To anyone who is being affected by the immigration ban my thoughts are with you right now.

I don't think this is against the rules based on a post I just saw from a mod.

I feel like putting it out there to anyone personally being effected by this travesty right now that my thoughts are with you, and I think a thread with some positive thoughts and wishes would be nice.

This is not to be turned into a shit show, so if you don't have something nice to say, move along and don't comment.

I second everything said in the above post. I wish I could be at one of the airports right now with you.

Regardless of your political leanings this goes against everything America stands for.

This is so nuts. Good on the ACLU and other civil rights groups for getting a stay on the executive order, but there's plenty of work yet to do. I'm afraid this is going to be four very long years.

Also, I'm glad Jeff spoke out against this on Twitter. He's normally (understandably) apolitical in his public persona, but I'm glad he used his soapbox to denounce such injustice.

It pains me that I can't afford to donate to the ACLU right now.

I'm happy that people are fighting this, and fighting it hard, though.

i've tried to take a neutral-ish stance on the whole election (or at least a wait-and-see/this won't be as bad as everyone thinks approach) but it's becoming VERY difficult now (and it also happened so quickly, which really saddens me). this just goes against everything America is and was based on. i'm glad we aren't entirely blind to it (yet).

My thoughts are with those affected, we need to be better than this.

e: also preemptive sorries to Rorie and the mod team and thanks for your hard work. i'm hoping this remains civil (as honestly i don't see any reason to argue against this at all).

And then there's this, because internal consistency is for noobs:

Politicians, the antithesis of democracy. You can't honestly vote for anything, because they stand for nothing.

I donated to the ACLU, then saw that Vlambeer is donating all proceeds from steam and other sources over the next 24 hours to the ACLU as well, so I bought Nuclear Throne for a few friends.

To the world, I'm sorry for what a minority of our population elected. To Americans who have lived here for decades and are being stopped from returning to their homes due to not being born in the right place, I'm sorry for what you're going through.

No you actually can. Trump and his people are doing exactly what they said they would do. Pence tweeted that before he was brought into the fold.

Now it's time to see if the Republicans who denounced this when Trump first talked about it in 2015 will break ranks and call this ugly move what it is.

Honestly, as terribly as the day started out, events since then, people coming together, ACLU getting shit done, has been pretty inspiring.

EDIT: Does anyone know how to donate to ACLU through paypal by any chance? If I can't find a way, maybe I buy some Luftrausers for some friends.

I'm genuinely surprised how fast this stuff happens. I always imagined governments to be huge complicated ships that take years and a lot of thumbs up from many people to come to decisions. But it seems like once you end up as a main candidate for one of the two parties, you have a near 50% chance that the stuff you wrote down in your plans before you started the whole election circus, can actually happen. And whatever else you might desire at that point.

Best wishes to anyone who has to deal with this. Gives a bad taste in the mouth when you hear 'land of the free' in the anthem.

The amount of civil unrest this man has caused in just 1 week in office is astounding. Stay safe everybody

@ssully: My point is that politicians will say whatever they think wins them whatever vote they are after, regardless of anything they actually intend to do or stand for. Pence changes on a dime when power hangs in the balance. There's no such thing as a spine in politics. Remember Trump running for months on the promise of locking Clinton up? Yeah, no, he never intended to. But it sure did get him those votes!

But this is off topic. I don't want to use this thread as a personal vent. The message here is that there are a lot of Americans (more people voted for Clinton than Trump -- important) that love and welcome all people from around the world.

Also, I found this in response to Jeff's tweet. You can enter your postcode and it gives you a great set of numbers to call, based on issues around you. Seems like a good place to start if this whole mess upsets you.

https://5calls.org/

This is absolutely fucking terrifying. The story of the woman attempting to commit suicide at JFK because she was being deported is chilling.

Glad you posted this @big_jon.

I'm very heartened to see so many boots on the ground on this issue. I gave a few bucks to ACLU this evening, and will be calling my state reps. The below link is a great tool on who to contact and what to say regarding Trump's immigration ban. There's a hundred non-violent ways to resist blanket policies such as this. Trump works for ALL of us, we can never lose sight of that.

https://5calls.org/

The worst part of this is that the immigration restrictions were already already awful. There's a reason Obama and Clinton were pushing to change them.

It's sickening to hear of all the people that have fought with the Americans in the Middle East who are abandoned by the States and denied as immigrants because of reasons.

Not like the brazen giant of Greek fame,

With conquering limbs astride from land to land;

Here at our sea-washed, sunset gates shall stand

A mighty woman with a torch, whose flame

Is the imprisoned lightning, and her name

Mother of Exiles. From her beacon-hand

Glows world-wide welcome; her mild eyes command

The air-bridged harbor that twin cities frame.

"Keep, ancient lands, your storied pomp!" cries she

With silent lips. "Give me your tired, your poor,

Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,

The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.

Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,

I lift my lamp beside the golden door!"

Obama also banned a lot of muslims (Iraqis, yes?) at one point, people are gun ho to make articles and posts about Trump without acknowledging that.

