GUWonder

Yes, but the Supreme Court will almost certainly be coming up with a different vote break down by June of 2018. But I suspect that the SCOTUS majority will be reluctant to interject itself into the situation too much and will let the POTUS do what he wants regardless of the prima facie evidence of POTUS being bigoted against a particular religion and wanting a travel ban that is fundamentally rooted in a hostility toward a particular religion. Not a good day, but a sign of the times.

lonelycrowd

Despite Sean Spicer's promise that the executive order will be "implemented flawlessly" so many months ago, from what I'm hearing (third-hand and translated) it sounds like some consular posts were caught off guard by yesterday's order. As much as I'd like to say more, it's probably in the best interest of those with pending cases that I don't share details of what transpired today in a public forum just yet.

At the moment there is still no update to the November 13th advisory on travel.state.gov... one thinks that they would have had some pre-written material ready to post by now, right?

xobile

One thing I don't understand--the initial bans were set for 90 days or 120 days in order to 'assess' the situation--since those time periods have passed--multiple times--what is the purpose of the ban now, assuming 'Extreme Vetting' has been implemented already?

Loren Pechtel

It never was to be temporary. Vetting was just to distract from the real goal.

lonelycrowd

I've lost track of some of the day-to-day developments, but from what I understand the visa interviews for individuals blacklisted by the 9/24 Proclamation have been a bloodbath in recent weeks. There have been reports of some sort of embassy representative warning blacklisted individuals with appointments in Yerevan not to enter the building as they will likely forfeit all fees without recourse if they proceed. I've been trying to get a sense of how the undue hardship requirement is playing out in family-based cases and haven't really been able to get much detail, in part because the family-based petitioners/beneficiaries don't appear to have a social network set up like the lottery winners do. It still seems awkward to have State determining hardship at the embassies as part of the interview process, as undue hardship is normally determined by judges or professional adjudicators stateside in cases handled by CIS and/or ICE. There is also widespread confusion as to whether individuals rejected under the Supreme Court's stay of the injunction will have to start the visa process over from scratch should the Supreme Court eventually align with the 9th Circuit's ruling on the merits of the Proclamation.

It also looks like some fascinating details on the origins and roll-out of Executive Order 13769 will be coming to light with the publication of Fire and Fury next week. Reportedly, Bannon admitted that aspects of the order were deliberately intended to provoke discord. One of many things that don't quite "add up" for me about this policy is the government's persistence well after the reported disbanding of the Strategic Initiatives Group (if such a thing even existed) - is it just Miller pushing this now, or are there other true believers in the blanket ban approach in the White House and/or Foggy Bottom?

lonelycrowd

Recent reporting seems to confirm my sense that the "undue hardship" standard is being applied more strictly than a literal reading and/or comparison with how domestic policy agencies interpret it would imply. I think this sort of widespread non-compliance with a defined legal standard could be challenged in a federal court, even if the consular nonreviewabilty doctrine would make it an uphill battle.

In other news, I've heard that the usual peddlers of economic citizenship programs are now advertising on expatriate Farsi-language TV networks to suggest that blacklisted individuals consider purchasing a Comorian passport as a means of obtaining a US visa. I won't be happy about taking a early withdrawal penalty to send my Roth IRA off to some tropical island so that State will do its job and process my wife's petition for her parents next year, but if that's what it comes down to, so be it...

GUWonder

lonelycrowd

There's an interesting article today about why the Fourth Circuit may be delaying its ruling.

My understanding is that, at least in practice, Iran does not recognize any rights associated with dual nationality but is not aggressively prosecuting dual nationals. Thankfully, my family is nowhere near having to cross that bridge, and in any case we would not take extraordinary measures until we got a better sense of the long term prospects of a legislative or judicial solution. But the very notion that State would force me to clean out my IRA to buy Guatemalan government bonds as a precondition of them doing their jobs leaves me, well, bitter...

Of course, there is probably a lot going on behind the scenes that I do not know about. At some point one imagines State will have to start responding to FOIA requests and lawsuits from angry taxpayers, at which time those of us without security clearances might get a better glimpse of what they actually meant when they used the same phrase, "undue hardship," that allows anyone with a job or a kid to get out of jury duty in some states. I know of one lawsuit being filed in the near future which will claim that the informality of the waiver request procedure is a violation of due process rights.

lonelycrowd

More speculation yesterday about what may be prompting the Fourth Circuit's apparent lack of "appropriate dispatch." I really don't understand why (or even if) the Fourth Circuit thinks it could avoid having another injunction stayed by waiting until after the Supreme Court has ruled on the separation of powers argument coming up via the Ninth.

The theory sounds far-fetched, but I'm not a lawyer...

lonelycrowd

One of the reports mandated by Executive Order 13780 was finally released today. The report seems to fail to differentiate between foreign nationals arrested abroad and extradited to the US and those admitted through the normal legal immigration process. Terrorism-related incidents involving individuals from blacklisted countries (plus India for some reason) are discussed at length in narrative form, though most examples given involve material support rather than plots targeting Americans and several are over a decade old. Iran is conspicuously absent throughout the report.


There's also a bizarre potpourri of seemingly unrelated information at the end of the report. The authors boast of the number of foreign passengers bounced over a seven year period by the Immigration Advisory Program, suggesting that some of those individuals may have been an "immigration or security risk." (No mention, however, of the number of USCs impeded by the IAP.)

This report does not appear to be part of the worldwide security review that supposedly recommended the list of countries to be subject to the blanket bans, which still appears to be classified.

lonelycrowd

I guess interest in this thread/topic is waning quickly. If anyone is still interested, the Times ran an interesting story today about how State has been summarily rejecting cases that were in administrative processing at the time of the stay. I was unaware of the attorney mentioned in this article who moved to Djibouti to fight with the Embassy there... guess we're going to have multiple lawsuits over the handling of the waiver provision moving forward concurrently in the very near future.

GUWonder

GaryD

I am a lawyer, and I read all these decisions. The article misses an important point: The Supreme Court has already stayed enforcement of the preliminary injunctions (thus permitting the travel ban to be effective) until BOTH the Ninth Circuit and Fourth Circuit appeals are heard and decided by the Supreme Court. I would call it fake news, but it's got to be merely a mistake.

Ah, this article is much more thorough, I didn't read this at first. This guy gets it, no lifting of the stay until both appeals are decided by the Supremes.

Blogndog

lonelycrowd

Bloomberg published an interesting article yesterday about the purge of trusted traveler accounts that coincided with, and was likely related to (though not explicitly mandated by), Executive Order 13769.

On the waivers front, things are still looking pretty bleak. I have heard reports of isolated cases being referred to CA/VO/L/A for waiver consideration post-stay - active involvement on the part of congressional caseworkers plus credible threats to travel/move to Iran *may* be helping in some cases - but what actually happens when hardship petitions are forwarded to Foggy Bottom remains a black box. I have not yet heard of a case recommended for further consideration by the interviewing conoff resulting in admission to the US. If State was planning on such a strict interpretation, why did they initially encourage applicants to proceed with scheduled interviews? So many questions, so few answers...