enough to remove the scourge of Islam from our shores. By wetting your panties at nothing you are making that harder. This is an existential threat and treating it as casually as you do is a fatal error
I expected more from you
I don’t understand Obama’s immigration priorities, other than in a negative light. Somalis, for example. They’re backwards by even Third World standards. I doubt their average technical skills would extend to operating a bottle opener. With black unemployment running so high, do we need Somalians?
What we need is more immigrants from Ireland and Scotland who know how to run a proper pub, or Norwegians who can repair a ski lift blindfolded. I would also be open to admitting more immigrants from Antarctica, as they have special technical skills.
It was the same as the British Labour Party under Brown and Blair. They were importing masses of foreigners because their enemies would hate it (and because they were expected to vote Labour).
But, like all the left’s grand plans, it was a dismal failure. It didn’t lead to a multicultural utopia, it led to Brexit.
Don’t blame Rand. The communication channels in this country have been captured by an alien force for it’s own purposes and it’s sometimes difficult to separate the noise and disinformation from the truth. Alvin Toffler, who wrote “Future Shock” had a good idea – stop being influenced by massive media overkill and greatly filter your input, particularly from sources which have proven their unreliability. Meanwhile, keep yourself centered.
The controversy over this is overly sensational.
Where were the protesters when Obama wasn’t letting interpreters into the country over the last eight years? How does that compare with a lengthy delay at an airport?
Where were the protesters when Obama wasn’t letting in the most persecuted groups in the countries his policies ravaged? Well, they were saying those people shouldn’t get let in.
Are Trump’s actions more damaging than the disingenuous portrayal of them by a partisan media? Were more people inconvenienced by Trump or by the protesters who caused a ripple of delays and cancellations of people’s travel plans?
From where I am seeing things (Australia) your problem is that neither Pence nor any other Republican who ran in the primaries would have won against Hillary.
Trump had an overwhelming advantage – brand recognition. Was there any voter who had not heard of Trump? I suspect most had even seen him on TV.
I wouldn’t worry about the bleeding heart media reports. Of course they will spin things to make any Trump decision look terrible.
I wish we had aTrump on the political horizon in Australia. It is unfortunate that here any political leader needs to be a professional politician for a long time before there is any possibility of attaining a leadership position.
According to the Leftists, 8 US Code 1182 part (f) doesn’t apply, because “anti-discrimination” trumps it. Unless Obama used it to justify his action, in which case “RACIST!”
Don’t see the big fuss over this. If the EO needs adjustment, adjust it. Congress does things more deliberately. Trump is currently doing a bunch of EOs that are intended to staunch the bleeding and which can be amended whenever he wishes.