But yes Trump's measure is a lot more extreme, no doubt about it.

@canadianmath: While this ban can be called stupid, it is not a ban on Muslims, as you seem to be suggesting from this post.

People from Indonesia, Turkey, Pakistan, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Niger, the UAE etc, are all still welcome in the US. They are all predominately Muslim countries. So isolating it as an attack on all Muslims is disingenuous.

What has happened is a temporary ban on 7 specific countries.

7 countries that the previous administration had isolated as a problem due to the amount of terrorist attacks that stem from those regions.

These countries were not targeted because of Racism, Trumps business interests, or any other reason people have dreamed up. They were targeted because Obama and Homeland Security deemed them a threat to the US and had already removed them from the Visa Waiver Program.

Trumps executive order said "countries of concern", only explicitly naming Syria. The rest of the list was already selected.

The Terrorist Travel Prevention Act of 2015 was the "Muslim Ban" before the "Muslim Ban"

Just cancelled my Switch pre-order and made some donations. ACLU & Planned Parenthood can use that money instead.

If there was any catharsis to be had from these boards then this thread should be a shoulder to cry on. For what it's worth and for however long it'll last I'll join in with this being an absolutely shameful situation. I wish whoever I can the best.

Pretending this isn't happening hurts.

@sysyphus: I'm not absolving Obama of any blame because you're right, his administration did create the list that Trump based this policy on but a lot of the other stuff you said simply isn't true.

No one has been killed on American soil by terrorist attacks perpetrated any of the seven countries included in this ban. And Trump said himself that "persecuted Christian refugees" would be exempt from the ban on a case to case basis so he can say it's not a "Muslim ban" all he wants, it still bans Muslims. Also, there's no logical reason that countries like Saudi Arabia and UAE, who directly fund terrorists, would be excluded from the ban other than business interests. Now, you may be right that it's not specifically Trump's business interests that caused but it's certainly America's business interests since we regularly sell these countries billions of dollars worth of weapons.

And you didn't mention this in your post but there is absolutely no excuse to detain people with valid green cards and visas like was done around the country. These people already went through the vetting process to earn their papers, there is absolutely nothing constitutional about forcing these people to again prove that they should be allowed to enter the country. That's an absolute disgrace.

@sysyphus: on December 18, 2015, the President signed into law the Consolidated Appropriations Act 2016, which includes the Visa Waiver Program Improvement and Terrorist Travel Prevention Act of 2015 (the Act). The Act, among other things, establishes new eligibility requirements for travel under the VWP. These new eligibility requirements do not bar travel to the United States. Instead, a traveler who does not meet the requirements must obtain a visa for travel to the United States, which generally includes an in-person interview at a U.S. Embassy or Consulate.

Banning people with valid green cards & visa's is the most egregious part to me.

It wasn't a stay on the entire executive order, only a small part,

"The judge’s ruling blocked part of the president’s actions, preventing the government from deporting some arrivals who found themselves ensnared by the presidential order. But it stopped short of letting them into the country or issuing a broader ruling on the constitutionality of Mr. Trump’s actions."

This makes me curious, which countries did most of the US terrorist attacks come from, anyhow? And if none of the attacks came from the countries the Obama administration listed, then why did they put those countries on the list?

Either way, the green card thing seems like it was way overkill, here. I certainly agree with you there.

@sysyphus: You're right, this is Trump's fault and his attack on muslims is disgustingly un-American and damaging to our ideals as a country. We are not a nation of one color or ethnicity. We're a melting pot of beautiful, diverse cultures and people and it's something we should embrace, not seek to erase. Trump's actions and his lies should not be tolerated and it's amazing people are speaking out against this.

It seems crazy that Saudi Arabia and the UAE are exempt from this. Only thing I can think is that he's going to use this as some type of bargaining chip to maybe get Syrian refugees to those countries.

Yeah, the valid green card is crazy, it's going to be overturned. However, I'm all for reviewing and revamping the Visa and Immigration program.

September 11 attacks were majority from Saudia Arabia and a few from the UAE, Lebanon, and Egypt. A lot of terrorist attacks aren't done by immigrants but by children of immigrants; such as in the last several terrorist attacks in the United States.

I think Trumps goal here isn't what it seems. It's going to be a distraction for a while, which he may want while he issues other executive orders dealing with Illegal Immigration, the wall, taxes, etc.

@spaceinsomniac: The San Bernandino shooting in 2015 that killed 14 people was perpetrated by a man born in Chicago and a woman born in Pakistan (not on the ban list). The Orlando shooting that killed 50 people was a man born in New York. The Boston Marathon bombers were from Kyrgyzstan (not on the list) and Russia (definitely not on the list). There were 19 hijackers on 9/11. 15 came from Saudia Arabia, 2 from UAE, 1 from Lebanon and 1 from Egypt. None of those countries are on the list.

