Boggie Dog

You didn't answer the question I asked so I will ask it again.

I'm curious, do you think there should be no vetting of people applying for admission to the U.S. on either a long term or short term basis?

Xyzzy

Of course he answered your question -- nobody here thinks that no vetting should take place. n the contrary, as was pointed out above, we have had quite a lengthy vetting process for years and there is no reason to think that it is not working.

kmersh

My Wife is Swiss and we met while I was stationed in Germany with the Air Force and I vacationed in Switzerland skiing (she was the Resident who got to stitch me up when I hurt myself walking back to my hotel and I missed the curb and fell).

Her vetting process to obtain a 90 day fiance visa for us to get married in the USA was an onerous process and that was a while ago now, I would imagine that it has only become more onerous in the years since.

Then she had to apply for permanent resident status after we got married and that was tough and from what I am told has only gotten tougher in years since.

I won't even go into the process for my Wife to practice Medicine in the USA which she ultimately decided was not worth it and instead works for a medical device manufacturer.

GUWonder

I did answer the question. Given immigrants from Iran who came in with a visa (and did so by going through regular channels that include traditional, pre-EO checks) seem to be less likely to be a threat to my safety and security than persons born in the US, it seems like the process for Iranians applying to the US was not broken before the EO. I have at least as much interest in my own security and safety as any of my fellow Americans, and I call the ban against Iranian immigrants to the US counterproductive to national security and safety as such immigrants are historically no less law-abiding than the average US-born person.

"Diluting" the US population with regular immigration from Iran into the US seems to mean a reduced likelihood of encountering violent criminals in the US, especially as US-born persons and other non-visa-holders seem to be disproportionately more likely to be in the American penal system than people from the EO-banned countries in the US.

Boggie Dog

The dilution of the American populace with immigrants or criminality of Americans has nothing to do with the immigration question I asked. That aspect of your discussion is just a red herring to deflect from the base question.

I don't disagree that most people, no matter where the hail from, wish for nothing more than a better life. But there are factions who are not so noble minded. The issue is how to recognize those few who have bad intent. I don't suggest it is a simple issue with simple solutions but given the state of affairs in some countries the ability to determine that intent might take time to investigate. I support taking the steps necessary to identify those that have questionable intent.

GUWonder

There is no deflecting red herring in my discussion above. If the objective is to make America a more safe and secure place, that objective seems more reliably delivered by increasing the number of people from EO-targeted countries who go through the pre-EO period US visa application process and come to the US. Decreasing the proportion of the US population which was born in the US and/or which didn't go through the US visa application process would make America a safer and more secure country. The EO ban or other migration control moves that decrease the proportion of the US population subjected to pre-EO era vetting for US visas runs contrary to making America safer, more secure and prosperous. The EO ban going into play and being in place indefinitely? That makes America worse -- less safe, less secure, and less prosperous -- than woke otherwise be the case, ceteris paribus.

The "dilution" of the American population with US visa-holding foreigners and the criminality of the US-born population and others in the US without any US visa-holding history have everything to do with the questions of whether the American public is better off with or without the EO and of whether or not there is a legitimate "security" basis, tied to "vetting", for the ban.

Boggie Dog

Yes there is. The discussion is not about people already in the U.S. but about people who want to come to the U.S.

Carl Johnson

Your overall analysis is certainly correct, as is your conclusion, but criminal records in the US are a poor proxy for dangerousness or dishonesty. The War on Drugs has warped law enforcement, and the US criminal justice system basically revolves around processing paper, bullying defendants into plea bargains, and refusing to admit mistakes. And ignoring perjury by police officers.

I do think your specific conclusion is right, though, that Iranians coming to the USA are less likely to commit violence than the average US citizen, because I suppose the great majority of them would be refugees, or coming under family reunification as relatives of refugees.

My answer to the question to which you observe you already responded is:

"Of course there should be examination of an application for entry. For example, what if a Somali makes a claim for asylum, when he is really a member of al Shabbab and wants to find and kill Somalis residing in the USA?"

We HAVE procedures to do that already, of course, and "extreme vetting" is just a word salad. And as I've observed above, I think focusing on people's religion (Unless they worship the Drowned God or the Lord of Light, or something like that) takes attention away from searching for aspects of their history that really might indicate dangerousness.

catocony

Boggie, what part of the current lengthy vetting process do you think is lacking? It can take years to get a refugee entry, and even simple tourist visa applications from lily white, christian countries can take months.

Discrimination is when you smear an entire race or group of people for no logical reason. Denying Iranians who today go through a very long process to get a visa makes no sense. What extra does the current administration want to do? No one seems to know. The fact that it came out just a week after the inauguration, and with very little explanation, pretty much guarantees that the proposed ban is not based on logic, or figures, or intelligence gathering or anything else. A bunch of racists sat down in an office and decided to do it based on bigotry. Nothing more.

Boggie Dog

Certain practitioners of Islam have publicly announced their intentions to harm non-believers. Examples of this can be seen in France, UK, and in the US and other countries. Many of these people are coming from countries where government is almost nonfunctional, records have been destroyed, and other issues making vetting of the requestors entry request difficult.

There are logical reason to take steps to ensure the intent of people requesting entry to the US so no discrimination is taking place. Governments first responsibility is to ensure the safety of its citizens and taking extra steps to vet people from certain hotspots of the world is a reasonable action.

I'm not focused a particular religion but on people of a religion that state outright their intent to kill. I have no issues taking steps to make sure those people never enter the US.

GUWonder

I find the above last paragraph's first sentence to be a false claim (akin to claims that the EO has nothing to do with being focused on a religion). The claim is demonstrably false as evidenced by the very material found elsewhere in the same post.

Boggie Dog

You're welcome to believe anything you like, even that the earth is flat, if that floats your boat.

GUWonder

I'll let the social media evidence speak for itself -- the very thing that defies false claims made to try to justify religious discrimination and this EO.

If the earth were flat, the boats couldn't float. And yet on earth boats may float. I'll let the evidence speak for itself.

kmersh

Again, speaking as a lay person, vetting is important and if the process was not through enough, than obviously it should be made even more thorough.

Having said that, I truly have no idea if the process was good in its current state or not, I can only go by what my Wife had to go through (12 years ago already) and it was pretty thorough and she is Swiss (one of the hardest citizenships in the world to obtain), I can only imagine what someone from say Iran or Iraq might have to go through.

catocony

Kmersh, the current process is extensive. I have no idea what "extreme vetting" would be other than something equivalent to a police interrogation.

I think it's just a tough-sounding phrase Bannon and crew came up with. It makes it sound like the current system is weak and the new system will be strong. That isn't the case.