It's pure Islamophobia, there's no other excuse for it. Add all that to the fact that we are currently bombing 5 out of the 7 countries on the list. These people are fleeing war that we created. It's disgraceful.

People should read this before listening to the likes of CNN & Huff Post's headlines

It makes for more interesting reading than the "The Statue of Liberty is crying tonight!!" or posting photos of upside down Liberty.

Jesus, I just came back from celebrating lunar new years to read that this shit had been going down. Incredibly grateful for living in Canada right about now and my heart goes out for those affected. That's so fucked.

"Listening to the likes of..." This thread is going off the rails when people start making allusions to fake news. Let's stick to what the op suggested.

I think this is tragic that people are being turned away after making a life here. Families are being separated.

Hearing that Customs and Border Protection are ignoring court orders and are reporting only to Donald is gross. The executive branch is not King of America.

As I said before this thread is about well wishing those effected, it is about a supportive message, if you're going to turn this into a debate don't, leave.

This isn't excusable, this isn't about arguments. This is about being supportive.

@wynnduffy: Maybe it's because i'm not used to american newspapers, but when an introduction states it wants to seperate the facts from the hysteria, it's surprising to find sentences like 'CNN, doing its best Huffington Post impersanation' For all the Democrats’ wailing and gnashing of teeth " and ' this temporary halt (with exceptions) is wise.' The enemy also hasn't succeeded in Europe.

I thought the article wanted to present facts and keep emotions out of it.

Sorry but that's just not going to happen. You can't start a topic that is rooted in politics and expect people with different views to just remain silent, and it's not something we have any interest in enforcing.

National Review literally describes itself as "conservative news" and has for over 60 years. I don't have any problem with news outlets having a viewpoint (places like Huffington Post certainly have one as well) but the idea of presenting NR has some sort of unbiased news source is laughable.

@mike: funny I thought a mod might actually enforce heading it off before a thread turns into a shit show. Guess I was wrong.

Are you going to be the one who comes back to lock it in a half hour then too?

I wanted this to be a positive message and not devolve into an argument. Enforcement of that is sort of what you're supposed to do was my understanding.

And I want to be clear, you guys may start off being civil, that's never where it leads once others start joining in.

My topic was intended to be supportive, not get taken over by who is right and who is wrong.

As much as I dislike how this is being handed, I'd much rather see this than what's happening in places like Germany where swarms of migrants are coming in unchecked and rape is running rampant. Islam as a whole needs to start evolving from their dark ages ideology before I could actually start feeling bad for them.

@milkman: I find the whole idea that newspapers proudly alligning themselves with a party or candidate quite unreal already :D . I can see how articles may betray their beliefs by what they publish and how it's written , but the whole ' This newspaper proudly supports this candidate for the upcoming election!' part sounds like a bridge too far for my liking.

We're not going to delete every single post that is anything except well wishes for people affected by the Executive Order, which is essentially what you're asking for here. We have never handled any discussions like that before and definitely aren't going to start now.

People are going to discuss politics and policy in a topic like this, that is unavoidable. The best we can do is try to help things stay civil.

I realize the need to keep radical Muslims who wish to do harm out of the country, but this is too broad reaching. We should be vetting all immigrants thoroughly, as I would expect if I were to apply for citizenship to another country. A blanket ban on several countries is too much. I can't help but think of the professors who I've had from Muslim countries and how their kindness and inspiration made me a better student and a better person. It would be a shame if others couldn't have the same experiences that I had.

@bigboss1911: You should educate yourself on the vetting process that the U.S. has compared to other countries then. You should also look at statistics of where terrorists come from, and the likelihood that a vetted Syrian refugee would commit a crime compared to a non-Muslim person born here.

@mike: let me be perfectly clear, I was not asking you to delete anything, I was trying to steer the thread into its original purpose because I wanted it to be a positive thread. The intended effect is not debate it is to be supportive.

You saying I asked anything of you is entirely un true, it is your assumption.

That's kind of the point. Obama was already responsible for some pretty awful policies on immigration. However, I believe he was trying to fix things and was vilified for it because it sure is easy to just blame everything on the Muslims.

@onemanarmyy: nobody answered your question but I will: this stuff doesn't normally happen so fast. Trump has left a lot of positions unfilled in the executive branch and is not running his orders by the White House legal counsel or prepping federal agencies for how to handle his changes.

That's why this ban is causing such chaos. Trump's administration said "there's a ban" and didn't check to see if it was legal, plus they didn't tell anyone how to enforce it or what the rules are. It was dropped into the laps of the TSA and CBP on Friday, sowing confusion. That's why everything is happening so fast, and is why the ACLU and NILC are suing the US government.

I'm not really saying they are fake news or not and it's mostly HuffPost, I think that website is garbage and one of the finest examples of biased news out there.

I didn't say it's unbiased, I linked it because they actually took time to break things down and show a timeline of events.

I like Ben Shapiro's take on this, this EO seems to be done hastily. I'm expecting addendums to follow regarding legal permanent residents.

You started a political topic. There's no scenario where it doesn't end in debate.